اینترنت

برچسب: federal

  • Jan Resseger: Federal Courts Block Trump Efforts to Abolish Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

    Jan Resseger: Federal Courts Block Trump Efforts to Abolish Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion


    Jan Resseger summarizes the judicial counterattack to the Trump administration’s efforts to criminalize DEI policies. It’s obvious that the Trump goal is to censor common practices that teach history, warts and all, as well as to kill programs that try to help Black and Hispanic students to succeed.

    But the lower federal courts are getting their way. It remains to be seen whether the Trump-dominated U.S. Supreme Court will reverse the lower courts and allow Trump to restore his vision of a white-male dominated society.

    Resseger writes:

    Earlier this month, the Associated Press’s Collin Binkley broke a story that brought relief and satisfaction to the school superintendents and members of elected school boards across the nation’s 13,000 public school districts: “A federal judge… struck down two Trump administration actions aimed at diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the nation’s schools and universities.”

    When she reported the story a few minutes later, the NY Times‘ Dana Goldstein highlighted its importance: “A federal judge dealt a sweeping setback on Thursday to President Trump’s education agenda, declaring that the administration cannot move forward with its plans to cut off federal funding from schools and colleges with diversity and equity programs.” But Goldstein cautions: “The legal back and forth is not likely to end any time soon… Eventually, it may be up to the Supreme Court to decide whether the president can interpret civil rights law to end racial equity efforts in schools.”

    The new ruling is so important, however, that we must all pay attention. Binkley explains: “U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland found that the Education Department violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with DEI initiatives. The guidance has been on hold since April when three federal judges blocked various portions of the Education Department’s anti-DEI measures.” Judge Gallagher’s decision followed a motion for summary judgment from two of the challengers to federal policy—the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association.  Judge Gallagher is a Trump appointee.

    Judge Gallagher’s decision will block the implementation of the February 14 “Dear Colleague” letter that Craig Trainor, assistant secretary in the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, sent to public school, colleges, and universities, in which he tried to expand the meaning of a narrow 2023 U.S. Supreme Court affirmative action decision, Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, as also banning any public school programs or policies designed to achieve diversity, equity and inclusion.

    Thursday’s decision will also block the enforcement of the Trump administration’s April 3, 2025 demand that state education agencies and every one of the nation’s 13,000 public school districts sign a certificate promising they had eliminated all programs and policies aimed at achieving DEI.  On April 3rd, the Department of Education threatened to halt federal funding, including Title I funding for public schools serving concentrations of poor children, for schools that refused to follow its order to eliminate DEI.

    Goldstein adds that the new decision, “will not lead to immediate changes for schools or colleges, because the administration’s anti-D.E.I. efforts had already been temporarily paused by Judge Gallagher and two other federal judges in April.”  The new decision will, however, ease fear among thousands of public school leaders who have been wrestling with what has seemed a looming threat from the federal government.  Some school districts have already submitted to the federal government’s threats by cancelling programs aimed at reaching students who have historically been left out or left behind.

    Binkley and Goldstein both do an excellent job of exploring what the Trump administration seems to mean but never explicitly defines when it condemns its own twisted redefinition of “diversity, equity, and inclusion.” While most educators and citizens would like public schools to welcome all students inclusively, to treat students equitably, and to ensure that no children are excluded, the Trump administration has instead tried to turn programs based on these principles into crimes.

    Binkley explains that the federal guidance, “amounted to a full-scale reframing of the government’s approach to civil rights in education. It took aim at policies that were created to address longstanding racial disparities, saying those practices were their own form of discrimination.”

    Goldstein writes: “While there is no single definition of D.E.I., the Trump administration has indicated that it considers many common K-12 racial equity efforts to fall under the category and to be illegal. Those include directing tutoring toward struggling students of specific races, such as Black boys; teaching lessons on concepts such as white privilege; and trying to recruit a more racially diverse set of teachers. The administration has also warned colleges that they may not establish scholarship programs or prizes that are intended for students of specific races, or require students to participate in ‘racially charged’ orientation programs… The administration had also argued that because the Supreme Court overturned affirmative action in college admissions in 2023, all racially conscious education programs are illegal.”  Goldstein concludes: “But those legal interpretations were novel and untested. Judge Gallagher rejected them, writing that the (2023) anti-affirmative action ruling ‘certainly does not proscribe any particular classroom speech or relate at all to curricular choices.’ ”

    In her decision on Thursday, Judge Gallagher declared the Trump administration’s ban on “diversity, equity and inclusion” an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment’s protection of  free speech.  Goldstein reports: “In a strongly worded ruling, Judge Stephanie Gallagher… wrote that the administration had not followed proper administrative procedure, and said that its plan was unconstitutional, in part because it risked constraining educators’ free speech rights in the classroom.”

    Soon after the Trump administration’s April 3rd letter threatening public school funding including Title I dollars, constitutional law professor Derek Black explained that the April 3rd letter clearly violates the First Amendment protection of free speech, as decided in a landmark, 1943 decision, West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette. The case involved a widespread requirement in the 1940s that public schools punish or expel students who refused to say “The Pledge of Allegiance.”

    Here is how Yale Law School Professor Justin Driver describes the significance of that case in his book, The School-House Gate: Public Education, The Supreme Court, and the Battle for the American Mind:

    “Barnette stands out for making three primary substantive innovations that appear at the intersection of constitutional law and education law. First, as a matter of constitutional doctrine, Justice (Robert) Jackson dramatically reconceptualized the requirement (that all students recite the “Pledge”) as raising a question not about the First Amendment’s freedom of religion but about the First Amendment’s freedom of speech… whether people of all backgrounds have an interest in avoiding government-compelled speech…. Jackson suggested that tolerating nonconformity, and even dissidence, was essential to enabling this unusually diverse nation to function.”

    Driver quotes Justice Robert Jackson’s decision in the Barnette case: “If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or any other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.” (Justin Driver, The School-House Gate, pp. 65-66)



    Source link

  • Trump Celebrates Labor Day by Terminating Unions at More Federal Agencies

    Trump Celebrates Labor Day by Terminating Unions at More Federal Agencies


    Happy Labor Day!

    This is a day to thank working people for their contributions to our society. It’s a day to thank unions for providing a path to the middle class to help those who need pensions, decent wages, and job security.

    Trump is celebrating Labor Day by banning unions at several federal agencies.

    Government Executive reports:

    President Trump on Thursday signed a new executive order targeting unions at more than half a dozen agencies, again under the auspices of national security.

    The edict, which was published within minutes of Trump’s proclamation marking Monday’s Labor Day holiday, appends a March edict that seeks to outlaw collective bargaining for two-thirds of the federal workforce, citing a seldom-used provision of the 1978 Civil Service Reform Act allowing the president to exclude agencies from federal labor law if the law “cannot be applied to that agency or subdivision in a manner consistent with national security requirements.”

    Thursday’s order would ban collective bargaining at the International Trade Administration and the Patent and Trademark Office within the Commerce Department; the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service and the National Weather Service; as well as NASA and the U.S. Agency for Global Media. It states that all these agencies “have as a primary function intelligence, counterintelligence, investigative or national security work.”

    Matt Biggs, national president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers, whose union represents a portion of NASA’s workforce along with the American Federation of Government Employees, suggested that the administration’s targeting of NASA—IFPTE’s largest union—was in retaliation for its own lawsuit challenging the Spring iteration of the executive order, filed last month.

    “It’s not surprising, sadly,” Biggs said. “What is surprising is that on the eve of Labor Day weekend, when workers are to be celebrated, the Trump administration has doubled down on being the most anti-labor, anti-worker administration in U.S. history. We will continue to fight in the courts, on the Hill and at the grassroots levels against this.”



    Source link

  • Texas: Federal Judge Blocks Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Every Classroom

    Texas: Federal Judge Blocks Law Requiring Ten Commandments in Every Classroom


    For a change, good news from Texas. Needless to say, the good news comes a judge, not the odious legislature, which is firmly controlled by Governor Greg Abbott. Judge Fred Biery blocked a law requiring the posting of the Ten Commandments in every classroom. State Attorney General Ken Paxton urged schools to ignore Judge Biery’s decision. The Appeals Court for the Fifth Circuit has already knocked down a similar law from Louisiana.

    A federal judge has issued a temporary injunction blocking a Texas law that would have mandated the display of the Ten Commandments in every public school classroom across the state.

    In his ruling on Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Fred Biery in San Antonio temporarily prohibited 11 Texas school districts from displaying the Ten Commandments. 

    The Clinton appointee said a lawsuit filed by a coalition of Dallas-area families, faith leaders and civil liberties advocates raised questions about the constitutionality of Senate Bill 10, which would have required the displays in schools statewide starting September 1.

    The decision marks the third time a federal court has struck down such a state-level requirement, following similar rulings in Louisiana and Kentucky.

    Biery’s 55-page ruling emphasized the potential impact on students and teachers, noting that “even though the Ten Commandments would not be affirmatively taught, the captive audience of students likely would have questions, which teachers would feel compelled to answer. That is what they do.”

    He maintained that such displays could lead to unintended religious discussions, placing educators in the difficult position of navigating complex theological issues in a public school setting, potentially infringing on students’ rights to a secular education.

    As an example, the judge offered a fictional account of a similar law in Hamtramck, Michigan, where the majority Muslim community “decreed” that the Quran should be taught in public schools. As part of the example, Biery quoted directly from the Quran.

    “While ‘We the people’ rule by a majority, the Bill of Rights protects the minority Christians in Hamtramck and those 33 percent of Texans who do not adhere to any of the Christian denominations,” the judge wrote. 

    He also cited the biblical accounts of Abraham leaving the land of Ur to proclaim, as the judge wrote in quotations, “the one true God.” Naming Moses, Jesus and Mohammed as the “triad of the ‘desert religions,’” the judge said elsewhere other belief systems were formed, including “those which have come to exist in the American experience.”

    Claiming that humans “evolved over several million years to be the only species which knows it will die,” Biery attributed the rise of human religion to people “not wanting their existence to end.”

    Quoting everything from Stephen Hawking to Sonny and Cher, the judge also quoted from John 11:35, saying Jesus — who he called the “cousin” of Moses and Mohammed — would have wept if he saw the “blood spilled by their followers against each other.” 

    Writing that SB 10 “officially favors Christian dominations over others” and “crosses the line from exposure to coercion,” Biery expressed concern that public displays of the Ten Commandments “are likely to send an exclusionary and spiritually burdensome message” that would identify the plaintiff families as “the other.”

    “The displays are likely to pressure the child-Plaintiffs into religious observance, meditation on, veneration, and adoption of the State’s favored religious scripture, and into suppressing expression of their own religious or nonreligious backgrounds and beliefs while at school,” the judge wrote.

    In his closing statement, Biery — a 77-year-old known for using puns and colorful language in his rulings — appeared to suggest Christians might resort to violence in response to his ruling. He offered a “prayer” using the New Testament phrase “grace and peace” and concluding with “Amen.”

    “For those who disagree with the Court’s decision and who would do so with threats, vulgarities, and violence, Grace and Peace unto you,” he wrote. “May humankind of all faiths, beliefs and non-beliefs be reconciled one to another. Amen.”

    The suit names 11 of some of the state’s biggest school districts, including Houston ISD, Austin ISD, and Plano ISD, but notably excludes Dallas ISD. The plaintiffs contend that the law passed by the Texas Legislature in 2024 violates the First Amendment’s Establishment Clause, which ensures the separation of church and state, and the Free Exercise Clause, which protects individuals’ rights to practice their religion freely.

    The case is expected to move to the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which ruled against a similar Louisiana law in June, before potentially advancing to the Supreme Court, where a 6-3 conservative majority could redefine the boundaries of church-state separation. 



    Source link

  • Mississippi: Federal Judge Enjoins State Ban on DEI

    Mississippi: Federal Judge Enjoins State Ban on DEI


    The Mississippi Free Press reported that Federal District Judge Henry Wingate blocked the implementation of the state’s ban on diversity, equity, and inclusion programs in public schools.

    Mississippi’s ban on diversity, equity and inclusion programs in public schools remains blocked after a federal judge granted the plaintiffs’ request for a preliminary injunction in an Aug. 18 decision.

    The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi also denied the defendants’ requests to dismiss the case, calling the defendants’ points “moot.”

    “This Court generally agrees with Plaintiffs’ view of the challenged portions of (House Bill 1193).

    It is unconstitutionally vague, fails to treat speech in a viewpoint-neutral manner, and carries with it serious risks of terrible consequences with respect to the chilling of expression and academic freedom,” U.S. District Court Judge Henry Wingate wrote in the Court’s decision.

    Categories Academic Freedom, Bigotry, Curriculum, Democracy, Equity, Ethics, Freedom of Speech, Freedom to Learn, Freedom to Read, Gender, History, Justice, Mississippi



    Source link

  • Florida Federal Judge Orders “Alligator Alcatraz” to Close for Environmental Reasons

    Florida Federal Judge Orders “Alligator Alcatraz” to Close for Environmental Reasons


    Trump, Kristi Noem, and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis have had a good time opening up and celebrating an immigrant detention facility that they call “Alligator Alcatraz.” They boast that immigrants who try to escape will be killed by alligators or snakes in the Everglades.

    But the New York Times reported late Thursday that a federal judge ordered that the prison be shut down within the next 60 days because it endangers the environment. Judge Kathleen M. Williams was appointed by President Obama.

    A federal judge in Miami gave the state of Florida 60 days to clear out the immigrant detention facility called Alligator Alcatraz, handing environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe of Indians a win after they clashed with Gov. Ron DeSantis over the environmental impacts the makeshift site was having in the federally protected Everglades.

    The ruling late Thursday from U.S. District Judge Kathleen Williams, which forbids state officials from moving any other migrants there, deals a blow to what had become a marquee symbol of President Donald Trump’s immigration policy.
    The environmentalists who sued called it “a huge relief for millions of people who love the Everglades.”

    “This brutal detention center was burning a hole in the fabric of life that supports our most iconic wetland and a whole host of endangered species, from majestic Florida panthers to wizened wood storks,” attorney Elise Bennett of the Center for Biological Diversity said in a statement. “The judge’s order came just in time to stop it all from unraveling.”

    The state filed a notice of appeal with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals less than an hour after the judge issued her order. DeSantis did not immediately comment.

    Judge Kathleen M. Williams of the Federal District Court in Miami found that the state and federal governments had violated a federal law that requires an environmental review before any major federal construction project. Judge Williams partly granted a preliminary injunction sought by environmentalists and the Miccosukee Tribe, whose members live in the area. The detention center is surrounded by protected lands that form part of the sensitive Everglades ecological system.

    The detention center presents risks to wetlands and to communities that depend on the Everglades for their water supply, including the Miccosukee, Judge Williams found.

    “The project creates irreparable harm in the form of habitat loss and increased mortality to endangered species in the area,” she wrote.

    Her ruling is preliminary, as the case will continue to be litigated. The state is expected to ask that the ruling be stayed, or kept from taking effect, as it pursues its appeal.

    The Trump administration had argued that a review under the National Environmental Policy Act did not apply because while the center houses federal immigration detainees, it is run by the state. At the same time, the administration of Gov. Ron DeSantis argued that its authority to operate the detention center came from an agreement with the federal government delegating some immigration enforcement powers to Florida.

    In her ruling, Judge Williams said federal immigration enforcement is the “key driver” of the detention center’s construction. Because it is subject to federal funding, standards and direction, it is also subject to federal environmental laws, she concluded. 

    In making that determination, the judge wrote, the court will “‘adhere to the time-tested adage: If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and looks like a duck, then it’s a duck.’”



    Source link

  • Federal Judge Overturns Ban on DEI

    Federal Judge Overturns Ban on DEI


    A Trump-appointed judge overturned the Trump administration’s ban on policies of diversity, equity and inclusion in schools and colleges, according to Collin Binkley of the AP. Will her ruling stand?

    WASHINGTON (AP) – A federal judge on Thursday struck down two Trump administration actions aimed at eliminating diversity, equity and inclusion programs at the nation’s schools and universities.

    In her ruling, U.S. District Judge Stephanie Gallagher in Maryland found that the Education Department violated the law when it threatened to cut federal funding from educational institutions that continued with DEI initiatives.

    The guidance has been on hold since April when three federal judges blocked various portions of the Education Department’s anti-DEI measures.

    The ruling Thursday followed a motion for summary judgment from the American Federation of Teachers and the American Sociological Association, which challenged the government’s actions in a February lawsuit.

    The case centers on two Education Department memos ordering schools and universities to end all “race-based decision-making” or face penalties up to a total loss of federal funding. It’s part of a campaign to end practices the Trump administration frames as discrimination against white and Asian American students.

    The new ruling orders the department to scrap the guidance because it runs afoul of procedural requirements, though Gallagher wrote that she took no view on whether the policies were “good or bad, prudent or foolish, fair or unfair.”

    Gallagher, who was appointed by President Donald Trump, rejected the government’s argument that the memos simply served to remind schools that discrimination is illegal.

    “It initiated a sea change in how the Department of Education regulates educational practices and classroom conduct, causing millions of educators to reasonably fear that their lawful, and even beneficial, speech might cause them or their schools to be punished,” Gallagher wrote.

    Democracy Forward, a legal advocacy firm representing the plaintiffs, called it an important victory over the administration’s attack on DEI.

    “Threatening teachers and sowing chaos in schools throughout America is part of the administration’s war on education, and today the people won,” said Skye Perryman, the group’s president and CEO.

    The Education Department did not immediately comment on Thursday.

    The conflict started with a Feb. 14 memo declaring that any consideration of race in admissions, financial aid, hiring or other aspects of academic and student life would be considered a violation of federal civil rights law.

    The memo dramatically expanded the government’s interpretation of a 2023 Supreme Court decision barring colleges from considering race in admissions decisions. The government argued the ruling applied not only to admissions but across all of education, forbidding “race-based preferences” of any kind.

    “Educational institutions have toxically indoctrinated students with the false premise that the United States is built upon ‘systemic and structural racism’ and advanced discriminatory policies and practices,” wrote Craig Trainor, the acting assistant secretary of the department’s Office for Civil Rights.

    A further memo in April asked state education agencies to certify they were not using “illegal DEI practices.” Violators risked losing federal money and being prosecuted under the False Claims Act, it said.

    In total, the guidance amounted to a full-scale reframing of the government’s approach to civil rights in education. It took aim at policies that were created to address longstanding racial disparities, saying those practices were their own form of discrimination.

    The memos drew a wave of backlash from states and education groups that called it illegal government censorship.

    In its lawsuit, the American Federation of Teachers said the government was imposing “unclear and highly subjective” limits on schools across the country. It said teachers and professors had to “choose between chilling their constitutionally protected speech and association or risk losing federal funds and being subject to prosecution.”



    Source link

  • The nightmare after federal Covid funding ends 

    The nightmare after federal Covid funding ends 


    Photo: Alison Yin/EdSource

    School districts around the nation are facing a terrible financial problem.

    During the pandemic, they received billions in federal funding under the Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief fund (ESSER), which they are required to spend or commit by the fall of 2024. Meanwhile, many districts, especially ones in California, received massive increases in state funding. Recently, because of declining revenues, states are projecting deficits and education budget cuts. This means that districts, especially urban districts suffering from declining student enrollment, could be hit by the double whammy of the ESSER funding cliff and a state budget crisis.

    As I traveled the state visiting our urban districts, I listened to one budget presentation after another from finance officers talking about a post-ESSER Armageddon. In the last district I visited, I sat in a packed auditorium as the CFO showed how they’d spent their one-time money on ongoing costs and funded programs that couldn’t survive. As he droned on about all the horrible things that would happen, I drifted off to sleep.

    When I awoke, the auditorium was empty. I looked down at my watch and noticed it had stopped 28 days after the board presentation. I’d clearly been out for a while because my fingernails were long, and I’d grown a full beard. I’d been asleep until the Halloween day after the ESSER funding cliff. I assumed that I owed my life to the extra-large burrito I’d eaten before the board meeting. I walked out and entered the district offices, looking for signs of life. Everywhere I walked, there were overturned tables, candy wrappers and papers strewn about.  

    As I turned a corner, I noticed three people shambling toward me with the typical urgency of a central office manager. I was about to approach them when I realized they were zombies trying to eat me. Terrified, I ran to my car and drove away. Over the next few days, I visited schools and district offices that were filled with zombies. It was clear that something terrible had happened and that it was connected to the ESSER funding cliff, but I couldn’t fathom what.

    I knew there was only one place to find the answer — the state Fiscal Crisis and Management Assistance Team. When I walked through their doors, I was relieved to find that they were still human. From the haggard looks on their faces, it was clear that they’d been working nonstop on a cure. “What the hell happened?” I asked.

    A crisis team leader pointed to flow charts taped on a nearby wall. “We knew that the ESSER cliff would be bad and that a state budget crisis would make it worse. We also knew that some of our more financially irresponsible urban districts were already deathly ill. We were especially worried about the declining enrollment ones whose school boards made politically popular decisions to increase salaries with one-time money and wouldn’t make difficult decisions to lower costs, like closing small schools and cutting staff. What we didn’t expect was that the people in these zombie districts would actually turn into zombies,” he sighed.

    “Is there anything we can do to fix this?” I entreated. He shrugged and motioned me toward another room.

    “Ask him,” he said, pointing to a shadowy figure on the other side of a thick plexiglass wall. I looked closer and cried out, “Oh my God, that’s a zombie.”

    “I prefer the term ‘differently human’,” said the zombie, who introduced himself as a local teacher’s union president. I asked him how he would cure the situation so kids could get back to school. He said, “There’s nothing to cure. We showed during the pandemic and in places like Oakland afterward that we don’t need kids to have schools. All we need are teachers. Now, we are proving it. Of course, if anyone wants to come back, we’ll welcome them with open arms.”   

    “But zombies eat children.” I gasped.

    “Yes. There will be accidents, but the class sizes are delightful,” he said, smiling widely.  

    I left and again wandered the state, looking for anyone with a cure. Thinking that one of the state’s tech billionaires might be helpful, I traveled to in Silicon Valley to meet a famous one who’d focused on education and pleaded for his assistance. He listened for a few minutes and then cut me off. “Why would we help?” he said. “They did this to themselves with the tax money they took from us. Now, we have much less money which means they have less money.”

    “But what about the kids?” I asked. “They can’t learn in zombie districts.”

    “It’s just like New Orleans after Katrina,” he said. “Sometimes you have to destroy something that is bad before you can create something better.”

    I threw up my hands, wondering what could possess people to think in this destructive way. At my wits’ end, I made one last journey to visit the Oracle at Georgetown University. She was sitting in her office nursing a cup of tea. She offered me a cup and told me I could ask two questions.

    “Oh Great Oracle,” I said. “What could we have done to prevent this, and what can we do now?”

    “The answer is one and the same,” she said. “School districts and their communities knew what was coming. They should have had the courage to say no to spending short-term dollars on future costs that would require ongoing funding. They must make hard choices on people and schools that they don’t have enough money for. They must have state and local leaders who will encourage them to do so, and when possible, give them cover. And those political leaders must be willing to make these choices even at the expense of their careers, knowing that they are doing the right thing. That will cure this apocalypse and prevent the next one.” 

    I thanked the Oracle and pledged to share her wisdom, hoping that others would listen too.   

    •••

    Arun Ramanathan is the former CEO of Pivot Learning and the Education Trust—West. 

    The opinions expressed in this commentary represent those of the author. EdSource welcomes commentaries representing diverse points of view. If you would like to submit a commentary, please review our guidelines and contact us.





    Source link

  • Trump’s law reshapes federal loans and Pell Grants, impacting California students

    Trump’s law reshapes federal loans and Pell Grants, impacting California students


    UC Berkeley students stroll around campus near the landmark Sather Gate on April 19, 2017.

    Photos by Alison Yin for EdSource

    Top Takeaways
    • The law blocks graduate students from taking out new Grad PLUS loans and caps Parent PLUS loans starting in 2026.
    • To maintain access to federal student loans, academic programs must soon show alumni earn more than peers without the same degree. 
    • The law expands Pell Grants to short-term workforce training and nixes an earlier proposal that likely would have reduced aid to many Pell recipients.

    The domestic policy law signed by President Donald Trump will have major implications on how students in California and across the country pay for college, with analysts describing it as the most consequential federal higher education legislation in decades.

    The most significant changes will impact access to federal loans and borrower repayment plans. The law also amends Pell Grant eligibility standards, expands qualified expenses for 529 college savings accounts, and is expected to raise the endowment tax on a few private universities, including Stanford. 

    Republican lawmakers say their suite of higher education policies aims to make college more affordable and reel in student debt while broadening access to career and technical education. Critics warn the package’s financial aid measures will do just the opposite, making higher education more expensive for low- and moderate-income students.

    “This is the biggest set of changes to higher education policy in America since at least 1992,” said Robert Kelchen, a professor of higher education at the University of Tennessee, noting that the Higher Education Act hasn’t been reauthorized since 2008. “In this reconciliation bill, there are effectively pieces of legislation that congressional Republicans have been working on for years.”

    The Grad PLUS program will stop accepting new borrowers

    The federal Grad PLUS program, loans which make it possible for graduate students to borrow up to the cost of attendance minus other financial aid, will stop accepting borrowers this time next year. Current borrowers, however, will be grandfathered in and allowed to continue accessing those loans.

    Graduate students will still have access to direct unsubsidized federal loans, but the bill caps those at $50,000 per year for students in professional programs, such as those studying to become lawyers or doctors, and most other graduate degrees at $20,500 per year. 

    The changes will reduce access to graduate school, particularly for low-income students who don’t have other funding options, said Melanie Storey, president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, a nonprofit membership organization representing financial aid professionals at colleges across the country. “Very capable students who come from more modest backgrounds may be unwilling to pursue graduate or professional education.”

    Some of those students may borrow from private lenders, but those loans “won’t come with the same kinds of terms and conditions and protections that a federal loan has,” she added.

    The University of Southern California may be hit particularly hard by the loss of those PLUS loans. “They have so many graduate programs, and they have a lot of students who do not get financial aid,” Kelchen said.

    The Grad PLUS program disbursed about $2 billion to students at California colleges and universities in the 2023-24 school year, federal data shows.

    Lower caps on Parent PLUS loans will limit borrowing

    Under the federal Parent PLUS loan program, parents used to have the ability to borrow up to the total cost of a student’s college education. A new cap starting July 2026 will limit borrowers to $20,000 per year and a lifetime maximum of $65,000 per student. Supporters argue that borrowing limits will slow rising tuition. 

    Parent PLUS loans have been “the loans of last resort” for students whose parents don’t qualify for private loans because of their credit, Kelchen said, so reducing the borrowing limit may hit students with substantial financial need the hardest. A brief by the Education Trust characterized them as “a double-edged sword for Black borrowers” in particular, who tend to have fewer resources to pay for college due to long-standing inequities in wealth and income.

    Capping the Parent PLUS program will likely either “discourage students from attending college or limit their choices,” Storey said. 

    Institutions will need to get creative to ensure low-income and first-generation students can continue enrolling, said Emmanual Guillory, senior director of government relations at the American Council on Education. 

    “It’s hard to say that institutions will just find a way to make up the difference and will offer more institutional aid for low-income students to help them be able to cover the cost,” he said.

    Former students’ earnings will determine loan access

    The reconciliation bill puts postsecondary programs to a new test: In order to access federal student loans, alumni must earn more than peers who didn’t study for the same degree. 

    Congressional Republicans say the idea is to hold colleges and universities accountable for what alumni ultimately earn when they join the workforce. Loosely, for a given field of study, an undergraduate degree program can continue accessing federal loans if the median earnings of former students exceed the median earnings of high school graduates in the same state. Graduate programs maintain access to federal loans by comparing former students to similarly situated bachelor’s degree holders.

    “It’s a really significant step towards the kind of focus on educational outcomes that we have seen both Republicans and Democrats talk about in recent years,” said Clare McCann, policy director at the Postsecondary Education & Economics Research Center. But McCann said it’s problematic that the measure doesn’t apply a similar standard to undergraduate certificate programs. 

    An analysis by Preston Cooper, a senior fellow at the right-leaning American Enterprise Institute, found that many associate degree programs could lose access to student loans, although associate degree students may be less likely to finance their educations in the first place. 

    “The promise of a lot of these programs is that you shouldn’t have to borrow,” Cooper said. “I kind of think that if these programs do have earnings outcomes that are so low, we probably shouldn’t be giving students loans for those programs, because it’s very unlikely that they’ll be able to repay their loans in full.”

    SAVE, other repayment plans will close to new borrowers

    The repayment terms will also change, reducing the number of plan choices to just two: a standard repayment plan and the Repayment Assistance Plan, which ties payment size to the borrower’s income. Supporters argue that doing so simplifies the options available to borrowers while putting them on a path to repay loan balances in full. 

    Most existing income-driven plans will later close to new borrowers, including the popular Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE) plan, a Biden administration initiative aimed at lowering monthly payments. In California, about 600,000 borrowers are enrolled in the SAVE plan, according to the Student Borrower Protection Center.

    “For most borrowers, their payments will be drastically more expensive on a monthly and annual basis,” said Aissa Canchola Bañez, policy director of the Student Borrower Protection Center. 

    Loan deferments for economic hardship will be eliminated, and new limits will be placed on forbearance.

    Lawmakers nixed a Pell proposal that worried colleges

    The version of the reconciliation bill passed by the U.S. House of Representatives would have increased academic credit requirements per semester to be considered a part-time or full-time student under the Pell Grant program. That proposal sparked concern among officials at California State University and the University of California that tens of thousands of their students would receive less money from Pell — or would lose eligibility altogether because they don’t take enough classes each term. 

    The universities may now breathe a sigh of relief: The final law makes more incremental adjustments to Pell, such as making students who receive full scholarships from other sources ineligible for Pell.

    Students can use Pell for short-term workforce training

    Starting in July 2026, Pell Grant recipients will be able to spend their awards on educational programs that last more than eight but less than 15 weeks at accredited institutions. Supporters of extending Pell to shorter programs say doing so will make educational programs more accessible to adult students who are already in the workforce.

    Kelchen said workforce Pell Grants have gained traction among a broad spectrum of policymakers due to frustration regarding the value of a college degree. “The goal is, by trying to encourage short-term credentials, you get people in through [an educational program] fast and back out into the economy,” he said. 

    But some are skeptical about the return on investment of weeks-long credential programs. Wesley Whistle, a project director who monitors higher education policy at the left-leaning think tank New America, said student earnings after completing short-term certificate programs “aren’t good on average” and that even when they do boost earnings, the positive effect “tends to fade after a year or two.” Researchers with the Institute of Education Sciences reported similar findings.

    Families with 529 plans will have more spending options

    The law also makes several changes to 529 plans, investment accounts typically used to save money for college, in which earnings are tax-deferred and withdrawals for qualified educational expenses are tax-exempt. The new law, starting in 2026, adds items including tutoring, standardized testing fees and some educational therapies to the list of qualified expenses while students are in K-12. After high school, the law also allows funds to be used for some professional credentials, not just college. 

    Researchers at the Brookings Institution have found that 529 plans mainly benefit wealthy families while costing the federal government billions in tax revenue. “Low-income people don’t have enough money to be able to save in this way,” McCann said.

    In California, the state’s 529 plan — ScholarShare 529 — managed more than $15.6 billion in more than 439,000 accounts as of June 2024. 

    A few selective universities will see an endowment tax hike 

    Critics, including the American Council on Education, have also warned that another provision of the law — increasing the endowment tax at a relatively small number of private universities from 1.4% to as much as 8% — could indirectly reduce the institutional financial aid available to their students. However, proponents argue that elite colleges hoard wealth while charging students exorbitant tuition. Based on their current endowment-to-student ratios, Stanford University and the California Institute of Technology would likely be among the universities to see a tax increase, while the University of Southern California, with its much larger student body, would probably be exempt.





    Source link

  • Jan Resseger: Administration Cancels Federal Funding on Short Notice

    Jan Resseger: Administration Cancels Federal Funding on Short Notice


    Jan Resseger reports on an unprecedented stoppage in federal funding of Congressionally authorized school programs. School districts across the nation were informed on June 30 that the funding for five important programs would be withheld on July 1 pending further review. The administration really would like to terminate the programs but since they can’t do that under current law, they decided to withhold funding for undetermined reasons for an indeterminate length of time.

    She writes:

    Last week, this blog reported, “Chaos and Confusion at U.S. Department of Education May Threaten School Programming this Fall.”  This week the situation intensified.

    “The U.S. Department of Education told states in a three-sentence memo on Monday afternoon (June 30) that when federal funding for the next school year arrived July 1, as it typically does and is supposed to under federal law, funding for five key programs would not be there.”  Education Week‘s Mark Lieberman published that explanation on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, the day the federal funding failed to arrive.  Lieberman adds: “Those formula programs—worth $6.8 billion in total—are under review, the memo said, without specifying when the review would wrap up, what the review is aiming to determine, or whether the funds will go out once it’s finished.”

    The problem is that the funds aren’t merely late; the Trump administration is trying to cancel the programs altogether.  The NY Times‘ Sarah Mervosh and Michael Bender explain: “The administration has suggested that it may seek to eliminate the nearly $7 billion in frozen funding. Russell Vought, the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget, said during a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing last week that the administration was considering ways to claw back the funding through a process known as rescission. The administration would formally ask lawmakers to claw back a set of funds it has targeted for cuts. Even if Congress fails to vote on the request, the president’s timing would trigger a law that freezes the money until it ultimately expires. ‘No decision has been made,’ Mr. Vought said.”

    In an article published on Monday afternoon, right after states received the memo declaring that funding would not arrive as scheduled, Education Week‘s Lieberman provides some background: “(I)n an unsigned email message sent after 2 p.m. Monday… the Education Department informed states that the agency won’t be sending states any money tomorrow from the following programs:

    • “Title I-C for migrant education ($375 million),
    • “Title II-A for professional development ($2.2 billion),
    • “Title III-A for English-learner services ($890 million),
    • “Title IV-A for academic enrichment ($1.3 billion),
    • “Title IV-B for before-and after-school programs ($1.4 billion.).”

    Lieberman adds: “In a separate email sent (Monday) at 4:27 p.m., the department told congressional staffers that it’s holding back funds from all the programs listed above, as well as grants for adult basic and literacy education ($729 million nationwide). Questions about the changes, the letter says, must go to the Office of Management and Budget, not the Education Department.”

    The elimination of these programs had been proposed in the Trump administration’s formal FY 2026 budget proposal for next fiscal year—which, if passed by Congress, would fund public schools beginning in fall 2026. In proposing to cancel the programs this fall, the Trump administration is attempting to eliminate programs already promised under an FY 2025 continuing budget resolution. (To make things even more complicated, it’s important to remember that the “One Big Beautiful” bill is a tax and reconciliation bill and not, in fact, the current year’s FY 2025 federal budget—which remains unaddressed by Congress.)

    Last week Mark Lieberman clarified the schedule by which federal public school funding is supposed to be delivered: “The federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1, but for most education programs, half the upcoming year’s allocated funding flows to states each year on July 1. Congress still hasn’t agreed on a final budget for the current fiscal year, even though it’s almost over.  Instead, lawmakers in March approved a continuing resolution bill that broadly carries over funding levels from the previous fiscal year. That means states and schools have been expecting for months that funding levels for key federal programs would closely mirror last year’s numbers. Thousands of school districts and nearly 30 states have already locked in their own budgets for the upcoming fiscal year.”

    In his coverage on Monday, June 30, of the complex wrangling behind the holdup of funds for the current school year, Lieberman places responsibility not on Linda McMahon or staff at the Department of Education, but instead on Russell Vought, who was the co-author of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 and who now heads the Office for Management and Budget:

    “Lawsuits are likely to follow, as they have for similar funding changes the administration implemented earlier this year. Federal law prohibits the executive branch from withholding congressionally appropriated funds unless it gives federal lawmakers an opportunity to approve or reject the move within 45 days. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress, not the president, the power of the purse—but top administration official Russell Vought, whom Trump appointed to lead the Office of Management and Budget, has said he believes restrictions on impoundment are unconstitutional. On Capitol Hill last week, Vought said the administration hadn’t decided whether to ask Congress for permission to impound education funding.”

    Last week, the Washington Post‘s Jeff Stein, Hannah Natanson, Carolyn Johnson, and Dan Diamond predicted that Russell Vought will attempt to interfere with spending as the year continues: “Though billionaire Elon Musk’s U.S. DOGE Service drew significant attention for its speedy cuts, Russell Vought, Trump’s budget director, is expected to be key to the coming fight over spending. Vought has spearheaded the administration’s campaign to assert sweeping executive power over spending, arguing that the Impoundment Control Act, the law at issue now, is unconstitutional. The Trump administration has justified its cost-cutting measures by pointing out that the United States is $36 trillion in debt, although the type of funding that officials have targeted represents a small fraction of the overall budget.”

    Although costs for federally funded 21st Century Learning Center after-school programs, federally funded professional development programs for teachers, federally funded classes for English language learners in public schools, federally funded programs for the education of the children of migrant workers, and federally funded academic enrichment programs make up only a minute percentage of the federal budget, the abrupt obliteration of these programs will cause enormous disruption right now as public school leaders are getting crucial programming for their schools in place for fall. Public schools are incredibly complex institutions. In addition to providing special services for disabled students, school boards and school leaders patch together local, state, and federal dollars for programming to serve the specific needs of their students, which differ by region, by the income level of a school district’s families, by the primary languages of the families in their communities, and by enormous inequity in states’ investment in public education.

    Clearly Russell Vought neither understands nor cares how the programs he is is cutting will affect students. Clearly he fails to grasp how these cuts will interfere with hiring already underway for the upcoming school year or how the absence of these funding streams will undermine the stability of public school operations come September.

    On the other hand, say I, maybe Russell Vought knew exactly what it mean to freeze funds at the last minute. Maybe his intent was to sow chaos and disruption. Maybe he wanted to send a message to Congress: we can withhold funds Congress appropriated without regard to the law. Maybe he wanted to send a message to states and school districts: If the program is important to you, pay for it yourself. Stop expecting the federal government to send you money.



    Source link

  • Federal Appeals Court Restores Trump’s Control of Ca. National Guard

    Federal Appeals Court Restores Trump’s Control of Ca. National Guard


    Only hours after a federal district judge ordered Trump to return control of the California National Guard to Governor Gavin Newsom, a three judge federal appeals court blocked the lower court‘s order.

    The Orlando Sentinel reported:

    The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday temporarily blocked a federal judge’s order that directed President Donald Trump to return control of National Guard troops to California after he deployed them there following protests in Los Angeles over immigration raids.

    The court said it would hold a hearing on the matter on June 17. The ruling came only hours after a federal judge’s order was to take effect at noon Friday.

    Earlier Thursday, U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer ruled the Guard deployment was illegal and both violated the Tenth Amendment and exceeded Trump’s statutory authority. The order applied only to the National Guard troops and not Marines who were also deployed to the LA protests. The judge said he would not rule on the Marines because they were not out on the streets yet.

    California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who had asked the judge for an emergency stop to troops helping carry out immigration raids, had praised the earlier ruling.

    “Today was really about a test of democracy, and today we passed the test,” Newsom said in a news conference before the appeals court decision.

    The White House had called Breyer’s order “unprecedented” and said it “puts our brave federal officials in danger.”



    Source link