Compiled by SUSAN JONES

Two lawsuits were filed against the Trump administration after the Education Department published a student debt forgiveness rule that critics say violates free speech and seeks to punish the president’s political opponents.

The rule amends the type of employers will qualify for the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Effective July 1, 2026, the department says the change will allow it to deny loan forgiveness to workers whose government or nonprofit employers engage in activities “specific enumerated illegal activities.” 

Such activities are defined by the Trump administration as supporting undocumented immigrants and promoting diversity and transgender advocacy,

The job of defining these “illegal activities” will fall to the education secretary. The plaintiffs fear that a city or county government’s resistance to the administration’s immigration actions or anti-DEI policies, could lead the secretary to exclude that government’s public workers from loan forgiveness. 

The suit filed by 22 Democratic attorneys general argues the rule violates the Administrative Procedure Act and exceeds the Education Department’s authority.

In the other suit, led by the National Council of Nonprofits — and joined by several city governments, immigrant rights organizations, legal aid nonprofits, unions, and the National Association of Social Workers — the plaintiffs charge the Trump administration with targeting “organizations and jurisdictions whose missions and policies do not align with its political positions on immigration, race, gender, free speech, and public protest.”

NOV. 6: A very limited number of degree programs would have access to the highest level of loans under a new set of regulations that the Department of Education and its negotiating committee signed off on, Inside Higher Education reported. The regulations, written in response to the loan caps of Congress’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, allow students in programs that qualify as professional to take out up to $200,000. Meanwhile, graduate students will only be able to take out up to $100,000.

NOV. 5: Billionaire Jeff Yass has committed $100 million to the University of Austin to eliminate tuition permanently for students attending the fledgling private institution founded in 2021 by critics of traditional higher education, EDU Ledger reported. Yass, co-founder of Pennsylvania-based trading firm Susquehanna International Group and a major proponent of private school vouchers, made his support contingent on one condition: the university must never accept government funding.

NOV. 4:

Several colleges at Michigan State University have paused admissions to graduate programs for the upcoming academic year in response to sweeping budget cuts the administration ordered over the summer, The State News reported. The halted enrollment adds to a growing list of tangible effects being felt on campus from the university’s mission to reduce its operating budget by 9% over the next two fiscal years — 6% for the current one, and 3% the following.

Members of the American Association of University Professors, the affiliated American Federation of Teachers and student groups are planning protests in more than 50 cities on Nov. 7 against “the Trump administration’s broad assault” on higher ed, the AAUP announced in a news release. The AAUP said demonstrators will urge institutions to continue rejecting Trump’s “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” and instead “commit to the freedom to teach, learn, research, and speak out without government coercion or censorship.”

Pittsburgh’s Point Park University announced a new scholarship aimed at students from Ohio public colleges where their programs have been eliminated or restructured due to budget cuts and Ohio Senate Bill 1. The Buckeye Fresh Start Scholarship offers merit awards ranging from $16,000 to $22,000 per year, plus an additional $5,000 annual scholarship for students transferring from Ohio institutions affected by program cuts.

NOV. 3:

University of Southern California Interim President Beong-Soo Kim said Monday that the institution is “on track” to eliminate its long-term deficit by the end of the fiscal year after issuing over 900 layoff notices since July. The most recent round of cuts, the first of which took effect Friday, included 259 employees,

The University of Pennsylvania says it has called in the FBI after offensive emails were distributed to alumni. In a statement, the university said that a data breach had affected “select information systems.” An email sent to alumni on Oct. 31 and reviewed by Reuters showed that someone masquerading as the university slammed the institution as being “elitist,” “woke,” and “completely unmeritocratic” and used other, cruder language to describe its staff and students.

OCT. 30:

In a reversal, Indiana University Bloomington Chancellor David Reingold will allow the Indiana Daily Student to resume print editions this semester. In a letter to the IDS editors, Reingold said he will allow the paper to use its budget through the end of the fiscal year as the editors see fit. He also called for a “reset” with the paper and asked to “affirm what unites us.” Indiana University’s is costing the institution: Alumni began pulling donations in protest after the schools decided to suspend the print publication of its student newspaper and fired the paper’s adviser, who refused to comply with administrators’ request to remove news coverage from a homecoming edition of the paper. The IndyStar reported that some alumni are asking what happened to donations they made to a fund dedicated to the student publication after the newspaper reported students faced hurdles to spending the money.

In a town hall last week, Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi said the university would not sign a compact with the federal government, although they have not been approached about it, the Centre Daily Times reported.

OCT. 29: Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis directed the governing board for the state’s public universities to “pull the plug” on hiring employees on H-1B visas — the system that allows thousands of foreign researchers and professionals with in-demand skill sets to work on American campuses, the Chronicle of Higher Education reported. “We need to make sure our citizens here in Florida are first in line for job opportunities,” DeSantis said at a news conference.

OCT. 28: Pennsylvania Western University plans to furlough more than a dozen employees at its California and Clarion campuses as it manages financial and enrollment strains, according to a union representing university employees, the Post-Gazette reported. Furloughs are slated to begin Nov. 16. PennWest leaders reportedly told AFSCME Council 13 that a projected budget deficit, increased personnel costs and enrollment declines brought on the decision. There are “no projections of recovery in enrollment,” university leaders wrote in a letter to AFSCME. This fall, enrollment fell 2.6% from last year, although gains were made in online and dual enrollment.

OCT. 27:

Billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott donated $38 million each to two HBCUs — Alabama State University and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore — over the past two weeks, marking the largest single gifts in both institutions’ histories, according to the EDU Ledger. Eight historically Black colleges and universities have received a total of $387 million in unrestricted donations from billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott since mid-October. On Nov. 2, Howard University, in Washington, D.C., revealed it had received an $80 million gift from Scott, with $17 million earmarked for its medical school. The following day, Spelman College, a women’s HBCU in Georgia, said Scott had donated $38 million.

New College of Florida has publicly volunteered to be the first institution to adopt the Trump administration’s higher education compact. The institution — which has undergone a right-wing transformation since 2023 at the direction of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis — said in a news release that it would “happily be the first” to formally embrace President Donald Trump’s vision for higher education.

OCT. 26: Texas Christian University will shutter its women and gender studies department and comparative race and ethnic studies department at the end of this academic year, folding both programs into the English department in a move faculty members say reflects the institution’s response to political pressure. TCU officials cited low enrollment as the primary rationale, though faculty members say the timing suggests otherwise, the EDU Ledger reported.

OCT. 23: Nearly three dozen higher education organizations are urging U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem to exempt colleges from the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visa petitions, arguing in a letter that these employees do work “crucial to the U.S. economy.” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, said in the letter that colleges’ H-1B workers educate domestic students for “high-demand occupations, conduct essential research, provide critical patient care, and support the core infrastructure of our universities.” 

OCT. 17: Lewis & Clark College, a small private school in Portland, Ore., is joining a short list of higher education institutions in the U.S. that have chosen to move endowment investments away from companies that manufacture weapons. The college’s board of trustees approved amendments to its environmental, social and governance investment policy. Notable among the changes is a provision explicitly stating the college “shall not directly own any securities publicly issued by weapons manufacturers.” The new policy also requires a yearly, public disclosure of the college’s endowment holdings. Although the modified policy does address investments in weapons companies, it intentionally avoids mention of specific countries and the war in Gaza. 

Susan Jones is editor of the University Times. Reach her at suejones@pitt.edu or 724-244-4042.

 

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