Trump Administration Diverted Student Aid to Accreditors Unlikely to Ever Serve a Federal Purpose The U.S. Department of Education gave out millions of dollars in grant funding to aspiring accreditors.

My latest for @newamerica.org: The Trump administration rerouted tens of millions of dollars that Congress set aside for student-support grants, including food and housing aid, to aspiring college accreditors—most of which are unlikely to serve a federal purpose.
www.newamerica.org/education-po...

This was such a good panel, am eager for the recording bc I could only make the 1st half. Highly encourage others to listen when it’s ready!

Cosmetology Without Accountability: Failures of a Beauty School Accreditor Accreditation is a system built to protect students and taxpayers, but NACCAS has turned it into a shield for failing beauty schools.

My latest for @educationwork.newamerica.org: My investigation with @antoinetteflores.bsky.social into how NACCAS, a beauty school accreditor, allows colleges with violations to keep accessing federal aid. Many fail to disclose sanctions to students.
🔗 www.newamerica.org/education-po...

Heightened Cash Monitoring Weaponized: Failing Schools Skirt Scrutiny, Harvard Takes the Blow The Trump Administration is twisting a longstanding oversight tool for political gain.

Trump's ED Department has punished Harvard with heightened cash monitoring, an oversight tool for financially shaky colleges.

But as ED squeezes Harvard, it’s letting unstable colleges slide off HCM—leaving students & taxpayers unprotected:

My latest: www.newamerica.org/education-po...

I went to my first SHEEO policy conference last week!

A highlight was presenting New America’s work on cosmetology schools, which shows many students earn less than high school grads, while industry lobbying keeps licensure strict and stifles new pathways.

Read 👉 www.newamerica.org/education-po...

DHS Launches ‘Defend the Homeland’ Nationwide to Recruit Patriots to Join ICE Law Enforcement And Remove Worst of the Worst from U.S.  | Homeland Security Murderers, rapists, terrorists, and child pedophiles—ICE is recruiting patriotic, brave Americans to remove these criminal illegal aliens from America’s streets

In an unsurprising display of hypocrisy, the Trump administration, which has been deeply critical of student loan forgiveness, is now offering to forgive student loans. As incentive to join ICE. www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07...

Ohio Takes Action to Protect Students by Placing Guardrails on Online Program Managers On June 30, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed into law House Bill 96, a bill that included a provision to regulate the use of online program managers

Ohio just cracked down on online program managers, or OPMs, shadowy third-party recruiters and program builders. Guardrails like the ones Ohio instituted can help stop abuses.

A great breakdown from the Century Foundation: tcf.org/content/comm...

Today, I’m helping break down how the Big Beautiful Bill affects higher education finance and students’ ability to afford college. Join us today at 3 ET virtually ⤵️

Just because you wrote it down does not make it so. www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...

Ousted from Opportunity: Eviction's Adverse Impact on Parenting College Students New America partnered with the Eviction Lab to understand how eviction affects parents who are attending college while caring for children—and found it likely leads to severe negative consequences.

🧵1/n
🚨New publication alert!

We just published a brief on what happens to parenting students' chances of success in college when they are threatened with eviction. The results are devastating. I have never cried when writing up research before. I did this time.

www.newamerica.org/education-po...

The Trump Administration Is Wielding Accreditation as Political Weapon Against Columbia University The administration's actions threaten the entire integrity of the accreditor system, which is supposed to be insulated from political pressures.

Two big takeaways from my new piece today.

One, the Trump administration is trying to strong-arm an accreditor into doing its political bidding. Two, Columbia’s accredition isn’t in real jeopardy if the proper processes are followed. www.newamerica.org/education-po...

Trump’s Bureaucratic Purge Renders GOP’s College Foreign Gift Bill Unenforceable The U.S. Department of Education, whose staff has been cut by about half, would need to enforce the legislation.

Mind you, a GOP priority (allegedly?) is rooting out foreign influence in American colleges, and donations from Qatar have come under scrutiny before. But Republicans are fine Qatari officials just giving the president a $400M+ plane, I guess.

www.newamerica.org/education-po...

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 ‘plagiarized’ small portions of his senior thesis, experts say. But how serious is it? A review of the senior thesis of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ’03 by The Daily Princetonian, in consultation with three plagiarism experts, found eight instances of uncredited material, sham paraphr...

Princeton University’s student newspaper is reporting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plagiarized portions of his senior thesis. www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025...

It wanted Harvard to hire an auditor who would identity the departments that lacked viewpoint diversity. And if they did then they needed to “be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty,” the administration said.

The Trump administration definitely wants to see more conservative voices in academe. One of the conditions it tried to impose on Harvard was “viewpoint diversity” in its hiring. www.harvard.edu/research-fun...

The new guidance simplifies this process. Now, if the Department of Education doesn’t respond within 30 days, the switch is automatically approved—even sometimes for colleges facing sanctions like probation.

Under the Higher Education Act, colleges must show “reasonable cause” to change accreditors. Previously, this meant providing detailed documentation to prevent institutions from dodging oversight.

The Trump administration has issued new guidance that significantly eases the process for colleges to switch accreditors. This move could allow institutions under scrutiny to evade accountability and continue receiving federal aid.

Trump's Accreditation Guidance Sidesteps Core Higher Ed Safeguards New Education Department policies may disadvantage students and taxpayers by inviting fraudsters into the accreditation system.

Your Friday reading, besides the Fetterman profile, is this explanation of Trump’s accreditation policies from me and @wesleywhistle.bsky.social. www.newamerica.org/education-po...

Thanks, Goldie!!

Meet the Would-Be Accreditors Tied to Predatory For-Profit Colleges The Trump administration is laying the groundwork for potentially exploitative accreditors to enter the federal financial aid system.

A few new accreditors want federal recognition.
Their leaders are tied to predatory for-profit colleges, some of which defrauded students. My latest: www.newamerica.org/education-po...

🚨 How are DOGE cuts impacting your community? Under Musk's leadership, DOGE has implemented sweeping reductions in grants, contracts, and leases. Here’s a new tool I built that identifies grant and lease terminations by congressional district.

This is excellent work.

Trump’s Bureaucratic Purge Renders GOP’s College Foreign Gift Bill Unenforceable The U.S. Department of Education, whose staff has been cut by about half, would need to enforce the legislation.

The president's mass layoffs strategy is backfiring—and sabotaging the priorities of his own party.

↘️ Here, our investigator @jbeowulf.bsky.social explains how this "government paralysis" will make implementing new legislation "likely impossible."

Tufts has issued a statement saying the graduate student who ICE agents abducted last month did not have a record that would warrant her arrest, and that a pro-Palestine essay she wrote did not violate university policy.

www.tufts.edu/president/sp...

Nearly Half of Princeton U.’s Federal Funding Has Reportedly Been Frozen by the Trump Administration The university appears to be the next target in a campaign to go after higher education for allegedly failing to suppress campus antisemitism.

Trump's Education Department has reportedly frozen half of Princeton's federal funding after its president wrote a public essay criticizing the administration's attack on higher education. This is government retaliation, pure and simple. From @chronicle.com: www.chronicle.com/article/near...

Now, more than three years into his tenure, internal records and interviews with more than a dozen professors and administrators raise questions about whether Ladapo is meeting UF’s expectations. Ladapo’s work calendar shows monthslong stretches with little or no activity. Instead of attaining grants and conducting research, he spent his first year revising manuscripts and writing his memoir, “Transcend Fear,” which details his skepticism of vaccines. He also promised to bring hundreds of thousands in research dollars from the University of California at Los Angeles, his previous employer. That never happened. He blamed his former boss, claiming she withheld the funds over disagreements about COVID-19 policies. A review of internal reports and public directories indicate Ladapo hasn't secured any research grants for UF. His classroom contributions are similarly sparse. Ladapo agreed to dedicate 20% of his time to teaching; so far, that’s amounted to a handful of seminars and guest lectures. A proposed course on “critical evaluation of scientific evidence” has yet to materialize.

So @garrettshanley.bsky.social, the Univ of Florida student journalist who broke the Ben Sasse scandal wide open, has another banger today about Florida's surgeon general, who has almost nothing to show for his six-figure, second job as a tenured prof at UF

www.alligator.org/article/2025...

Colleges twist in the wind with foreign gift requirements in limbo Higher education is struggling to understand its current legal requirements, even as Congress debates changes to those laws.

Also worth noting that even the Education Department and Congress are still trying to understand Section 117. No one even really knew it existed until Trump’s first term, when the Education Department essentially weaponized it. I did a big piece on it in 2022 ⤵️ www.highereddive.com/news/college...

Essentially Republicans have passed a messaging bill, because there’s zero chance Section 117 can be enforced as is, let alone the new requirements the GOP is pushing for.

Trump hasn’t axed the specific team that enforces and monitors Section 117. But he has gotten rid almost all staff in the department’s legal office, who had necessary security clearances to answer questions from other federal agencies about Section 117.