Tag: Plan

  • Experts knock new Trump plan to collect college admissions data

    Experts knock new Trump plan to collect college admissions data

    President Donald Trump wants to collect more admissions data from colleges and universities to make sure they’re complying with a 2023 Supreme Court decision that ended race-conscious affirmative action. And he wants that data now. 

    But data experts and higher education scholars warn that any new admissions data is likely to be inaccurate, impossible to interpret and ultimately misused by policymakers. That’s because Trump’s own policies have left the statistics agency inside the Education Department with a skeleton staff and not enough money, expertise or time to create this new dataset. 

    The department already collects data on enrollment from every institution of higher education that participates in the federal student loan program. The results are reported through the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). But in an Aug. 7 memorandum, Trump directed the Education Department, which he sought to close in March, to expand that task and provide “transparency” into how some 1,700 colleges that do not admit everyone are making their admissions decisions. And he gave Education Secretary Linda McMahon just 120 days to get it done. 

    Related: Our free weekly newsletter alerts you to what research says about schools and classrooms.

    Expanding data collection on applicants is not a new idea. The Biden administration had already ordered colleges to start reporting race and ethnicity data to the department this fall in order to track changes in diversity in postsecondary education. But in a separate memorandum to the head of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), McMahon asked for even more information, including high school grades and college entrance exam scores, all broken down by race and gender.  

    Bryan Cook, director of higher education policy at the Urban Institute, a think tank in Washington, D.C., called the 120-day timeline “preposterous” because of the enormous technical challenges. For example, IPEDS has never collected high school GPAs. Some schools use a weighted 5.0 scale, giving extra points for advanced classes, and others use an unweighted 4.0 scale, which makes comparisons messy. Other issues are equally thorny. Many schools no longer require applicants to report standardized test scores and some no longer ask them about race so the data that Trump wants doesn’t exist for those colleges. 

    “You’ve got this effort to add these elements without a mechanism with which to vet the new variables, as well as a system for ensuring their proper implementation,” said Cook. “You would almost think that whoever implemented this didn’t know what they were doing.” 

    Cook has helped advise the Education Department on the IPEDS data collection for 20 years and served on technical review panels, which are normally convened first to recommend changes to the data collection. Those panels were disbanded earlier this year, and there isn’t one set up to vet Trump’s new admissions data proposal.

    Cook and other data experts can’t figure out how a decimated education statistics agency could take on this task. All six NCES employees who were involved in IPEDS data collection were fired in March, and there are only three employees left out of 100 at NCES, which is run by an acting commissioner who also has several other jobs. 

    An Education Department official, who did not want to be named, denied that no one left inside the Education Department has IPEDS experience. The official said that staff inside the office of the chief data officer, which is separate from the statistics agency, have a “deep familiarity with IPEDS data, its collection and use.” Former Education Department employees told me that some of these employees have experience in analyzing the data, but not in collecting it.

    In the past, there were as many as a dozen employees who worked closely with RTI International, a scientific research institute, which handles most of the IPEDS data collection work. 

    Technical review eliminated

    Of particular concern is that RTI’s $10 million annual contract to conduct the data collection had been slashed approximately in half by the Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE, according to two former employees, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of retaliation. Those severe budget cuts eliminated the technical review panels that vet proposed changes to IPEDS, and ended training for colleges and universities to submit data properly, which helped with data quality. RTI did not respond to my request to confirm the cuts or answer questions about the challenges it will face in expanding its work on a reduced budget and staffing.

    The Education Department did not deny that the IPEDS budget had been cut in half. “The RTI contract is focused on the most mission-critical IPEDS activities,” the Education Department official said. “The contract continues to include at least one task under which a technical review panel can be convened.”  

    Additional elements of the IPEDS data collection have also been reduced, including a contract to check data quality.

    Last week, the scope of the new task became more apparent. On Aug. 13, the administration released more details about the new admissions data it wants, describing how the Education Department is attempting to add a whole new survey to IPEDS, called the Admissions and Consumer Transparency Supplement (ACTS), which will disaggregate all admissions data and most student outcome and financial aid data by race and gender. College will have to report on both undergraduate and graduate school admissions. The public has 60 days to comment, and the administration wants colleges to start reporting this data this fall. 

    Complex collection

    Christine Keller, executive director of the Association for Institutional Research, a trade group of higher education officials who collect and analyze data, called the new survey “one of the most complex IPEDS collections ever attempted.” 

    Traditionally, it has taken years to make much smaller changes to IPEDS, and universities are given a year to start collecting the new data before they are required to submit it. (Roughly 6,000 colleges, universities and vocational schools are required to submit data to IPEDS as a condition for their students to take out federal student loans or receive federal Pell Grants. Failure to comply results in fines and the threat of losing access to federal student aid.)

    Normally, the Education Department would reveal screenshots of data fields, showing what colleges would need to enter into the IPEDS computer system. But the department has not done that, and several of the data descriptions are ambiguous. For example, colleges will have to report test scores and GPA by quintile, broken down by race and ethnicity and gender. One interpretation is that a college would have to say how many Black male applicants, for example, scored above the 80th percentile on the SAT or the ACT. Another interpretation is that colleges would need to report the average SAT or ACT score of the top 20 percent of Black male applicants. 

    The Association for Institutional Research used to train college administrators on how to collect and submit data correctly and sort through confusing details — until DOGE eliminated that training. “The absence of comprehensive, federally funded training will only increase institutional burden and risk to data quality,” Keller said. Keller’s organization is now dipping into its own budget to offer a small amount of free IPEDS training to universities. 

    The Education Department is also requiring colleges to report five years of historical admissions data, broken down into numerous subcategories. Institutions have never been asked to keep data on applicants who didn’t enroll. 

    “It’s incredible they’re asking for five years of prior data,” said Jordan Matsudaira, an economist at American University who worked on education policy in the Biden and Obama administrations. “That will be square in the pandemic years when no one was reporting test scores.”

    ‘Misleading results’

    Matsudaira explained that IPEDS had considered asking colleges for more academic data by race and ethnicity in the past and the Education Department ultimately rejected the proposal. One concern is that slicing and dicing the data into smaller and smaller buckets would mean that there would be too few students and the data would have to be suppressed to protect student privacy. For example, if there were two Native American men in the top 20 percent of SAT scores at one college, many people might be able to guess who they were. And a large amount of suppressed data would make the whole collection less useful.

    Also, small numbers can lead to wacky results. For example, a small college could have only two Hispanic male applicants with very high SAT scores. If both were accepted, that’s a 100 percent admittance rate. If only 200 white women out of 400 with the same test scores were accepted, that would be only a 50 percent admittance rate. On the surface, that can look like both racial and gender discrimination. But it could have been a fluke. Perhaps both of those Hispanic men were athletes and musicians. The following year, the school might reject two different Hispanic male applicants with high test scores but without such impressive extracurriculars. The admissions rate for Hispanic males with high test scores would drop to zero. “You end up with misleading results,” said Matsudaira. 

    Reporting average test scores by race is another big worry. “It feels like a trap to me,” said Matsudaira. “That is mechanically going to give the administration the pretense of claiming that there’s lower standards of admission for Black students relative to white students when you know that’s not at all a correct inference.”

    The statistical issue is that there are more Asian and white students at the very high end of the SAT score distribution, and all those perfect 1600s will pull the average up for these racial groups. (Just like a very tall person will skew the average height of a group.) Even if a college has a high test score threshold that it applies to all racial groups and no one below a 1400 is admitted, the average SAT score for Black students will still be lower than that of white students. (See graphic below.) The only way to avoid this is to purely admit by test score and take only the students with the highest scores. At some highly selective universities, there are enough applicants with a 1600 SAT to fill the entire class. But no institution fills its student body by test scores alone. That could mean overlooking applicants with the potential to be concert pianists, star soccer players or great writers.

    The Average Score Trap

    This graphic by Kirabo Jackson, an economist at Northwestern University, depicts the problem of measuring racial discrimination though average test scores. Even for a university that admits all students above a certain cut score, the average score of one racial group (red) will be higher than the average score of the other group (blue). Source: graphic posted on Bluesky Social by Josh Goodman

    Admissions data is a highly charged political issue. The Biden administration originally spearheaded the collection of college admissions data by race and ethnicity. Democrats wanted to collect this data to show how the nation’s colleges and universities were becoming less diverse with the end of affirmative action. This data is slated to start this fall, following a full technical and procedural review. 

    Now the Trump administration is demanding what was already in the works, and adding a host of new data requirements — without following normal processes. And instead of tracking the declining diversity in higher education, Trump wants to use admissions data to threaten colleges and universities. If the new directive produces bad data that is easy to misinterpret, he may get his wish.

    Contact staff writer Jill Barshay at 212-678-3595, jillbarshay.35 on Signal, or [email protected].

    This story about college admissions data was written by Jill Barshay and produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for Proof Points and other Hechinger newsletters.

    The Hechinger Report provides in-depth, fact-based, unbiased reporting on education that is free to all readers. But that doesn’t mean it’s free to produce. Our work keeps educators and the public informed about pressing issues at schools and on campuses throughout the country. We tell the whole story, even when the details are inconvenient. Help us keep doing that.

    Join us today.

    Source link

  • Western Sydney uni launches 5-year plan – Campus Review

    Western Sydney uni launches 5-year plan – Campus Review

    Western Sydney University (WSU) has doubled down on its commitment to make every year the ‘year of the student’ in its new 2030 strategic plan.

    Please login below to view content or subscribe now.

    Membership Login

    Source link

  • NZ debuts growth plan as it eyes 35k more international students

    NZ debuts growth plan as it eyes 35k more international students

    • New Zealand relaxes some immigration rules – including upping the number of hours overseas students can work outside of their studies – in its bid to attract more international students
    • Immigration New Zealand unveils ambitious plan to tempt 35,000 more international students to the country by 2034
    • Government shines light on economic benefits of international education, but says it will keep an eye on education quality and the impact on local communities as the sector grows

    The New Zealand government has launched the International Education Going for Growth plan, as part of its broader strategy to increase international student enrolments from 83,700 in 2024 to 119,000 by 2034, and double the sector’s value from NZ$3.6 billion ( £1.60 billion) to NZ$7.2 billion (£3.20 billion). 

    On Monday, Immigration New Zealand announced changes to immigration rules to help the country “attract more international students, maintain high education standards, and manage immigration risks”.

    On November 3 this year, INZ will implement changes to increase the permitted work hours for eligible study visa holders from 20 to 25 hours per week, and extend in-study work rights to all tertiary students enrolled in approved exchange or study abroad programs, including those on one-semester courses.

    As per data published by INZ, currently 40,987 study visa holders have in-study work rights with 29,790 set to expire on or before March 31 2026, with the remaining 11,197 visas expected to lapse after that date.

    The new rules on work hours will apply only to students who have been granted a visa from November 3 onward, meaning those with existing visas limited to 20 hours per week will need to reapply to avail the increased allowance.

    On average in 2024, an international student spent NZ$45,000 across the year. That means… ultimately more jobs being created
    Erica Stanford, New Zealand education minister

    “This (increase in work hours) will apply to all new student visas granted from that date, even if the application was submitted earlier,” read a statement by INZ. 

    “If you already have a student visa with a 20-hour work limit and want to work up to 25 hours, you will need to apply for a variation of conditions or a new student visa. The relevant immigration fees will apply.”

    While international students in years 12 and 13 are eligible under the new rules, they will still be required to obtain both parental and school permission to work during the academic year, even with the increased limit of 25 hours per week. 

    Moreover, international graduates who do not qualify for post-study work rights may soon have access to a short-duration work visa of up to six months, giving them time to seek employment in their field under the Accredited Employer Work Visa pathway.

    The government is also investigating how to make it easier for students to apply for multi-year visas.

    “International education is one of our largest exports, injecting NZ$3.6 billion into our economy in 2024. It also provides opportunities for research, strengthening trade and people-to-people connections, which are important to drive investment, productivity and innovation in New Zealand,” read a statement by education minister, Erica Stanford. 

    “On average in 2024, an international student spent NZ$45,000 across the year. That means more visits to our cafes and restaurants, more people visiting our iconic attractions and ultimately more jobs being created.”

    As per data released by Education New Zealand, international enrolments are inching toward pre-Covid levels, with 2024 figures (83,425) now reaching 72% of the 2019 total of 115,705.

    According to ENZ chief executive Amanda Malu, while China and India remain New Zealand’s two largest international student markets, accounting for 34% and 14% of enrolments respectively, they are followed by Japan (9%), South Korea (4%), Thailand (3%), the United States (3%), Germany (3%), the Philippines (3%), and Sri Lanka (3%)

    It’s important to strike the right balance between increasing student numbers, maintaining the quality of education, and managing broader impacts on New Zealanders
    Erica Stanford, New Zealand education minister

    New Zealand wants to “supercharge” this rising momentum and position New Zealand as the destination of choice for international students, according to Stanford. 

    This includes increasing awareness of New Zealand as a study destination from 38% in 2024 to 44% by 2034, and raising the proportion of prospective students who rank the country among their top three study choices from 18% to 22% over the same period.

    “To achieve our ambitious target, we’re taking a considered and strategic approach. It’s important to strike the right balance between increasing student numbers, maintaining the quality of education, and managing broader impacts on New Zealanders. Our plan will deliver that,” stated Stanford. 

    Source link

  • How Labour’s 10-year health plan for England joins up with higher education and research

    How Labour’s 10-year health plan for England joins up with higher education and research

    The government wants to reinvent the NHS (in England) through three radical shifts – hospital to community, analogue to digital, and sickness to prevention.

    Whether like the chief executive of the NHS you believe Labour’s 10-year health plan for England is about creating “energy and enthusiasm”, whether like the secretary of state you believe this is about building a NHS which is about “the future and a fairer Britain,” or whether across its 168 pages you find the government’s default to techno-optimism, AI will solve everything, one more dataset will fix public services, approach to governance to be somewhere between naive and unduly optimistic, it is clear that the NHS is expected to change and do so quickly.

    This is a plan that is as much about the reorganisation of the economy as it is about health. It is about how health services can get people into work, it is a guide to economic growth through innovation in life sciences, it is a lament for the skills needed and the skills not yet thought about for the future of the NHS.

    Elsewhere on the site, Jim Dickinson looks at the (lack of) implications for students as group with health needs – here we look at the implications for education, universities, and the wider knowledge economy.

    Workforce modelling

    One of the premises of the plan is that the 2023 Conservative long-term workforce plan was a mistake. The NHS clearly cannot go on as it currently is, and to facilitate this transformation a “very different kind of workforce strategy” is needed:

    Until 2023, [the NHS] had never published a long-term workforce plan. The one it did publish did little more than extrapolate from past trends into the future: concluding there was no alternative than continuation of our current care model, supported by an inexorable growth in headcount, mostly working in acute settings.

    A new workforce place is being put together, to appear “later this year” and taking a “decidedly different approach”:

    Instead of asking ‘how many staff do we need to maintain our current care model over the next 10 years?’, it will ask ‘given our reform plan, what workforce do we need, what should they do, where should they be deployed and what skills should they have?’

    The bottom line is that, therefore, “there will be fewer staff in the NHS in 2035 than projected by the 2023 workforce plan” – but these staff will have better conditions, better training, and “more exciting roles”.

    So one immediate question for universities in England is what this reduced staffing target means for recruitment onto medical, nursing and allied health degrees. Places have been expanding, and under previous plans were set to expand at growing rates in the coming years, including a doubling of medical school places by 2035. There were questions about how optimistic some of the objectives were – the National Audit Office last year criticised NHS England for not having assessed the feasibility of expanding places, in light of issues like attrition rates and the need to invest in clinical placement infrastructure.

    We won’t get a clear answer of what Labour is proposing until the new workforce plan emerges – especially as there is an accompanying aspiration in today’s plan to reduce the NHS’ dependence on international recruitment. But there are some clear directions of travel. Creating more apprenticeships gets a mention – though of course not at level 7 – but the key theme is a tight link between growing medical student numbers and widening participation:

    Expansion of medical school places will be targeted at medical schools with a proven track record of widening participation… The admissions process to medical school will be improved with better information, signposting and support for applicants, and more systematic use of contextual admissions.

    This is accompanied by endorsement of the Sutton Trust’s recent research into access disparities. And in one of those “holding universities to account” measures that everyone is so keen on, part of reinforcing this link will be done via work with the Department for Education to “publish data on the relevant background of university entrants, starting with medicine.” If you are thinking that we already did that – yes we did. The UK-wide HESA widening participation performance indicator was last published in 2022 – each regulator now has their own version (for example this from the Office for Students) which doesn’t quite do the same thing.

    Education and students

    Of course, creating more pathways into working in the NHS is one mechanism to grow its workforce. The other is to unblock current pathways that prevent people from getting into and getting on with their chosen careers in health.

    For example, there is a (somewhat tepid) commitment on student support: the plan commits to “explore options” on improving the financial support on offer to medical students from the lowest socioeconomic backgrounds.

    For nursing students, the offer is slimmer still – a focus on the “financial obstacles to learning”, including faster reimbursement of placement expenses, and tackling the time lag between completing a course and being able to start work. This latter measure will involve working with higher education institutions to revise the current approach to course completion confirmation, and is billed for September 2026. The Royal College of Nursing has suggested that these “modest” changes go nowhere near far enough.

    Nursing and midwifery attrition also comes under scrutiny – the government spots that reducing the rate of non-continuation by a percentage point would result in the equivalent of 300 more nurses and midwives joining the NHS each year. But rather than looking deeper at why this is a growing issue, the buck is handed over to education providers to “urgently address attrition rates.”

    Elsewhere the interventions into education provision are more substantial. There’s an already ongoing review of medical training for NHS staff, due to report imminently. On top of this, the plan sets out how the next three years will see an “overhaul” of education and training curricula, to “future-proof” the workforce. There’s lots of talk about faster changes to course content as and when needed, to reflect changes in how the NHS will operate. This comes with a warning:

    Where existing providers are unable to move at the right pace, we may look to different institutions to ensure that the education market is responsive to employer needs.

    Clinical placement tariffs for undergraduate and postgraduate medicine will be reformed – the plan suggests the tariff system currently “provides limited ability to target funding at training where it is most needed to modernise delivery,” and wants to do more in community settings and make better use of simulation. There will also be expansion of clinical educator capacity, though this will be “targeted” (which is often code for limited).

    And course lengths could fall – the plan promises to “work with higher education institutions and the professional regulators as they review course length in light of technological developments and a transition to lifelong rather than static training.” While this does not explicitly suggest shorter medical and nursing programmes – and a consequent growth in provision aimed at professionals – the preference is pretty obvious.

    On that last point every member of NHS staff will get their own “personalised career coaching and development plan” which will come alongside the development of “advanced practice models” for nurses (and all the other professional roles in the NHS: radiographers, pharmacists, and the like).

    Data and (wider) employment

    The plan stretches much wider than simply making commitments on training though and, as the plan makes clear, if the answer isn’t always going to be more money there has to be more efficiency.

    There’s a fascinating set of commitments linking health and work – one of those things that feel clunky and obvious until you note that “getting the long-term sick back into work” has just been a soundbite with punitive vibes until now.

    Of course, everything has a slightly cringeworthy name – so NHS Accelerators will support local NHS services to have an “impact on people’s work status”, something that may grow into specific and measurable outcomes linking to economic inactivity and unemployment and link in other local government partners. And health support in the traditional sense will link with wider holistic support (as set out in the Pathways to Work green paper) for people with disabilities.

    There’s also a set of commitments on understanding and supporting the mental health needs of young people – although the focus is on schools and colleges, there is an expectation that universities will play a part in a forthcoming National Youth Strategy (due from the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport “this summer”) which will cover support for “mental health, wellbeing, and the ability to develop positive social connections.”

    All these joined up services will need joined up data, so happy news, too, for those looking for wrap-around support in transitions between educational phases – there will be a single unique identifier for young people: the NHS number. And for fans of learner analytics, a similar approach (with a sprinkling of genomics) will “tell [the NHS] the likelihood of a person developing a condition before it occurs, support early detection of disease, and enable personalised prevention and treatment”.

    For some time, universities and other trusted partners have benefited from access to deidentified NHS healthcare administrative data via ADRUK – which has been used for everything from developing new medicine to understanding health policy. This will be joined by a new commercially-focused Health Data Research Service (HDRS) backed by the Wellcome Trust. This is not a new announcement, but the slant here is that it will support the private sector – and as such there will be efforts to “make sure the NHS receives a fair deal for providing access”, which could include a mix of access charges and equity stakes in new developments.

    Research, research, research

    In effect, the government’s proposals set out how improving the conditions, configurations, and coordination of the NHS workforce, and the information provided to them and their partners, can improve healthcare. The next challenge then is targeting the right kinds of information in the right places, and this depends on the quality of research the NHS can access, make use of, and produce.

    The health of the nation does not begin and end at the hospital door. As The King’s Fund points out, “we can’t duck the reality that we are an international outlier with stagnating life expectancy and with millions living many years of life in poor health.” The point of this plan is not only about making health services better but about narrowing health inequalities and using life sciences research to grow the economy.

    The plan talks about making up for a “lost decade” of life sciences research. In doing so, it cites an IPPR report (the author is now DHSC’s lead strategy advisor) which demonstrates that the global research spend on life sciences in the UK has reduced and that this has had an impact on life sciences GVA. Following this line of thought suggests that if the UK had maintained levels of investment the economy would have got bigger, people’s lives would have been better and because of the link between poverty and ill health, the NHS would be under less pressure.

    The issue with this citation is that the figures used are from 2011–16 and some of the remedies, like association to Horizon Europe, are things the UK has done. Though the plan makes clear that “the era of the NHS’ answer always being ‘more money, never reform’ is over,” it is in fact the case that the government has ploughed record levels of public money into R&D without fundamental reform to the research ecosystem. The premise that economic growth can be spurred by research and leads to better health outcomes is correct – but it isn’t necessary to reference research carried out in 2019 to make the case.

    This isn’t merely an annoyance – it speaks to a wider challenge within the plan which oscillates widely between the optimism that “all hospitals will be fully AI-enabled” within the next ten years (80 per cent of hospitals were still using pagers in 2023 despite their ban in 2019), and the obviously sensible commitment to establish Health Innovation Zones which will bring health partners within a devolved framework to experiment in service innovation.

    The fundamental challenge facing innovation within health is the diffusion of priorities. There are both a lot of things the NHS and life science researchers might focus their time on, and a lot of layers of bureaucracies that inhibit research. The plan attempts to organise research priorities around five “big bets” (read missions but not quite missions). These include the use of health data, the use of AI (again), personalised health, wearables, and the use of robots. One of the mechanisms for aligning resources will be:

    a new bidding process for new Global Institutes. Supported by NIHR funding, these institutes will be expected to marshal the assets of a place – industry, universities, the NHS – to drive genuine global leadership on research and translation.

    It’s very industrial strategy – the government is setting out big ideas with some incentives, and hoping the public and private sector follows.

    There are some more structural changes to research aside from the political rhetoric. Significantly, there is a proposal to change the funding approaches of the Medical Research Council and National Institute for Health and Care Research to pivot funding toward “prevention, detection and treatment of longterm conditions”. The hope is this approach will drive private investment. Again, like the industrial strategy, the rationale is that the state can be an enabling force for growing the economy.

    Ten years’ time

    The ten year plan, if it is to mean anything, has to be focused on delivering a different kind of health service. The fundamental shift is about moving toward personalised community orientated care. The concern is that the plan is light on delivery, which would tally with reports that a ninth chapter on delivery is missing all together.

    The NHS is stuck in a forever cycle of reform, failing to reform, entering crises, and then being bailed out from crises. The mechanisms to break the cycle includes changes to the workforce, new skills provision, using data differently, and reorientating life sciences research toward prevention and economic growth.

    The higher education sector, research institutes, and companies working in research are not only central to the new vision of a NHS but with the amount of investment placed on their capacity to bring change they are no less than the midwives of it. The government’s biggest bet is that it can grow the economy, improve people’s lives, and in doing so reduce pressure on public services. Its biggest risk is that it believes it can do this without fundamental reform to higher education or research as well.

    Source link

  • A Harvard College Has a Plan B for International Students

    A Harvard College Has a Plan B for International Students

    The Harvard Kennedy School announced a contingency plan for its international students Tuesday in the event that the Trump administration successfully bars the university from enrolling foreign students, according to The Boston Globe.

    The Kennedy School, Harvard’s postgraduate college of government, public policy and international affairs, said that both incoming and returning students could study remotely, and returning students would be given the option to finish their degree at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy. 

    “We are announcing these contingency plans now to alleviate the uncertainty many students feel, but we will not officially launch these programs unless there is sufficient demand from students who are unable to come to the United States,” Kennedy School dean Jeremy Weinstein wrote in an email Tuesday.

    Harvard needs the approval of its accreditor, the New England Commission of Higher Education, to allow students to complete their degrees online, and current students who want to study in Toronto would have to apply for a Canadian visa next month.  

    The Kennedy School is the first college at the university to release its formal contingency plan; others are working on developing their own. HKS is particularly vulnerable to a foreign student ban: 59 percent of its students are international, compared to 24 percent of Harvard’s total student population.

    Harvard is currently suing the Trump administration over multiple attempts to ban its foreign student population, including by revoking the university’s Student Exchange and Visitor Program certification and issuing an executive proclamation. Last Friday, a federal judge granted Harvard a preliminary injunction in one of its court challenges. 

    Even if the Trump administration’s efforts targeting Harvard specifically are struck down by the courts, other moves—such as revoking Chinese students’ visas en masse or banning nonimmigrant visa holders from a dozen countries—could prevent some of the Kennedy School’s current and incoming students from attending.

    Source link

  • Four Things to Know About the House Budget Plan

    Four Things to Know About the House Budget Plan

    After much back-and-forth and late-night dealing, House Republicans have passed a sweeping budget plan to cut spending and taxes that is moving on to the Senate—a significant milestone for legislation that seemed dead in the water a week ago amid concerns that the bill didn’t include deeper cuts.

    The plan, called the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, narrowly advanced Thursday morning by a one-vote margin. All Democrats opposed the legislation, arguing that the spending cuts would hurt the working class and vulnerable populations while raising the deficit and giving tax breaks to wealthy individuals.

    Among other changes, the legislation would levy new taxes on colleges, require institutions to pay millions to the federal government, change how students pay for college and limit eligibility for the Pell Grant. In the lead-up to Thursday’s vote, higher education leaders warned that the proposal would make trying to attend and pay for college much more complicated and raise costs for those who do enroll. The bill does include some wins for colleges, institutional lobbyists say, but those don’t outweigh the negatives.

    Republicans, who say the cuts are necessary, are using a legislative procedure known as reconciliation to advance the bill. That process allows lawmakers to fast-track the legislation and pass it with a simple majority of votes in both chambers. (Typically, the Senate requires 60 votes to cut off debate for a bill.)

    “It’s time we stopped asking a factory worker in Michigan or a rancher in Texas to subsidize the student debt of a lawyer in Manhattan so colleges can continue to spike their tuition to whatever they want,” said Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, in a statement. “By capping loan amounts and giving some financial responsibility to schools, this legislation addresses the root cause of high college costs and provides schools an incentive to deliver real value for students and taxpayers.”

    With the measure now in the Senate’s hands and lawmakers eyeing a July 4 deadline, here’s what else you should know about the legislation that could reshape American higher education.

    1. Students Set to Lose Pell Money

    Many House committees had a hand in the legislation, but the proposals that will have the biggest impact on colleges are from the Committee on Education and the Workforce. The 103-page Student Success and Taxpayer Savings Plan, which is part of the broader reconciliation bill, would reduce spending by nearly $350 billion over the next 10 years.

    Most of those savings stem from rolling back a Biden-era student loan repayment plan that never fully took effect and from capping how much students can borrow. But lawmakers are also planning to increase spending on Pell Grants by $2.8 billion as they aim to address a looming shortfall and open up the program to short-term workforce-training classes.

    To make the math work, Republicans are changing who qualifies for a Pell Grant, proposing that students would have to take at least 15 credits a semester in order to receive the full award. They’ll also have to take at least 7.5 credits to get any money. Currently, the Pell Grant is prorated based on how many credits students take, and there’s no floor.

    Changing the full-time-award definition would save $7.1 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated that more than half of students currently enrolled would see their Pell Grant reduced.

    The CBO also estimated that cutting off Pell for part-time students would save about $687 million over the next 10 years. Currently, about 10 percent of Pell Grant recipients enroll less than half-time. Of those students, the CBO predicts that one-third of students who stand to lose their grant under this change would enroll in more classes. Presumably, the other two-thirds would either stop out or pay for their education with loans or their own money. (The CBO report was based on a minimum of six credits, but that threshold has since increased to 7.5, so the number of students affected could be higher.)

    Over all, about 700,000 students would no longer be eligible for the Pell Grant after all the changes take effect. The changes are currently set to take effect in summer 2026.

    2. Colleges on the Hook for Unpaid Student Loans

    In addition to the Pell Grant cuts, college leaders are particularly worried about a provision known as risk-sharing, which would require institutions to pay a financial penalty based on students’ unpaid loans. How much colleges would have to pay is unclear, but the CBO estimates that by 2034, payments would total $1.3 billion and then continue to increase each year. Risk-sharing is expected to save the government $5.3 billion over the next 10 years.

    Because of risk-sharing and other changes in the bill aimed at limiting student borrowing, the CBO predicts that the volume of student loans would drop by about 20 percent.

    College leaders and lobbyists argue that the formula that would determine institutions’ payments is untested, and without more information, they can’t accurately gauge the ramifications. One lobbyist said the proposal represented “an astonishing level of federal overreach.” Critics of the plan also worry that underresourced and minority-serving institutions would be hit the hardest.

    “The risk is not equal among colleges,” Tuskegee University president Mark Brown told senators this week.

    Risk-sharing is just one of several proposed changes that would upend the student loan system. House Republicans also want to end Grad PLUS loans along with subsidized loans, restrict Parent PLUS loans and tie how much students can borrow to the median cost of a program. Some consumer protection advocates argued that these changes would drive students to private lenders, which often charge higher interest rates.

    3. More Taxes and Medicaid Cuts Threaten Colleges’ Bottom Lines

    Other proposals in the bill from the Ways and Means Committee would levy a host of new or expanded taxes against universities.

    First, the committee created new brackets to tax wealthy universities’ endowments. Currently, private universities with endowments that are worth more than $500,000 per student pay a 1.4 percent tax. But under the plan, some could see their endowments taxed at 21 percent.

    Institutions with endowments valued at $750,000 to $1.25 million per student would be hit with a 7 percent tax. That rate would climb to 14 percent for colleges with endowments worth $1.25 million to $2 million per student, while colleges with endowments of $2 million or more per student would pay 21 percent. Colleges also can’t include international students in their tally of students, which could subject more institutions to the tax.

    In addition to the endowment tax, the proposal also taxes a college’s intellectual property by stating that the endowment tax should include all forms of investment income. This means that any royalties from a private university’s intellectual property, including patents and copyrights, would be taxable. Additionally, the legislation removes colleges’ exemption from the unrelated business income tax so that all institutions, public and private, would be taxed for royalties from licensing their name and logo.

    House Republicans in other committees also proposed cuts to the Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance programs, which critics say would hurt students and states’ budgets. And if states do take a hit financially, public colleges might see their budgets cut.

    “If federal Medicaid funding is reduced in a new federal tax law, no public college or university will be immune from future state budget reductions and the austerity that will result. Public higher education must be prepared,” two professors wrote in an Inside Higher Ed op-ed earlier this year.

    4. Warnings From Higher Ed Pile Up

    Higher education groups warned before and after the vote of damaging consequences if the legislation becomes law.

    American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten called it a “big, ugly betrayal,” while Kara D. Freeman, president and CEO of the National Association of College and University Business Officers, said in a statement that “the implications for student access, research, and innovation could be far-reaching.”

    Freeman said the endowment tax is especially concerning and cited NACUBO data that shows colleges and universities spent $30 billion from their endowments in fiscal year 2024—nearly half of which funded student financial aid.

    “This scholarship tax takes funds away from students and makes it less possible for colleges to support them,” she said.

    Meanwhile, the American Council on Education took issue with the use of the reconciliation process to advance sweeping changes, along with the provisions in the bill.

    “The totality of the funding cuts, policy changes, and tax increases included in this reconciliation package will have a historic and negative impact on the ability of current and future students to access postsecondary education, as well as on colleges and universities striving to carry out their vital educational and research missions,” ACE wrote in a letter to the House.

    So far, senators have said little about the higher ed provisions in the bill, so it’s not yet clear whether they’ll agree with the House plan. Generally, while the House prefers risk-sharing, the Senate is expected to back a measure that judges programs by their students’ employment rates and income levels after graduation.

    But, with President Donald Trump backing the legislation and a fragile majority in the House, senators have few options if they want to change the legislation.

    “This is arguably the most significant piece of Legislation that will ever be signed in the History of our Country!” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “Now, it’s time for our friends in the United States Senate to get to work, and send this Bill to my desk AS SOON AS POSSIBLE! There is no time to waste.”

    Source link

  • Penn State Closure Plan Prompts Sharp Reactions

    Penn State Closure Plan Prompts Sharp Reactions

    As Pennsylvania State University’s Board of Trustees prepares to decide the fate of seven of its 19 Commonwealth Campuses where enrollment has collapsed over a decade, faculty, lawmakers and some board members are questioning the university’s commitment to the state and say administrators haven’t been transparent about their decision-making process.

    University administrators say the enrollment numbers alone don’t support keeping open the seven campuses slated to close. Several of those campuses have seen enrollment fall by more than 40 percent since fall 2014.

    Penn State’s Board of Trustees met last week in a private executive session but did not vote on the plan. They’re expected to do so Thursday.

    President Neeli Bendapudi has made the case for the closures, arguing such actions are necessary, as the university can no longer sustain all of its branch campuses financially amid severe enrollment declines. She proposed closing the Dubois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York campuses. Those campuses enroll almost 3,200 students altogether, the largest of which is Penn State York with 703 students last fall. The smallest is Shenango, which enrolled 309 students in fall 2024.

    Now, as the proposal nears the finish line, its fate is up the air and Bendapudi is facing concerns about the process of reaching the seven names.

    A ‘Difficult But Necessary’ Plan

    University leadership began drawing up those plans in February after a difficult year for higher education across the Keystone State. Four universities in the state shut down (or ended degree programs, as in the case of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) in 2024. The closures were mostly brought on by enrollment challenges, though some were dogged by concerns about fiscal mismanagement.

    University administrators spent the last several months reviewing 12 campuses for possible closure before the list of seven leaked to media outlets last week.

    Officials in a 143-page document cast the plan as “difficult but necessary decisions to ensure its long-term sustainability, allowing for continued investment in student success and dynamic learning environments for years to come” amid plunging enrollment and broad demographic challenges.

    Officials argued that the seven campuses identified for closure “face overlapping challenges, including enrollment and financial decline, low housing occupancy, and significant maintenance backlog.” They added that “projected low enrollments pose challenges for creating the kind of robust on-campus student experience that is consistent with the Penn State brand” and would require significant investments, including $200 million for facilities alone.

    “I believe the recommendation balances our need to adapt to the changing needs of Pennsylvania with compassion for those these decisions affect, both within Penn State and across the commonwealth,” Bendapudi said in a statement when the plan was released.

    She added that there is a two-year timeline for closing campuses, so they wouldn’t shut down until the end of the spring 2027 semester.

    Now the plan heads to the 36-member Board of Trustees. However, some trustees have openly expressed their opposition to the proposal.

    Jay Paterno is one of several board members who have pushed back on the plan, writing an op-ed last month with four other trustees that argued Penn State should explore other options.

    In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Paterno criticized the proposal as rushed.

    “We’ve been presented with two options. One is the status quo, which everybody knows is not viable and is kind of a straw man. The other option is to close all seven campuses,” he said.

    Given that the costs of operating those campuses comprise “less than half of 1 percent of our budget,” Paterno said the board should take more time to explore solutions. He argues that the university has not tried to leverage fundraising to support struggling Commonwealth Campuses and that the administration should slow the process down and reach out to potential donors.

    “We’d rather be a year late than a day early,” Paterno said.

    He also noted the decision to close campuses is not Penn State’s alone. The university is state-affiliated but not state-owned, which gives it a greater degree of autonomy than fully public institutions. But since the university receives some public funds, it must submit plans to close campuses to the Pennsylvania secretary of education, who must then approve the proposal.

    ‘A Betrayal’

    Faculty have concerns about job losses, what will become of rural student populations and an alleged lack of transparency in the closure process.

    One faculty member at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, speaking anonymously due to concerns about retribution, noted, “While most faculty saw this coming, it was heartbreaking to see it in writing.”

    They questioned Penn State’s support for its Commonwealth Campuses, arguing that “the decision to decrease funding” to those locations that serve in-state students sends a strong message about where Penn State places its priorities” while it invests heavily in its main campus. They also pointed to renovations at Beaver Stadium projected to cost $700 million.

    (That project is believed to be the most expensive renovation in the history of college athletics.)

    “The lack of shared governance, transparency, and respect for contributions of faculty to Penn State University makes it easy to see why unionization efforts among faculty are needed,” they wrote, highlighting ongoing efforts by the Penn State Faculty Alliance and SEIU 668 to unionize.

    Some state politicians have also panned the plan.

    State Senator Michele Brooks, a Republican who represents a district that includes the Shenango campus, told Inside Higher Ed in an emailed statement that she recently met with trustees, who conveyed to her and others “that they feel this has been a deeply flawed process.”

    She urged Penn State’s administration and governing board to re-evaluate the decision and to work “with communities on innovative ways to reinvest in these campuses and help them grow.”

    Republican state representative Charity Grimm Krupa, who serves a district that includes the Fayette campus slated for closure, accused Penn State of betraying its mission in a fiery statement.

    “Shutting down the Fayette campus isn’t about financial responsibility; it’s about walking away from the very students Penn State was created to serve,” Grimm Krupa said last week. “It’s a betrayal of the university’s land-grant mission and a slap in the face of rural communities. Abandoning this campus sends a clear message: if you’re not from a wealthy or urban area, Penn State doesn’t see you as worth the investment. That’s disgraceful, and I urge every trustee to vote no against these closures.”

    Source link

  • What’s in House Republicans’ Risk-Sharing Plan?

    What’s in House Republicans’ Risk-Sharing Plan?

    Under a new accountability measure recently proposed as part of a larger House budget bill, colleges would have to pay millions of dollars each year to reimburse the government for their students’ unpaid loans.

    The plan builds on an idea—known as risk-sharing—that lawmakers and policy analysts have been toying with since at least 2015. As the federal student loan portfolio grew, the goal was to require colleges to have some skin in the game and incentivize them to improve student outcomes.

    And while the concept has gained some bipartisan support in theory, higher education institutions have repeatedly argued that it is difficult to create a fair accountability system when many of the variables involved are out of an institution’s control and depend on the decisions of individual students and borrowers.

    So far, the higher ed lobby has successfully defeated proposed risk-sharing plans such as the one included in a Republican bill from the last Congress, known as the College Cost Reduction Act. But now, an almost identical proposal is back and at the heart of House Republicans’ plan to cut at least $330 billion from higher education programs over the next 10 years. The overall legislation, which aims to cut $1.5 trillion from the budget, could receive a vote on the House floor this week, though some lawmakers have threatened to block the measure amid concerns that it doesn’t include deeper cuts. Even if the bill fails, it serves as a marker of what House Republicans hope to accomplish moving forward.

    Many higher education policy experts warn that practically speaking, the latest risk-sharing plan relies on a complicated formula that’s essentially a black box. Released in late April, the proposal has not been tested enough to know its ramifications, they say, and the limited data available is inconclusive. Some analyses released by conservative groups say the program will be a financial boost for efficient public institutions and penalize bloated private ones. But one study conducted by a lobbying group suggests that public regional and minority-serving institutions that serve high populations of low-income students will get hit the hardest.

    “Fundamentally it’s an astonishing level of federal overreach to essentially lump in all institutions of higher education together—public, private, for-profit—and run a convoluted formula to determine winners and losers at the federal level and then redistribute funding,” said Craig Lindwarm, senior vice president of government affairs for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

    Democratic politicians also argue that the purpose of the legislation is not truly to hold colleges accountable for student outcomes like graduation rates and income levels, but to crack down on what the government considers overly liberal institutions and fund President Donald Trump’s priorities.

    Even some conservative supporters acknowledge that it’s difficult to know the full scope of the bill’s potential impact this early. But they say risk-sharing is a necessary tool to penalize colleges that provide a poor return on investment and ensure the production of a well-prepared, financially stable workforce. They also suggest that the incentives such as additional grant funding to institutions that keep costs low and graduation rates high will offset the penalty for most public institutions.

    “With any policy change, we’re not going to be able to predict in advance 100 percent of how this is going to affect everyone, everywhere, all the time. But I don’t think that should be an excuse to not make policy changes,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute. “I still think the data we have gives us a general idea of which sorts of institutions would be affected and the magnitudes of the penalties involved.”

    So How Does It Work?

    The proposed risk-sharing plan would kick in for new loans starting in July 2027, said an aide for Republicans on the House Education and the Workforce Committee. That means colleges wouldn’t be penalized for disruptions to the student loan system that occurred during the pandemic or efforts during the Biden and Trump administrations to overhaul repayment.

    If we don’t even understand how this works, why the heck are we passing it? I mean, it’s a concept, but I don’t think it’s the concept that people think it is.”

    Jason Delisle, nonresident senior fellow at the Urban Institute

    And because borrowers don’t have to start paying back their loans until six months after they graduate or stop out, institutions likely won’t have to pay a penalty until 2029 or 2030 at the earliest, the aide added.

    But from then on, institutional payments would be calculated annually—major by major—for each new cohort of borrowers and would continue until they’ve paid off their loans. The amount per cohort could change from year to year, depending on factors such as borrower behavior, postgraduation earnings and college costs. But it’s expected to grow as more and more cohorts are added to the lump sum.

    Under the bill, the amount per cohort would be calculated using a three-part formula, which is largely unchanged from what Republicans proposed last Congress in the CCRA.

    The first step is to determine a college’s risk-sharing liability, which is how much each institution owes the government. To do that, the formula looks at the difference between how much students were supposed to repay during a given year and how much they actually did. The calculation takes into account the value of any missed or partial payments as well as any interest that the government waived or principal contributions it matched, the committee aide said. It does not, however, include debt waived through programs like Public Service Loan Forgiveness, which was a concern for institutions.

    This is the part of the formula that raises the most questions for institutions, as the mechanics of exactly how the risk-sharing liability is calculated are not clearly outlined in the legislation or in a CCRA database published by the education committee Republicans in 2024. And even if it were, much of the data needed to run the formula is not publicly accessible.

    “How the formula works is the million-dollar question, and something that we’ve been trying to work on for a year and a half,” one policy expert said. “It’s very complicated and relies on metrics that aren’t publicly available.”

    House committee aides counter that colleges have access to student borrower data via the National Student Loan Data System, which can be used to predict future risk-sharing payments. They also point to a recent Dear Colleague letter reminding colleges of their responsibility to monitor borrower payments.

    But even then, higher ed lobbyists say, it’s not clear who will be responsible for calculating the liability. If any part of that responsibility falls to campus financial aid administrators, higher ed groups say the plan will increase the administrative burden on colleges.

    “If I were a lobbyist, I would just say to all of my members, go to your congressman and say, ‘We don’t know what this does,’” said Jason Delisle, a policy analyst who has worked at think tanks across the political spectrum but is now based at Urban Institute where he’s a nonresident senior fellow. “If we don’t even understand how this works, why the heck are we passing it? I mean, it’s a concept, but I don’t think it’s the concept that people think it is.”

    Incentives to Lower Costs

    Once that risk-sharing liability is known, the next step in the formula is to figure out how much of that liability fee a college will have to pay. That’s done using what the legislation calls an earning-price ratio, which compares students’ earnings to the federal poverty line and college cost. A higher EPR means a lower final payment. For example, if an institution’s EPR is 0.3, or 30 percent, then it has to pay 70 percent of the original liability.

    To further offset the risk-sharing penalty, colleges can also qualify for a new pot of funding proposed in the bill called the PROMISE Grant, which is the third step of the formula. How much a college would get in PROMISE funding depends on the total value of Pell Grants received and the graduation rate of Pell-eligible students. This grant is funded by other colleges’ risk-sharing payments.

    Rep. Tim Walberg, a Michigan Republican and chair of the House Education and Workforce Committee, is leading the effort to cut billions from higher education programs.

    Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call Inc. via Getty Images

    So, according to data from the House committee, the State Technical College of Missouri should get $3,230,130.50 in PROMISE grants. But the community college would have to pay $9,688, bringing its net gain down to $3,220,442.50. Washington University in St. Louis, however, would receive no PROMISE Grant funding and lose about $3.5 million. (The House Committee data only lists the final risk-sharing payment—not original liability values or EPRs.)

    In theory, this data demonstrates how the EPR and the PROMISE Grant are supposed to support colleges that serve low-income students, but many higher ed lobbyists are worried the program will actually do the opposite. That’s largely because colleges can only receive a PROMISE Grant if they agree to lock in tuition rates for each new freshman class. If they can keep tuition costs low, then their EPR scores will only be strong. Some lobbyists say that neither is a feasible option for public colleges and minority-serving institutions, which rely heavily on funding from the state.

    “It’s not a coincidence that some of our schools that would get hit the hardest are in states that invest very little in public higher education. Some of our schools in Pennsylvania and Arizona, for example, would fare extremely poorly, and it’s by and large because tuition levels are such a determinative component as it relates to the penalty assessment,” said MacGregor Obergfell, director of governmental affairs at APLU. “To think of what traditional conservative orthodoxy is, it seems pretty unusual that a conservative position is using the federal government to punish state institutions for decisions made by their states.”

    Reward or Penalty?

    Some higher ed groups also noted that much of the formula either depends on or fails to acknowledge factors outside of a college’s control. Much of this has to do with unpredictable borrower behavior, but there are other factors at play, too; for example, when calculating discounts with the EPR, the formula doesn’t account for differences in the cost of living from college to college.

    “Institutions in higher-cost areas are at more of a disadvantage than other institutions,” said Karen McCarthy, vice president of public policy and federal relations for the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. “They have to charge higher prices to reflect higher costs of labor, maintaining facilities and all those types of things.”

    The burden of risk-sharing payments may be so high that colleges elect to opt out of the federal student loans program entirely, she added: “Ultimately it would have an impact on lower-income students who have a need both for a Pell Grant and a direct loan to help them meet their cost of attendance.”

    Of colleges that enrolled 70 percent or more low-income, Pell-eligible students, 96 percent would have to pay a risk-sharing penalty and 91 percent would lose money over all when PROMISE Grant is factored in, according to the American Council on Education’s analysis of the House data.

    The committee countered that finding with its own analysis of the data, sent to Inside Higher Ed, showing how colleges that enroll the highest share of low-income students should see about $99 more per student, while those that enroll the lowest share would lose about $66 per student.

    The ACE analysis as well as the committee’s data are among the few studies that show the estimated impact of the previously proposed risk-sharing plan. None have been updated yet to reflect the latest iteration.

    Another analysis from Cooper, the AEI fellow, estimated that public institutions as a whole should get more money under the plan, but private nonprofits are expected to face a substantial penalty.

    Although critics point to how the plan would affect individual institutions, particularly small, underresourced schools, proponents argue that the focus should be on the impact to higher education over all, and that colleges can lower their costs to see a payoff.

    “Because the net gains are significantly larger, the sector as a whole sees a net gain even though more institutions have net losses,” Cooper said. “So, the upside for institutions here is that there are significant rewards available to those which can improve their outcomes.”

    At the end of the day, it’s all about how you choose to look at the data.

    “I would just like to see [the formula of risk-sharing] play out for a couple of hypothetical colleges based on data that has some bearing on reality,” said Delisle from Urban Institute. “And that’s a hard thing to come by right now.”

    Source link

  • Trump’s FY26 budget plan slashes Education Department programs

    Trump’s FY26 budget plan slashes Education Department programs

    This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback.

    President Donald Trump on Friday proposed wide-ranging cuts to federal higher education spending in his fiscal 2026 budget request, calling to eliminate some grant programs altogether and for states to take over others like Federal Work-Study. 

    The budget request offers a broad look at Trump’s priorities, which include shaving 15.3% off the U.S. Department of Education’s budget, a move in line with his broader plan to shutter the agency. Across the federal government, Trump’s request would eliminate some $163 billion in nondefense domestic spending, including the dramatic cuts to education programs.

    U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon said in a statement Friday that the budget reflects “funding levels for an agency that is responsibly winding down, shifting some responsibilities to the states, and thoughtfully preparing a plan to delegate other critical functions to more appropriate entities.” 

    Presidential budget proposals are akin to executive wishlists and are never enacted as introduced. And Trump’s budget request for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1, faces key obstacles before it could be approved. Even though Republicans control both the House and Senate, at least one GOP lawmaker has already objected to some of Trump’s proposed cuts.

    But other party leaders signaled a willingness to embrace Trump’s proposals. 

    “The American people sent Republicans to Washington to lower costs and rein in wasteful government spending,” Tim Walberg, chair of the House Committee on Education and Workforce, said in a Friday statement. “The budget proposal President Trump released today not only gives us a blueprint but shows us it is possible to deliver on this promise.” 

    Student aid takes a blow

    The budget takes aim at Federal Work-Study, which provides part-time jobs to students who need help paying for college. Under the program, the federal government covers up to 75% of students’ wages. 

    Trump’s proposal calls for a $980 million reduction in funding for the program, which was appropriated $1.2 billion in fiscal year 2024. 

    In his budget plan, the president called for Federal Work-Study to be run by the states and the colleges “that financially benefit from it.” 

    “Reform of this poorly targeted program should redistribute remaining funding to institutions that serve the most low-income students and provide a wage subsidy to gain career-oriented opportunities to improve long-term employment outcomes of students,” it says. 

    Trump’s proposal would also eliminate funding for Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants, which assist undergraduate students who have “exceptional financial need.” The program was allocated $910 million in fiscal 2024 — all of which would be cut under Trump’s budget. 

    The budget document accuses the grants of contributing “to rising college costs” that colleges have used to pay for a “radical leftist ideology.” Colleges that receive these grants pass the money onto students, and the institutions must contribute 25% of their own money for those awards. 

    Two other programs are on the chopping block: TRIO, which provides support for middle school through college students from disadvantaged backgrounds, and Gear Up, which helps low-income students prepare for postsecondary education. Trump’s budget called these programs a “relic of the past when financial incentives were needed to motivate” colleges to increase access to low-income students. 

    “Today, the pendulum has swung and access to college is not the obstacle it was for students of limited means,” the budget document claims, saying higher education institutions should use their own resources to recruit students. 

    Together, the programs received nearly $1.6 billion in fiscal 2024, all of which would be cut under Trump’s plan. 

    The budget documents released Friday did not address funding for Pell Grants, the largest student aid program.

    Source link

  • Judge Blocks Energy Dept. Plan to Cap Indirect Cost Rates

    Judge Blocks Energy Dept. Plan to Cap Indirect Cost Rates

    A federal judge temporarily blocked the U.S. Department of Energy’s plan to cap universities’ indirect research cost reimbursement rates, pending a hearing in the ongoing lawsuit filed by several higher education associations and universities.

    Judge Allison D. Burroughs of the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts wrote in the brief Wednesday order that the plaintiffs had shown that, without a temporary restraining order, “they will sustain immediate and irreparable injury before there is an opportunity to hear from all parties.”

    Plaintiffs include the Association of American Universities, the American Council on Education, the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities and nine individual universities, including Brown, Cornell and Princeton Universities and the Universities of Michigan, Illinois and Rochester. They sued the DOE and department secretary Chris Wright on Monday, three days after the DOE announced its plan.

    Department spokespeople didn’t return Inside Higher Ed’s requests for comment Thursday afternoon.

    DOE’s plan is to cap the reimbursement rates at 15 percent. Energy grant recipients at colleges and universities currently have an average 30 percent indirect cost rate. The Trump administration has alleged that indirect costs are wasteful spending, although they are extensively audited.

    The DOE sends more than $2.5 billion a year to over 300 colleges and universities. Part of that money covers costs indirectly related to research that may support multiple grant-funded projects, including specialized nuclear-rated facilities, computer systems and administrative support costs.

    The department’s plan is nearly identical to a plan the National Institutes of Health announced in February, which a judge also blocked.

    Source link