Tag: rules

ED Panel Divided Over New Earnings Test Rules

With just one more meeting to go, the Department of Education and an advisory committee tasked with ironing out the details of how to hold college programs accountable appear far from reaching consensus.

The 13-member panel, comprised largely of state officials, think tank researchers and higher ed lawyers, spent the last four days negotiating the rules of a new college earnings test called Do No Harm—which applies to all degree programs—as well as changes to the existing gainful-employment rule, an accountability metric that only applies to certificate programs and for-profits.

The department’s proposal, which aligns the two accountability metrics and holds all programs to the Do No Harm’s standards, has gone largely unchanged in the first four days of negotiation.

Under Do No Harm, all college programs, except undergraduate certificates, that fail to prove their students earn more than someone with only a high school diploma could lose access to federal loans, whereas the current version of gainful employment requires programs to show their graduates pass the earnings test and can reasonably pay off their debt. Programs that fail either test are cut off from all federal student aid.

Although officials have agreed to a series of smaller changes and said they were open to considering larger ones, none made so far address the key issues that are dividing the committee—axing the debt-to-earnings ratio and the Pell Grant penalty.

If the committee doesn’t reach consensus, the department is free to propose any changes to the regulation it wants, which could include scrapping gainful employment entirely. The department met with different committee members in private meetings Thursday, but it’s unclear if those talks will lead to compromises or flip votes.

“Consensus seems pretty unlikely at this point, since negotiators are still disagreeing on key provisions of the department’s drafted text,” said Emily Rounds, an education policy adviser at Third Way, a left-of-center think tank. “Anything is possible, and these caucuses could be productive, but I would be surprised if they reached consensus.”

Institutional representatives on the committee generally back the overall plan, while consumer protection advocates have taken issue with the department’s changes to gainful employment.

Reaching consensus at this point would likely require ED to significantly rework its original proposal.

“We have moved well into the vote-tallying stage,” one committee member said on the condition of anonymity to maintain good faith in the negotiation process. “The question is, does ED think it can get certain negotiators on board without caving on their original proposal to integrate gainful employment and Do No Harm.”

Department officials acknowledged the differences of opinion but said they would work to bring committee members together.

“The department is going to work on some language overnight based on the things that we’ve talked about today in our various caucuses,” Dave Musser, ED’s negotiator, said at the end of Thursday’s meeting. “We plan to come back in the morning prepared to share some of that language, recognizing that it may not be enough alone to get us to consensus. However, we want to show that we are doing everything that we can to get to a place where everyone can get to an agreement.”

2 Key Issues, 2 Key Sides

The Education Department and institutional representatives said the proposal plan creates a level playing field, calling it a more fair and simple means of accountability. State higher education officials and employers also joined in at times, agreeing that this plan would be the most legally sound and could end years of political ping-pong over higher ed accountability.

But committee members representing taxpayers and legal aid organizations as well as left-leaning research groups and consumer protection advocates argue that the department’s plan waters down existing standards, could put students at risk and may lead to legal challenges.

Although negotiators representing students who receive Title IV aid and students who are veterans have also expressed concerns about the changes to gainful employment, Tamar Hoffman, the committee member representing legal aid organizations, was the most outspoken throughout the week, saying there were “inherent issues” with the department’s current proposal.

“It does not make sense that we would allow the most economically disadvantaged students to use up very precious resources that they have in their lifetime Pell eligibility on programs that the department has deemed to be inadequate to receive loans,” she said at the close of Thursday’s meeting.

Ideally, Hoffman and others would like to see the debt-to-earnings test reinstated as well, though Pell appears to be the top priority.

Preston Cooper, the committee member representing taxpayers and the public interest, voiced more opposition at the beginning of the week as he highlighted his analysis of department data that showed ED’s plan would disburse an estimated $1.2 billion in Pell dollars annually to programs that failed the earnings test.

By Thursday, however, multiple of Cooper’s smaller concerns had been addressed through amendments, and he appeared poised to support the department’s proposal. The changes included added clarity about the ability to separate gainful employment and Do No Harm if courts strike down either test and that failed programs must pass the earnings test for at least two years before regaining loan eligibility.

Some Changes Made

Despite their overall support for the department’s plan, institutional advocates—particularly Jeff Arthur, the negotiator representing for-profit institutions, and Aaron Lacey, who represented nonprofit institutions—did try to change parts of the earnings test that they argued were unfair, like the age and work experience of high school graduates that college students were compared to, or the way rural institutions were held to the same standard as urban ones. So far, they haven’t been successful.

They had better success with an amendment that allowed existing students in failing programs to maintain the loan access needed to complete their degree. The department agreed to the change under a few conditions: The program will have to voluntarily agree to shut itself down after the first year of failure, terminate all enrollment for new students and enter a formal teach-out plan for those who remain.

Hoffman, however, said the change would only further water down existing accountability standards.

“To me, this seems like a giant loophole for institutions to try to maintain eligibility for Title IV funds when they aren’t actually delivering adequate services to students,” she said. “There isn’t anything here that prevents institutions from ceasing new enrollment in a failing program [while] at the same time standing up a [new] substantially similar program within the same institution.” (Title IV of the Higher Education Act authorizes federal financial aid programs such as the Pell Grant.)

The regulations do include some restrictions on starting new programs, but Hoffman and other student advocates from think tanks don’t believe they are strong enough to prevent institutions from developing other similarly poor-performing certificates and degrees.

By the end of Thursday’s meeting, the department had not yet publicly proposed any concessions to address Hoffman’s concerns on the teach-out plan or the core changes to gainful employment.

But talks appeared to continue after the meeting ended. One department official told Hoffman he’d be amenable to talking over happy hour about what changes would be needed to get her on board.

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January 9, 2026
Judge rules in Trump’s favour over $100K H-1B visa fee hike

The judge ruled on December 23 that it was within the President’s powers to regulate immigration, rejecting arguments brought by the Chamber of Commerce that the proclamation exceeded Trump’s statutory authority.

“The parties’ vigorous debate over the ultimate wisdom of this political judgment is not within the province of the courts,” wrote the Obama-appointed judge Beryl Howell.

“So long as the actions dictated by the policy decision and articulated in the Proclamation fit within the confines of the law, the Proclamation must be upheld.”

The lawsuit is among two other cases challenging Trump’s controversial $100K fee for H-1B petitions, which the plaintiffs argued would lead companies, hospitals and other employers to cut jobs and weaken the services they provide to the public.

It was brought by the US Chamber of Commerce – the world’s largest business federation with roughly 300,000 members – and the Association of American Universities (AAU), which represents 69 US-based research universities.

Following the proclamation, the administration clarified international students changing status in the US would be exempt from the fee, though stakeholders have said it will undermine America’s leadership in education, research and innovation.

Zuzana Cepla Wootson, deputy director of federal policy at the Presidents’ Alliance, called the judge’s decision “deeply disappointing”.

“The United States must stop deterring the very talent that strengthens our classrooms, fuels our economy, and drives American innovation,” she said, urging Congress to “pursue bipartisan solutions that support US prosperity and competitiveness”.

The White House welcomed the ruling as a victory for American workers, vowing that Trump would continue to protect them from being replaced by “cheap, foreign labour”.

“The $100,000 payment accompanying any new H1-B petition is a necessary and long-overdue first step to reform the H-1B visa program that has been abused at the expense of hardworking Americans,” White House spokesperson Taylor Rogers told The PIE.

The fee, which is still being challenged by two other lawsuits, hikes the cost of an H-1B visa petition by more than 20 times the previous charge, which ranged between $2,000 and $5,000.

The H-1B visa program enables US employers to temporarily hire international workers in “specialty occupations” from healthcare to computer science and financial analysis. California’s tech industry is particularly reliant on the visa stream.

The United States must stop deterring the very talent that strengthens our classrooms, fuels our economy, and drives American innovation

Zuzana Cepla Wootson, Presidents’ Alliance

“The $100,000 fee makes H-1B visas cost prohibitive for businesses, especially small- and medium-sized businesses that can least afford it,” Chamber of Commerce executive vice president Daryl Joseffer said after the ruling.

He said the chamber was considering further legal action and underscored the positive economic benefits of the H-1B stream, which has been found to reduce unemployment rates and lead to faster wage growths for US employers, according to the National Foundation for American Policy (NFAP).

Howell’s ruling came the same day as the government finalised a rule to replace the random H-1B selection process with a weighted system favouring higher earners – something critics say will harm the US tech industry and dampen the country’s appeal among international students. The new process will come into effect on February 27.

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January 2, 2026
Federal judge rules California teachers are allowed to ‘out’ transgender students to parents
Parents rights supporters attend a rally in Simi Valley on Sept. 26, 2023.,the night before a Republican presidential primary debate.

Credit: Courtesy of Rebecca Holz / California Policy Center
Top Takeaways

A judge ruled parents have the right to know if a student expresses gender incongruence.

California Attorney General Rob Bonta’s office applied to stay the court’s injunction.

The ruling may ultimately be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.
A federal judge issued a ruling Monday that strikes down California school policies aimed at preventing schools from revealing a student’s gender identity to their parents.

The class action suit, filed by California teachers and parents, hinges on whether TK-12 educators can breach a student’s confidentiality and tell parents that students are using a name or pronoun other than what they have been assigned at birth.

U.S. District Judge Roger Benitez, of San Diego, ruled in favor of two Escondido Union School District teachers, Elizabeth Mirabelli and Lori Ann West, who claimed that district policies “flatly prohibit teachers from respecting parents’ wishes.” The middle school teachers named district officials in the suit and said district policies violated the teachers’ constitutional free speech and religious rights.

Benitez, a George W. Bush appointee, wrote in his order granting summary judgment that California’s public schools “place a communication barrier between parents and teachers.” The judgment applies to all California public schools, not just the original North San Diego County district.

“Parents and guardians have a federal constitutional right to be informed if their public school student child expresses gender incongruence,” Benitez wrote. “Teachers and school staff have a federal constitutional right to accurately inform the parent or guardian of their student when the student expresses gender incongruence.”

The suit, filed in April 2023, named California state officials, including State Superintendent Tony Thurmond, the State Board of Education and Attorney General Rob Bonta.

Benitez’s ruling references guidance that the California Department of Education shared with school districts, including an FAQ that has since been deleted, as well as cultural competency training. But he stated that this case is not about California Assembly Bill 1955, which prohibits forcing teachers to disclose the gender identity of their students.

The Support Academic Futures and Educators for Today’s Youth, or SAFETY Act, was signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom in July 2024, in response to more than a dozen California school boards proposing or passing parental notification policies that required school staff to inform parents if a child asks to use a name or pronoun different from the one assigned at birth.

A statement from the California Legislative LGBTQ Caucus says that Benitez’s ruling “deliberately injects confusion into the public understanding” of the SAFETY Act and “signals an alarming willingness to undermine long-standing constitutional rights to privacy and nondiscrimination protections across California law.”

Bonta’s office on Monday filed a brief seeking to stay the court’s injunction. A spokesperson for Bonta said the district court misapplied the law and that the decision will ultimately be reversed on appeal.

“We are committed to securing school environments that allow transgender students to safely participate as their authentic selves while recognizing the important role that parents play in students’ lives,” said a statement from Bonta’s office.

Benitez referenced the U.S. Supreme Court decision this summer in Mahmoud v. Taylor, which granted public school parents the right to withdraw from materials and discussions that conflict with their sincerely held religious beliefs.

A statement from the Thomas More Society, the Chicago-based conservative Catholic law firm that took on the case, called the judge’s decision a “landmark class-action ruling.”

“Today’s incredible victory finally, and permanently, ends California’s dangerous and unconstitutional regime of gender secrecy policies in schools,” said Paul M. Jonna, special counsel at Thomas More Society and a partner at LiMandri & Jonna.

The American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement that this ruling puts transgender and gender-nonforming students at risk of being outed.

“A culture of outing harms everyone — students, families, and school staff alike — by removing opportunities to build trust. LGBTQ+ students deserve to decide on their own terms if, when, and how to come out, and to be able to be themselves at school,” said Christine Parker, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Foundation of Southern California.

An attorney for the Escondido Union School District argued in court documents that both the California Constitution and the state education code protect the privacy rights of students in many contexts. For instance, the California Supreme Court has held that children have the right to an abortion without state notification of their parents. And school counselors are barred from disclosing confidential information if the counselor believes that it would result in a danger to the health or safety of the student.

Legal experts said the case is likely to reach the U.S. Supreme Court.

When the case came up during a panel at the California School Boards Association conference in Sacramento earlier this month, Anthony De Marco, a partner at the firm Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud & Romo, which represents school districts, called it a “direct attack” on California education.

“It crosses a line,” De Marco said, while speaking to board members about important legal issues they may be facing. “Certified employees should not be able to opt out.”

Jeff Freitas, president of the California Federation of Teachers, called the court decision “an attack on the safety of our students and educators.” He said that as a math teacher, he witnessed students who were struggling with issues that they wanted to keep private from their parents.

“Students more often go to their parents than their teachers,” Freitas said. “If they’re not going to their parents, there’s probably a reason why.”

EdSource reporter Thomas Peele contributed to this report.
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December 24, 2025

The New Rules of College Digital Advertising

This post was co-authored with Vaughn Shinkus.

Digital advertising in higher education recruitment: 2020–2024 trends and student perspectives

Colleges are still trying to catch up to the digital expectations of students.

Today’s college search usually begins with a scroll. Students meet their future alma mater while still in pajamas, thumb hovering over TikTok dorm tours, YouTube “day-in-the-life” videos, and Instagram stories showing everything from campus squirrels to club fairs.

While most college marketers recognize the importance of meeting students in digital spaces, data show that many institutions are still catching up to student behavior.

Nearly two-thirds of students use Instagram daily, yet only about half report seeing college content in their feeds, according to the 2025 E-Expectations Trend Report. That gap, between where students spend their time and where colleges spend their dollars, tells the real story.

Here are several other significant places where student behavior and institutional strategies do not align:

Students live on TikTok and YouTube, but institutions continue to invest more heavily in Facebook and Instagram.
Retargeting and program-specific ads perform best because they feel relevant, yet many colleges default to broad brand campaigns.
Search and AI-driven summaries are now leading sources of inquiry traffic, but SEO remains underfunded or outdated.

Today, nearly every institution had allocated a budget to digital channels, including search ads, Instagram, Facebook, display ads, YouTube, and more (according to our 2025 survey of marketing and recruitment practices). But sending dollars into platforms without a data-backed strategy is a recipe for low return.

Channel usage and effectiveness

The first step toward a smarter strategy is aligning digital investments with students’ stages of college planning. Timing matters.

9th graders are dreamers; they are just beginning to imagine college. This is the moment for creative, curiosity-driven content on TikTok and other emerging platforms.
10th graders start exploring and comparing. Snapchat, X (formerly Twitter), and BeReal are gaining influence as they seek authentic glimpses of campus life.
11th and 12th graders shift into decision mode. They are more likely to engage with YouTube, Instagram, and even Facebook, the places where institutions focus most on deadlines, financial aid, and event promotions.

Let’s examine how college and student perspectives align, and where they diverge. This table shows the usage and effectiveness of recruitment practices by recruitment professionals (taken from the 2025 Marketing and Recruitment Practices Report). The last column shows the student perspective as captured by the 2025 E-Expectations Report.

Channel	Usage by Colleges	Effectiveness	Student Perspective
Instagram	Private: 93% Public: 87% Two-Year: 86%	Private: 94% Public: 90% Two-Year: 100%	63% of users use Instagram daily, but only 53% view college content.
Facebook	Private: 81% Public: 89% Two-Year: 85%	Private: 77% Public: 76% Two-Year: 100%	Still visible, but less influential than Instagram or TikTok.
YouTube	Private: 81% Public: 66% Two-Year: 57%	Private: 79% Public: 86% Two-Year: 100%	Campus vlogs and videos help students picture themselves there.
TikTok	Private: 60% Public: 35% Two-Year: 71%	Private: 82% Public: 74% Two-Year: 80%	One of the most influential platforms for discovery and decision-making.
Display Ads	Private: 94% Public: 77% Two-Year: 86%	Private: 90% Public: 97% Two-Year: 100%	Students often click Google ads when researching programs.
Retargeting	Private: 86% Public: 69% Two-Year: 80%	Private: 98% Public: 86% Two-Year: 94%	Highly effective when personalized, reminders drive action.

Takeaway: To reach students where they truly live online, colleges must rebalance their media mix toward video-rich, mobile-first channels and strengthen SEO to connect organically within search and AI summaries.

Messaging strategies that move students

Ask any university marketing team what they promote and you will hear familiar answers: brand identity, application deadlines, campus events, student stories, program highlights. All important, but not all equally effective.

Students tell us that the ads that stick are the ones that feel authentic and actionable.
They click when they see a major they are interested in. They re-engage when retargeted about unfinished applications. They respond when the tone feels genuine, not corporate.

Breaking through the stream of memes, influencers, and viral videos requires messaging that is personal and specific, not just polished.

Messaging Strategy	Usage by Colleges	Effectiveness	Student Perspective
Application Deadlines	Private: 98% Public: 92% Two-Year: 85%	Private: 94% Public: 93% Two-Year: 100%	Clear calls-to-action work. Deadline ads drive clicks and completions.
Brand Messaging	Private: 98% Public: 95% Two-Year: 86%	Private: 94% Public: 94% Two-Year: 100%	Generic brand ads rarely move the needle; authenticity wins.
Event Promotions	Private: 94% Public: 86% Two-Year: 86%	Private: 96% Public: 97% Two-Year: 100%	Virtual tours and admitted-student events generate strong engagement.
Student/Alumni Stories	Private: 81% Public: 83% Two-Year: 57%	Private: 95% Public: 93% Two-Year: 100%	“Show me real people.” Authentic voices and outcomes persuade.
Program-Specific Ads	Private: 87% Public: 89% Two-Year: 57%	Private: 95% Public: 100% Two-Year: 75%	Students want details about majors, careers, and outcomes.

Bottom line: High-level brand awareness campaigns rarely convert. The content that wins is personal, timely, and anchored in real stories and next steps.

The big picture

So what does this all mean for your digital strategy? The short version: ads work best when they meet students where they are, in their social feeds, with content that feels personal, genuine, and video-forward.

Here is how to make that happen:

Invest where students spend time: TikTok, YouTube, and optimized search.
Fix underperforming channels: Strengthen Instagram with better creative and stage-specific targeting.
Use personalization and retargeting: Move students from “just browsing” to “taking action.”
Tell real stories: Highlight authentic student voices and tangible outcomes, not just taglines.

Students now research colleges the same way they manage the rest of their digital lives; they discover, compare, and decide while scrolling. A TikTok video might spark curiosity, a YouTube vlog might help them imagine themselves on campus, and a retargeted ad might push them to finally hit “apply.”

They are already making college decisions mid-scroll. To earn their attention and their trust, colleges must meet them there, with relevance, immediacy, and authenticity.

Ultimately, it is not about clicks for the sake of clicks. It is about connection, belonging, and the digital moments that turn curiosity into commitment.

Talk with our marketing and recruitment experts

RNL works with colleges and universities across the country to ensure their marketing and recruitment efforts are optimized and aligned with how student search for colleges. Reach out today for a complimentary consultation to discuss:

Student search strategies
Omnichannel communication campaigns
Personalization and engagement at scale

Request now

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December 17, 2025

Texas Tech Puts Its Anti-Trans Rules In Writing

Months after beginning to enforce unwritten policies about how faculty members can and cannot teach topics related to gender, Texas Tech University system officials released a memo Monday that officially put those policies—and more—in writing.

“Effective immediately, faculty must not include or advocate in any form course content that conflicts with the following standards,” Chancellor Brandon Creighton wrote in the memo to system presidents, which was passed along to faculty members. The standards include specific rules around race and sexuality that were not previously discussed, system faculty members told Inside Higher Ed. The memo also enshrines that the Texas Tech system recognizes only two sexes—male and female.

The fuzzy anti-trans policies that were first introduced via a game of censorship telephone at Angelo State University in September have now been made clear and expanded upon across the entire five-university Texas Tech system. Course content related to race and sexuality is now also subject to heightened scrutiny. Although the memo doesn’t ban outright discussion of transgender topics or any topics that suggest there are more than two genders, policies across the country stating that there are only two sexes or genders have been used to restrict transgender rights.

Texas Tech is far from alone in its efforts; public systems across Texas have taken on varying politically motivated course reviews, leaving faculty members in the state angry and confused. For example, the University of Texas system recently completed a review of all courses on gender identity, and the Texas A&M system board approved a new policy last month mandating presidential approval for classes that “advocate race or gender ideology, sexual orientation, or gender identity.”

According to Creighton’s memo, faculty members may not “promote” or instill the belief that one race or sex is superior to another; that an individual is, consciously or unconsciously, inherently racist, sexist or “oppressive”; that any person should be discriminated against because of their race or sex; that moral character is determined by race or sex; that individuals bear responsibility or guilt because of the actions by others of the same race or sex; or that meritocracy or a strong work ethic are racist, sexist or “constructs of oppression.”

Creighton defined advocacy as “presenting these beliefs as correct or required and pressuring students to affirm them, rather than analyzing or critiquing them as one viewpoint among others. This also includes course content that promotes activism on issues related to race or sex, rather than academic instruction.”

The memo also outlines a Board of Regents–controlled review process, complete with a flowchart, for courses that include content related to gender identity and sexuality. Although race is mentioned earlier in the memo, it’s unclear whether race-related course content will also be subject to this review.

“We’ve been in this slow rollout process already. We had to go through all of the courses and essentially do the flowchart before the flowchart existed,” said a faculty member at Angelo State who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retribution. “Anything that would cover transgender [people] was flagged.”

Creighton, a former member of the Texas State Senate, justified the new rules using Senate Bill 37, a law he sponsored earlier this year that, among other things, gave the control of faculty senates to public institution governing boards and established a once-every-five-years review process for general education curricula. An earlier version of the bill that passed the Senate contained language that’s very similar to the restrictions in the Texas Tech memo, including censoring specific course topics that suggest any social, political or religious belief is superior to another and allowing administrators to unilaterally remove faculty senate members for their personal political advocacy. The existing law does not prohibit teaching about transgender identity, racial inequality, systemic racism, homosexuality or any other individual topic.

“This directive is the first step of the Board of Regents’ ongoing implementation of its statutory responsibility to review and oversee curriculum under Senate Bill 37 and related provisions of the Education Code. This curriculum review under Senate Bill 37 will, in part, ensure each university is offering degrees of value,” Creighton wrote.

Texas Tech University system spokespeople did not respond to Inside Higher Ed’s questions about the memo, including what next steps might be.

“The Board’s responsibility is to safeguard the integrity of our academic mission and maintain the trust of Texans,” Board of Regents chairman Cody Campbell said in a news release. “The Board welcomed the clarity provided by Senate Bill 37, which reaffirmed the Regents’ role in curriculum oversight. This new framework strengthens accountability, supports our faculty, and ensures that our universities remain focused on education, research, and innovation—core commitments that position the TTU System for continued national leadership.”

Faculty across the system are largely upset about the changes but unsure about how to push back, a faculty member told Inside Higher Ed. One Texas Tech professor emeritus, Kelli Cargile Cook, told The Texas Tribune she began drafting a resignation letter.

“I’ve been teaching since 1981 and this was going to be my last class. I was so looking forward to working with the seniors in our major, but I can’t stomach what’s going on at Texas Tech,” she told the Tribune. “I think the memo is cunning in that the beliefs that it lists are, at face value, something you could agree with. But when you think about how this would be put into practice, where a Board of Regents approves a curriculum—people who are politically appointed, not educated, not researchers—that move is a slippery slope.”

Brian Evans, president of the Texas chapter of the American Association of University Professors, criticized the memo Tuesday.

“Empowering administrators to censor faculty experts’ teaching decisions does a disservice to the university, its students and the state,” Evans said. “Such a system is inconsistent with long-standing principles of academic freedom, university policy and the First Amendment.”

Graham Piro, faculty legal defense fund fellow for campus advocacy at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, decried the memo in a statement Tuesday.

“The Texas Tech memo unconstitutionally singles out specific viewpoints on these topics, implying that faculty members must adhere to the state’s line on these issues—and that dissenters face punishment. The memo is also so broadly worded that an overzealous administration could easily punish a professor who seeks to provoke arguments in class or advocates outside the classroom for changes to curricula that reflect developments in teaching,” Piro said.

“Decades ago, the Supreme Court recognized that the First Amendment ‘does not tolerate laws that cast a pall of orthodoxy over the classroom.’ It instead wrote that ‘truth’ is discovered not by ‘authoritative selection,’ but ‘out of a multitude of tongues.’ These principles are timeless, and Texas Tech should not compromise them, no matter the political winds of the day.”

He also likened the memo to Florida’s Stop WOKE Act, currently blocked by a federal court, which severely limited how Florida faculty members could talk and teach about race, gender and sexuality.

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December 2, 2025
Feds cannot withhold funding from UC system amid lawsuit, judge rules
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Dive Brief:
- A federal judge on Friday issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from freezing the University of California system’s research funding as part of civil rights investigations.
- In a scathing ruling, U.S. District Judge Rita Lin found the administration’s actions unconstitutional, describing “a playbook of initiating civil rights investigations of preeminent universities to justify cutting off federal funding,” with the aim of “forcing them to change their ideological tune.”
- While a lawsuit over the Trump administration’s actions is ongoing, Lin barred the federal government from using civil rights investigations to freeze UC grant money, condition its grants on any measure that would violate recipients’ speech rights, or seek fines and other money from the system.
Dive Insight:

In her ruling, Lin described a “three-stage playbook” that the Trump administration uses to target universities. First, an agency involved with the administration’s Task Force to Combat Anti-Semitism announces civil rights investigations or planned enforcement actions. Then, the administration issues mass grants cancellations without following legally mandated administrative procedures, Lin wrote.

In the third stage, Lin said, the U.S. Department of Justice demands payment of millions or billions of dollars in addition to other policy changes in return for restored funding. A DOJ spokesperson on Monday declined to comment on the lawsuit.

In the case of UC, the judge ruled that plaintiffs — a coalition of faculty groups and unions, including the American Association of University Professors — provided “overwhelming evidence” of the administration’s “concerted campaign to purge ‘woke,’ ‘left,’ and ‘socialist’ viewpoints from our country’s leading universities.”

“It is undisputed that this precise playbook is now being executed at the University of California,” wrote Lin, citing public statements by Leo Terrell, senior counsel in the DOJ’s civil rights wing and the head of administration’s antisemitism task force. Terrell alleged that the UC system had been “hijacked by the left” and vowed to open investigations.

The Trump administration did just that. In August, it froze $584 million in research funding at the University of California, Los Angeles after concluding that the institution violated civil rights law. It primarily cited UCLA’s decision to allow a 2024 pro-Palestinian protest encampment to remain on campus for almost a week before calling in the police.

The administration has sought a $1.2 billion penalty from UCLA to release the funds and settle the allegations. “The costs associated with this demand, if left to stand, would have far-reaching consequences,” Chancellor Julio Frenk said in a public message in August.

Lin noted in her Friday ruling that the administration also sought settlement terms “that had nothing to do with antisemitism,” including policy changes to how UCLA handles student protests, an adoption of the administration’s views on gender, and a review of its diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

The administration’s campaign resulted in a significant and ongoing chilling of faculty’s actions, both in and out of the classroom, Lin said.

In addition to teaching and conducting research differently, members of the plaintiff groups have also changed how they engage in public discourse and limited their participation in protest, Lin said. Faculty have self-censored on topics such as structural racism and scrubbed their websites of references to DEI out of fear of reprisal.

“These are classic, predictable First Amendment harms, and exactly what Defendants publicly said that they intended,” Lin concluded.

While acknowledging the importance of combating antisemitism, Lin said the government was “silent on what actions UCLA took to address” antisemitism issues on its campus between May of 2024, when pro-Palestinian protesters established an encampment, and July 2025, when the DOJ concluded UCLA had violated civil rights law by not doing enough to protect Jewish students from harassment.

As part of a separate lawsuit, Lin in September ordered the National Institutes of Health and other agencies to restore suspended grants to UCLA.

UCLA and the UC system are just one of several prominent universities similarly targeted by the federal government. At least five institutions so far have signed deals with the Trump administration to resolve federal civil investigations. The agreements brokered by Columbia, Brown and Cornell universities require each to pay millions of dollars to the federal government, causes favored by the Trump administration or both.

Harvard University, on the other hand, has fought back against the administration’s tactics. After repeated federal attacks, accompanied by unprecedented ultimatums, the university sued the administration and successfully had the government’s $2.2 billion funding freeze against it reversed. The Trump administration has previously stated its intent to appeal.
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November 17, 2025
New Jersey Weighs Biggest Update of Charter School Rules in 30 Years – The 74

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Senate lawmakers on Monday advanced legislation that would launch the most comprehensive overhaul of New Jersey’s regulation of charter schools in 30 years.

The bill advanced by the Senate Education Committee on Monday would outright ban for-profit charter schools, require them to post a range of documents online, and impose residency requirements for some charter school trustees.

“We have not looked at charter schools as a whole legislatively in this committee since the 1990s, so this is an opportunity where we’re trying to do that,” said Sen. Vin Gopal (D-Monmouth), the panel’s chair and the bill’s prime sponsor.

The bill comes as New Jersey charter schools have faced scrutiny after reporting revealed top officials were paid far more than their counterparts at traditional public schools, including, among others, a Newark charter school CEO who was paid nearly $800,000 in 2024.

The proposal, which Gopal said was the product of a year of negotiations, would require charter schools to post user-friendly budgets that include the compensation paid to charter school leaders and school business administrators. They must also post existing contracts.

Charters would be required to post meeting notices, annual reports, board members’ identities, and facility locations online. Some critics have charged that charter schools routinely fail to provide notice of their public meetings.

The legislation would also require the state to create a dedicated charter school transparency website to host plain language budgets, 990 disclosure forms filed with the IRS, contracts with charter management organizations, and a list of charter schools on probation, among other things.

It would also ban fully virtual charter schools.

“We support the bills as a step forward in holding all public schools in our state accountable for fiscal and transparency requirements that will ultimately best serve our students,” said Debbie Bradley, director of government relations for the New Jersey Principals and Supervisors Association.

The two sides remained at odds over the membership of charter school boards.

Charter critics argued residency for those positions — which, unlike traditional public school boards, are largely appointed rather than elected — should mirror those imposed on regular public schools.

In New Jersey, school board members must live in the district they serve. That’s not the case for charter schools, whose trustees face no residency or qualification limits under existing law.

The bill would only impose a residency requirement on one-third of a charter school’s trustees, and rather than forcing them to live in the district, the bill would require charter trustees to live in the school’s county or within 30 miles of the school.

That language was criticized by statewide teachers union the New Jersey Education Association, which has called existing law governing charter schools outdated and flawed.

“School board representation should remain primarily local, and when we mean local, we don’t mean within a 30-mile radius. A 30-mile radius of Newark could include Maplewood, South Orange, communities that don’t necessarily represent what Newark looks like as a community,” said Deb Cornavaca, the union’s director of government relations.

Charter school supporters said their boards need flexibility because their leadership has broader responsibilities than counterparts in traditional public schools.

“Running a charter is a little different than running a traditional district. You need experience in school finance. You need to fundraise a bunch of money on the front end because you’re not getting paid on the front end,” said New Jersey Charter School Association President Harry Lee, adding they also needed familiarity with real estate and community experience.

Amendments removed provisions that would have required charter school board members to be approved by the state commissioner of education, though the commissioner retains sole power over whether to allow the formation of a new charter, a power that gives the commissioner some veto power over a charter’s board.

Gopal acknowledged the 30-mile residency rule was a sticking point and said legislators would discuss it before the measure comes before the Senate Budget Committee. Earlier, he warned the bill was likely to see more changes as it moved through the Legislature.

Some argued enrollment in charter schools should be more limited by geography, arguing that out-of-district enrollments that are common at New Jersey charters could place financial strain on the students’ former district.

Most per-pupil state and local funding follows students who enroll in charter schools, even if their departure does not actually decrease the original district’s expenses because, for example, those schools still require the same number of teachers and administrators.

Charter operators said that would make New Jersey a national outlier and argued that a separate provision that would bar new charter schools when there are empty seats in existing area charters should come out of the bill.

“It could be read as a moratorium on charters, so we want to revisit that provision,” Lee said.

Such vacancies could exist for various reasons, they argued, including student age distributions.

Alongside that measure, the panel approved separate legislation that would bar charter schools from setting criteria to enroll students, ban them from imposing other requirements on a student randomly selected to attend, and place new limits on how such schools can enroll children from outside their district.

That bill would also bar charter schools from encouraging students to break with the district. Some opponents have charged that charter schools push out low-performing students to boost their metrics.

The committee approved the bills in unanimous votes, though Sens. Owen Henry (R-Ocean) and Kristin Corrado (R-Passaic) abstained from votes on both bills, saying they are broadly supportive but need more time to review amendments.

New Jersey Monitor is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. New Jersey Monitor maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Terrence T. McDonald for questions: [email protected].

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November 14, 2025
Is it time to change the rules on NSS publication?
If we cast our minds back to 2005, the four UK higher education funding bodies ran the first ever compulsory survey of students’ views on the education they receive – the National Student Survey (NSS).

Back then the very idea of a survey was controversial, we were worried about the impact on the sector reputation, the potential for response bias, and that students would be fearful of responding negatively in case their university downgraded their degree.

Initial safeguards

These fears led us to make three important decisions all of which are now well past their sell-by date. These were:
- Setting a response rate threshold of 50 per cent
- Restricting publication to subject areas with more than 22 respondents
- Only providing aggregate data to universities.
At the time all of these were very sensible decisions designed to build confidence in what was a controversial survey. Twenty years on, it’s time to look at these with fresh eyes to assure ourselves they remain appropriate – and to these eyes they need to change.

Embarrassment of riches

One of these rules has already changed: responses are now published where 10 or more students respond. Personally, I think this represents a very low bar, determined as it is by privacy more than statistical reasoning, but I can live with it especially as research has shown that “no data” can be viewed negatively.

Of the other two, first let me turn to the response rate. Fifty per cent is a very high response rate for any survey, and the fact the NSS achieves a 70 per cent response rate is astonishing. While I don’t think we should be aiming to get fewer responses, drawing a hard line at 50 per cent creates a cliff edge in data that we don’t need.

There is nothing magical about 50 per cent – it’s simply a number that sounds convincing because it means that at least half your students contributed. A 50 per cent response rate does not ensure that the results are not subject to bias for example, if propensity to respond was in some way correlated with a positive experience the results would still be flawed.

I would note that the limited evidence that there is suggests that propensity to respond is not correlated with a positive experience, but it’s an under-researched area and one the Office for Students (OfS) should publish some work on.

Panel beating

This cliff edge is even more problematic when the data is used in regulation, as the OfS proposes to do a part of the new TEF. Under OfS proposals providers that don’t have NSS data either due to small cohorts or a “low” response rate would have NSS evidence replaced with focus groups or other types of student interaction. This makes sense when the reason is an absolute low number of responses but not when it’s due to not hitting an exceptionally high response rate as Oxford and Cambridge failed to do for many years.

While focus groups can offer valuable insights, and usefully sit alongside large-scale survey work, it is utterly absurd to ignore evidence from a survey because an arbitrary and very high threshold is not met. Most universities will have several thousand final year students, so even if only 30 per cent of them respond you will have responses from hundreds if not thousands of individuals – which must provide a much stronger evidence base than some focus groups. Furthermore, that evidence base will be consistent with every other university creating one less headache for assessors in comparing diverse evidence.

The 50 per cent response rate threshold also looks irrational when set against a 30 per cent threshold for the Graduate Outcomes survey. While any response rate threshold is arbitrary to apply, applying two different thresholds needs rather more justification than the fact that the surveys are able to achieve different response rates. Indeed, I might argue that the risk of response bias might be higher with GO for a variety of reasons.

NSS to GO

In the absence of evidence in support of any different threshold I would align the NSS and GO publication thresholds at 30 per cent and make the response rates more prominent. I would also share NSS and GO data with TEF panels irrespective of the response rate, and allow them to rely on their expert judgement supported by the excellent analytical team at the OfS. And the TEF panel may then choose to seek additional evidence if they consider it necessary.

In terms of sharing data with providers, 2025 is really very different to 2005. Social media has arguably exploded and is now contracting, but in any case attitudes to sharing have changed and it is unlikely the concerns that existed in 2005 will be the same as the concerns of the current crop of students.

For those who don’t follow the detail, NSS data is provided back to Universities via a bespoke portal that provides a number of pre-defined cuts of the data and comments, together with an ability to create your own cross-tabs. This data, while very rich, do not have the analytical power of individualised data and suffer from still being subject to suppression for small numbers.

What this means is that if we want to understand the areas we want to improve we’re forced to deduce it from a partial picture rather than being laser focussed on exactly where the issues are, and this applies to both the Likert scale questions and the free text.

It also means that providers cannot form a longitudinal view of the student experience by linking to other data and survey responses they hold at an individual level – something that could generate a much richer understanding of how to improve the student experience.
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October 29, 2025
Judge Rules Campaign Against Noncitizen Protesters Unlawful

In a scathing decision published Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that two federal agencies led a campaign to detain and deport international students and faculty for pro-Palestinian speech with the goal of chilling further protests, violating the First Amendment.

“There was no ideological deportation policy,” wrote senior U.S. District Judge William G. Young, a Reagan appointee, in the 161-page ruling. “It was never the Secretaries’ [Marco Rubio, of the Department of State, and Kristi Noem, of the Department of Homeland Security] immediate intention to deport all pro-Palestinian non-citizens for that obvious First Amendment violation, that could have raised a major outcry. Rather, the intent of the Secretaries was more invidious—to target a few for speaking out and then use the full rigor of the Immigration and Nationality Act (in ways it had never been used before) to have them publicly deported with the goal of tamping down pro-Palestinian student protests and terrorizing similarly situated non-citizen (and other) pro-Palestinians into silence because their views were unwelcome.”

He also stated unequivocally that noncitizens in the U.S. have the same First Amendment rights as citizens—despite the Trump administration’s argument to the contrary during the trial.

The decision, which Young said may be the most important ever to fall within his district, comes about two months after the conclusion of a two-week trial in the case of American Association of University Professors v. Rubio, during which State Department and DHS employees explained that they had been tasked with identifying noncitizen pro-Palestinian activists to investigate and deport. Young wrote in his decision that the departments’ actions make it clear that they were working together to conduct targeted deportations with the goal of chilling speech—the repercussions of which are still being felt now.

The plaintiffs, which include the AAUP, three of its chapters—at Rutgers University, Harvard University and New York University—and the Middle East Studies Association, celebrated the win in a remote press conference Tuesday afternoon.

“That’s a really important victory and a really historic ruling that should have immediate implications for the Trump administration’s policies,” said Ramya Krishnan, the lead litigator on the case and a senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute. “If the First Amendment means anything, it’s that the government cannot imprison you because it doesn’t like the speech that you have engaged in, and this decision is really welcome because it reaffirms that basic idea, which is foundational to our democracy.”

Still, despite the victory, several of the plaintiffs emphasized just how worrying the federal government’s crusade against pro-Palestinian noncitizen students and faculty is. Todd Wolfson, the president of the AAUP, said he believes those actions, as well as the federal government’s other attacks against academic freedom, are an even greater threat to higher education than McCarthyism was.

“The only equivalents might be the Red Scare and McCarthyism, but this is even worse, right? Because it’s not only attacking individual speech, it’s also attacking institutional independence and speech, right?” he said. “The Trump administration’s attacks on higher ed are the greatest assault on this sector that we have ever seen in the history of this country.”

So, What Comes Next?

Young previously separated this case into two phases, one focused on the government’s liability and the other on relief for the plaintiffs. According to Krishnan, the judge will schedule a later hearing to determine that relief. The plaintiffs hope Young will forbid the government from continuing to target noncitizens based on their political views, making permanent an injunction that the judge granted in March.

But Young noted in his ruling Tuesday that he is unsure what a remedy for the plaintiffs might look like in an era when the president consistently seems able to avoid recourse for unconstitutional acts.

“I fear President Trump believes the American people are so divided that today they will not stand up, fight for, and defend our most precious constitutional values so long as they are lulled into thinking their own personal interests are not affected,” he wrote, concluding the decision.

“Is he correct?”

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September 30, 2025
Cosmetology schools and other certificate programs got exemption from rules on graduates’ earning levels

Remiah Ward’s shift at the SmartStyle salon inside Walmart was almost over, and she’d barely made $30 in tips from the haircuts she’d done that day. It wasn’t unusual — a year after her graduation from beauty school, tips plus minimum wage weren’t enough to cover her rent.

She scarcely had time to eat and sleep before she had to drive back to the same Walmart in central Florida to stock shelves on the night shift. That job paid $14 an hour, but it meant she sometimes spent 18 hours a day in the same building. She worked six days a week but still struggled to catch up on bills and sleep.

The admissions officer at the American Institute of Beauty, where she enrolled straight out of high school, had sold her on a different dream. She would easily earn enough to pay back the $10,000 she borrowed to attend, she said she was told. Ward had no way of knowing that stylists from her school earn $20,200 a year, on average, four years after graduating. Seven years later, her debt, plus interest, is still unpaid.

In July, Republicans in Congress pushed through policies aimed at ensuring that what happened to Ward wouldn’t happen to other Americans on the government’s dime; colleges whose graduates don’t earn at least as much as someone with a high school diploma will now risk losing access to federal student loans. But one group managed to slip through the cracks — thousands of schools like the American Institute of Beauty were exempt.

Remiah Ward worked two jobs while trying to make it as a hair stylist but never made enough to pay her all her bills and has had to put her dream career on hold. Credit: Courtesy Remiah Ward

Certificate schools succeeded in getting a carve-out. The industry breathed a collective sigh of relief, and with good reason. At least 1,280 certificate-granting programs, which enrolled more than 220,000 students, would have been at risk of losing federal student loan funding if they had been included in the bill, according to a Hechinger Report analysis of federal data. [See table.] About 80% of those are for-profit programs, and 45 percent are cosmetology schools.

“There is this very strange donut hole in accountability where workforce programs are held accountable, two-year degree programs are held accountable, but everything in between gets off without any accountability,” said Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the conservative think tank American Enterprise Institute.

The schools spared are known as certificate programs and, with their promise of an affordable and relatively quick path to economic security, are the fastest growing part of higher education. They usually take about a year to complete and train people to be hair-stylists, welders, medical assistants and cooks, among other jobs.

As with traditional colleges, there are big differences in quality among certificate programs. Some hair stylists can make a middle-class living if they work in a busy salon. But for people who have to pay back hefty student loans, the low wages for stylists in the early years can be an insurmountable obstacle.

Ward found herself facing that dilemma. When she could no longer sustain the lack of sleep from her double shifts at Walmart, she pressed pause on her styling career and took a job with Amazon, loading and unloading planes. She wasn’t ready to give up her dream career, though, so in addition to her 10-hour days moving boxes, she took part-time gigs at local hair salons. She didn’t have family to help pay rent, not to mention loan payments, so she couldn’t afford to work fulltime at a salon, which is essential to build up a regular clientele — and bigger tips. Without that, she couldn’t get much beyond minimum wage.

A representative from the American Institute of Beauty denied that Ward was told she would easily repay her loan.

“No admissions representative, not at AIB or elsewhere, would ever make such a statement,” Denise Herman, general counsel and assistant vice president of AIB, said in an email.

The high cost of many for-profit cosmetology schools — tuition can be upward of $20,000, usually for a one-year program — can leave former students mired in debt. In May, the government released data showing 850 colleges where at least a third of borrowers haven’t made a loan payment for 90 days or more, putting them on track to default. About 42 percent of those were for-profit cosmetology and barbering schools (including AIB).

Brittany Mcnew says she loves working as a stylist but that her income takes a hit when traffic is slow in her salon in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Credit: Meredith Kolodner/The Hechinger Report

Herman blamed the Biden administration policy that after the pandemic let borrowers forgo payments without any penalty.

“Debtors became ‘comfortable’ not making payments,” said Herman. “AIB provides the graduate with the information graduates need to make their payments. What that graduate decides to pay, or not pay, is not influenced by AIB.”

Under the “big beautiful bill” passed in July, two- and four-year colleges must ensure that, after four years, graduates on average make at least as much as someone in their state who has only a high school diploma. The colleges must inform students if they fail that test, and if it happens for two out of three years, the college will be ineligible to receive federal loan funds.

Some for-profit certificate schools lobbied hard for an exemption. The American Association of Career Schools, which represents proprietary cosmetology schools, spent $120,000 lobbying the Education Department and Congress, including on the “big beautiful bill,” in the first six months of this year. At the group’s major lobbying event in April, Sen. Bill Cassidy, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, was the keynote speaker.

Cassidy declined to answer questions about why certificate programs were excluded, but a fact sheet from his committee noted that they are already covered by something else, the gainful employment rule, which is also being challenged by the for-profit cosmetology industry.

That federal gainful employment regulation, updated in 2023, requires in essence that graduates from career-oriented schools earn enough to be able to pay back their loans and earn more than a high school graduate. It also requires that consumers, like Ward, be given more information about how graduates from all colleges fare in the workplace.

The rule posed an existential threat to a huge swath of cosmetology schools.

In 2023, the American Association of Career Schools sued to block the gainful employment rule.

“AACS supports fair and reasonable accountability measures,” Cecil Kidd, the AACS’s executive director, said in an email. “However, we strongly object to arbitrary or discriminatory policies such as the US Department of Education’s Gainful Employment rule, which unfairly targets career schools while exempting many public and private non-profit institutions that fail to meet comparable outcomes.”

He pointed to public comments in which AACS has argued that the rule imposes an unfair burden on cosmetology schools since stylists are predominantly women, who are more likely to have “personal commitments” that affect their earnings, and who rely on tips that are often pocketed as unreported income.

Cameron Vandenboom is a successful hair stylist but says the high cost of her private beauty school wasn’t worth thousands of dollars in student debt: “I absolutely should have gone to community college.” Credit: Courtesy Shanna Kaye Photo

In a twist that surprised advocates on both sides, the Education Department in May asked the court to effectively dismiss AACS’ lawsuit.

If the court rules in favor of the cosmetology schools, certificate programs will be free of all accountability requirements on their graduates’ earning levels, because they got the carveout in July.

Even if the court rules against cosmetology schools, advocates are pessimistic that the Trump administration will implement the gainful rules. The first Trump administration got rid of the original rules back in 2019 and Nicholas Kent, now the U.S. undersecretary of education, was previously the chief policy officer for Career Education Colleges and Universities, or CECU, the trade group that represents for-profit colleges, including certificate programs. He is a well-known critic of the rule.

“I would be very surprised, if the unlikely scenario plays out that the Biden rule is upheld, that this Department of Education would just say, OK, the court has spoken,” said Jason Altmire, CECU’s executive director. “We are not opposed to accountability for certificate programs, so long as it’s fair to everybody and we have a voice in how you’re measuring programs.”

Altmire said CECU didn’t lobby for certificate programs to be carved out of Congress’ bill, but did argue against the earnings formula that Congress landed on. Altmire said it doesn’t take into account part-time work and the gender gap in wages.

One objection from AACS, raised by CECU as well, is that the earnings measured don’t include tips, which are crucial to hair stylists’ income. Analyzed without including tips, 576 of 724 cosmetology schools in the Hechinger Report analysis would fail Congress’ earnings test. But even if tips were included and raised stylists’ income by 20 percent, 526 cosmetology schools would still fail.

Earlier this year, Remiah Ward made the difficult decision to leave Florida and move to Kentucky, where the cost of living was more forgiving. She’s working from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. at an aluminum factory for $19.50 an hour.

One day, she might go back to styling after her debt is paid off. Like many former beauty school students, she wishes she’d had more information when she decided to enroll.

“They really sugar-coated it. I was 18 years old, and I needed a trade that I was already pretty good at,” said Ward, who is now 26. “Everybody thinks they’re going to make a high return, and it’s just not the reality.”

Marina Villeneuve contributed data analysis to this story.

This story about cosmetology schools produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for the Hechinger higher-education newsletter.

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September 26, 2025