Daily Briefing

Good morning, and welcome to Wednesday, April 30. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Transitions. Get in touch: dailybriefing@chronicle.com.

An ugly fight brews

President Trump hopes Congress can overcome razor-thin Republican majorities by slashing spending, cutting taxes, and rewriting policies in one “big, beautiful bill.”

But when the House’s plan for higher ed arrived on Monday, it looked pretty ugly to many in higher education.

House Republicans’ sweeping proposals would drastically reshape higher ed. Here’s a primer on key elements of legislation the House Committee on Education and the Workforce advanced as it seeks to cut $330 billion toward Trump’s hoped-for megabill:

• Financial-aid caps: Students’ annual federal financial aid would max out at the previous year’s national median cost of attendance for their programs. New aggregate loan limits would cap borrowing at $50,000 for undergraduate programs, $100,000 for graduate programs, and $150,000 for professional programs.
• Pared-down loan programs: Grad PLUS loans would be eliminated. So too would be unsubsidized loans for undergraduates. Parent PLUS loans would survive, but only with an aggregate limit of $50,000. Federal student loans for part-time students would be prorated.
• Limited loan-repayment plans: Today’s dizzying options would be winnowed down to two new programs: One fixing monthly payments over a span of 10 to 25 years, the other setting payments between 1 percent and 10 percent of borrowers’ income.
• Pell Grant changes: Students would have to be enrolled for at least 15 semester hours per year to qualify for the need-based grants. Students enrolled in “short-term, high-quality, workforce aligned programs” would newly qualify. Billions would be added to the program to cover a looming shortfall.
• Skin in the game for colleges: Institutions would be required to reimburse the government for a percentage of new student loans disbursed after 2027 that aren’t repaid. That percentage would be based on an institution’s total price, graduates’ earnings, and completion rates.
• Performance-based funding for colleges: Money collected from the risk-sharing system above would fund a new PROMISE Grant awarding colleges up to $5,000 per student, based on a formula intended to reward high earnings outcomes, low tuition, and strong graduation rates for low-income students.
• Regulatory repeals: The bill seeks to kill the 90/10 rule, which requires for-profit institutions to draw at least 10 percent of their funding from non-federal sources. Also dead would be the gainful-employment rule, which holds some colleges accountable for the earnings of their graduates, and rules created by the Biden administration to forgive loans of students whose colleges closed or defrauded them. The Education Department wouldn’t be able to draft new student-loan regulations that cost the federal government money.

“It’s no secret that colleges have exploited the availability of uncapped federal lending and generous forgiveness programs to raise prices rather than improve access and affordability,” Tim Walberg, the committee’s chair, said in his opening remarks at a Tuesday markup session.

Poison pills abound for higher ed. The death of Grad PLUS alone might threaten to close some colleges. It will take time to map out all of the potential perverse incentives that stem from basing funding on metrics like earnings outcomes and loan-repayment rates. Here’s a sample of the early reactions:

• “Making these changes at all would turn the clock back for student access; making them now would result in chaos for both schools and students,” Beth Maglione, interim president and chief executive of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, said in a statement. “This bill would eliminate entire federal student aid programs, significantly reduce eligibility for others, strip protections and flexibilities for struggling borrowers, and remove provisions intended to protect taxpayer dollars.”
• “The proposal to create an institutional risk-sharing process is significantly problematic,” Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, wrote in a letter also signed by several other higher-ed associations. “The committee’s data show that in this risk-sharing proposal, 98 percent of institutions would have a risk-sharing payment and even accounting for PROMISE Grants, 75 percent of institutions would have an overall net loss. This will unduly penalize the very institutions serving the largest numbers of those students who struggle most in the labor market: low income, first generation, and underrepresented student populations.”

This is by no means the final product. To dodge a filibuster, the House and Senate will have to agree on specifics and pass the megabill — with provisions ranging far beyond higher ed — through a process known as reconciliation. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee has yet to release its plans, and the Senate wants to cut far less spending than the House. Some other key changes for colleges, such as increases to the endowment tax, are expected to come from other committees.

• “There’s still a lot of political gamesmanship going on,” one lobbyist told Inside Higher Ed.

The bigger questions: Can colleges lobby to beat back changes that would cause the most problems for students? Can they find anything to like, or at least compromise on? What would colleges cut to offset money lost if these proposals pass?

More federal news

• Trump targets undocumented students’ in-state tuition: An executive order signed Monday calls for the federal government to block laws that offer in-state college tuition to undocumented immigrants, if they don’t also offer in-state tuition to other out-of-state students. Some state lawmakers have already taken aim at this practice, with those in Florida this year repealing a decade-old law that had provided in-state tuition to undocumented immigrants who live in the Sunshine State. (The White House, Miami Herald)
• ERIC gets a lifeline: The U.S. Department of Education will keep operating the Education Resources Information Center, an open-access library whose future was uncertain amid steep federal cost cutting. ERIC’s budget has been halved from $5.5 million, meaning fewer papers will be added in the future. But officials promised not to remove articles unless publishers retract them. (The Hechinger Report)
• Johns Hopkins tries to backstop lost federal research grants: The private university announced new support programs for researchers whose federal grants have been terminated, delayed, or otherwise interrupted. They include short-term grants to help redirect research, money to sustain programs, and support for Ph.D. students whose dissertations have been upended by the federal changes. (The Johns Hopkins University)

📚 For more on federal policy from The Chronicle Review: Three Competing Visions Drive Trump’s Higher-Ed Policy

Civil-rights watch

• Harvard reports paint grim picture: Two internal task forces’ reports released on Tuesday describe a campus climate that was hostile for those of Jewish, Israeli, Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian descent as the war in Gaza stoked tensions and protests in 2023-24. President Alan M. Garber called the time “disappointing and painful” and said the university has been progressing toward recommended changes. But he didn’t address how the reports might affect Harvard’s fight to reclaim billions of dollars the federal government is withholding over allegations that Harvard has failed to adequately address campus antisemitism. (The Chronicle)
• AAUP rebukes Muhlenberg: The private college in Pennsylvania violated academic freedom and due process by dismissing Maura Finkelstein, a tenured associate professor and chair of its sociology and anthropology department, the faculty group concluded in a new report. Finkelstein was initially dismissed “solely because of one anti-Zionist repost on Instagram,” the AAUP found. In response to a draft of the report, Muhlenberg argued that Finkelstein’s social-media activity “negatively impacted students, faculty and staff at Muhlenberg College, including those of Jewish ancestry.” (AAUP)
• CAIR wants investigation in Nebraska: The Council on American-Islamic Relations wants the University of Nebraska at Lincoln to investigate after the institution’s student newspaper reported on a video that shows a teaching assistant insulting the Prophet Muhammad and stating that “the true god, Jesus, will let your people die.” The incident allegedly took place after a Students for Justice in Palestine event. The university is aware of the video and addressing it under its nondiscrimination policy, it said in a statement. (CAIR, The Daily Nebraskan)

Quick hits

• Florida State reopens student union: Leaders reopened the building on Monday, 11 days after it was the center of a mass shooting by a student that killed two adults and injured six students. “We can’t let hatred and an act of violence change the place that we have,” President Richard McCullough said during a ceremony. (WFSU)
• Top education lawyer dies: Michael Goldstein, a higher-ed lawyer and frequent Chronicle source, died on Saturday after a brief illness. At the time of his death, he was a managing director at Tyton Partners, though he’d previously spent years leading a law firm’s prominent higher-ed practice. His obituary credited him with contributing to regulatory reforms “that made telecommunicated and then online learning broadly available.” (Sagel Bloomfield Danzansky Goldberg Funeral Care)
• Conflict of interest at Michigan State? Sandy Pierce, a member of the university’s governing board, is also a board member for Barton Malow Company, a developer Michigan State selected to build a 6,000-seat arena at the heart of a mixed-use, multi-developer campus project. Pierce recused herself from a vote by Michigan State’s board that approved the project earlier this month, but she didn’t say why, according to the institution’s student newspaper. (The State News)

Transitions

• Jeanette Taylor, vice provost for academic affairs and a professor of psychology at the University of Georgia, has been named vice president for faculty development and advancement at Florida State University.
• James Bullock, dean of the School of Physical Sciences at the University of California at Irvine, has been named dean of the University of Southern California’s Dornsife College of Letters, Arts, and Sciences.
• Lisa Keegan, vice president for student enrollment, engagement, and success at Bucknell University, has been named vice provost for enrollment strategy at William & Mary.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com. You can also find Transitions online here.

Footnote

It’s been four months since, just in time for the holidays, the Footnote ran through some of “The Best Gifts for College Students, According to College Students” from New York Magazine. Now, for graduation season, let’s take a look at “30 Amazon Gifts for College Students They’ll Actually Want” from Town & Country.

Fancy water bottles appear on both lists. But the Hydro Flask has given way to an Owala FreeSip, proving once again that it’s best to check with your budding scholars about this fast-fashion retail segment. Nothing distracts from a late-night cram session like dowdy drinkware.

Both lists also contain iPads, AirPods wireless headphones, and Vera Bradley bags. Big spenders enjoy the luxury of not having to update their shopping lists.

Other high price points are where the new Town & Country list truly shines. A $170 alarm clock that doubles as a sound machine is surely the best way to inject a little opulence into clicking the snooze button as junior skips his 8 a.m. class. A $248 plush robe that comes only in cream and coffee colors will surely repel the hazards of dorm life, looking like new for … maybe even hours.