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Hello, I’m Karin Fischer, and I cover international education. Here’s the news I’m following this week:

Travel Restrictions Delay American Students’ Return

Travel restrictions and flight cancellations are hampering the ability of some American students studying overseas to return home. Although American colleges arranged for some evacuation flights, many students told The New York Times that they were essentially on their own, with spotty support from U.S. embassies abroad. Some colleges told students to return before the borders closed, even when infection rates were low. But others waited, and now commercial flights from many parts of the world are limited. Some students remained philosophical about the situation. “I don’t have to worry about paying for food,” a Barnard College student staying with a host family in Peru told the Times, “I have water to drink, I have Wi-Fi.”

One Conference Is Canceled, While Another Moves Online

One of the last holdouts of the spring academic-conference circuit, NAFSA: Association of International Educators announced last Thursday that it was canceling its annual meeting. The late-May conference typically draws thousands of attendees from around the globe. In a message to participants, Ravi Shankar, NAFSA’s president, said the organization would look for other ways to connect international educators in this challenging time. Meanwhile, the Scholars at Risk Network, which protects scholars and supports academic freedom worldwide, is moving its Global Congress online. The virtual sessions will be held this Thursday and Friday.

Standardized Tests Move Online

Educational Testing Services will make the Graduate Record Exam and the Toefl English-language assessment available online. The company said on Monday it would begin this week to permit at-home examinations proctored by a live remote proctor at scheduled times. Security will be in place to minimize cheating. The College Board also said it was developing an at-home version of Advanced Placement exams, which will be available for free and will focus on only the material covered before early March.

Higher-Ed Groups Ask for Delay of Foreign-Gifts Proposal

The American Council on Education and 32 other higher-education organizations are asking the U.S. Department of Education to delay a proposed information-collection request to colleges on foreign gifts and contracts. Although higher-ed groups have expressed concerns about the regulatory proposal, they said the request for a delay was based not on the merits but on institutions’ capacity to respond in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. “At a time when institutional resources already are stretched thin, colleges and universities should not be asked to divert precious resources away from more-critical efforts in order to implement regulations unrelated to this extraordinary crisis,” they wrote in a letter to Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.