Education news and discussion

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Harvard plans to borrow $750 million after federal funding threats

Source: Reuters

April 8, 2025 12:53 AM EDT Updated 11 hours ago

WASHINGTON, April 7 (Reuters) - Harvard University plans to borrow $750 million from Wall Street as part of contingency preparations, it said on Monday, days after President Donald Trump's administration announced a review of $9 billion in federal grants and contracts to the Ivy League school in a crackdown on alleged antisemitism on campuses.

In a letter to Harvard last week, the government listed conditions that Harvard must meet to receive federal money, including a ban on protesters wearing masks to hide their identities and other restrictions. Harvard acknowledged receiving the letter but did not comment further. "As part of ongoing contingency planning for a range of financial circumstances, Harvard is evaluating resources needed to advance its academic and research priorities," Harvard University said in Monday's statement.

Harvard's plans come less than a week after Princeton University said in a notice dated April 1 that it was also considering the sale of about $320 million of taxable bonds later this month. Princeton said last week the U.S. government froze several dozen research grants to the school. Harvard intends to issue up to $750 million of taxable bonds for "general corporate purposes," a spokesperson said. The university had $7.1 billion of debt outstanding at the end of fiscal year 2024, and anticipated about $8.2 billion after the proposed bond issuance.

The university most recently issued $434 million in tax-exempt bonds in March 2025 and $735 million in tax-exempt bonds in spring 2024, its spokesperson said, adding it also issued bonds in 2022. Harvard has a $53 billion endowment, the largest of any U.S. university. Advocates, students and several faculty members have called on university leadership to resist the demands from the Trump administration.

Read more: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/harvar ... 025-04-07/

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Schools push back on directive banning DEI, seek clarity before complying

https://san.com/cc/schools-push-back-on ... complying/

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Harvard Says It Will Not Comply With Trump Administration's Demands

Source: New York Times

April 14, 2025, 2:14 p.m. ET

Harvard University said on Monday that it had rejected policy changes requested by the Trump administration that would have placed “unprecedented” demands on the institution, setting up a showdown between the administration and the nation’s wealthiest university.

A letter to Harvard from the Trump administration on Friday demanded that the university reduce the power of students and faculty members over the university’s affairs; report foreign students who commit conduct violations immediately to federal authorities; and bring in an outside party to ensure that each academic department is “viewpoint diverse,” among other steps.

“No government — regardless of which party is in power — should dictate what private universities can teach, whom they can admit and hire, and which areas of study and inquiry they can pursue,” said Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a statement to the university on Monday.

Lawyers for Harvard said in response to the administration’s letter that the university “is not prepared to agree to demands that go beyond the lawful authority of this or any administration.”

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/04/14/us/h ... mands.html

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Trump lobs new threat against Harvard one day after it defied his demands

https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/politics ... r-AA1CYdqN

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Some Universities Are Done Playing Defense Alone—They’re Building an Army
by Dr. Julian Vasquez Heilig
April 14, 2025

Introduction:

(Cloaking Inequality) A quiet revolution is taking place in higher education—but not in classrooms or laboratories. It’s happening in Faculty Senates, university councils, and academic governance bodies across the country. These groups are sounding the alarm and organizing in response to the escalating political incursions into academic life. From ideological censorship to budgetary threats, state and federal actors are increasingly targeting public universities—especially those committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Now, faculty and institutional leaders are responding with something both pragmatic and profound: Mutual Academic Defense Compacts.

At the University of Massachusetts Amherst, Rutgers University, and Indiana University Bloomington, faculty bodies have passed resolutions to establish such compacts within their respective higher education networks. The central idea is simple: an attack on one institution should be treated as an attack on all. These alliances call for the pooling of resources—legal, financial, and strategic—to defend against politically motivated incursions. They represent a fundamental shift in how universities engage with authoritarian threats: no longer as isolated victims, but as coordinated defenders of academic freedom and democratic governance.

While faculty have long been vocal about threats to academic freedom, these compacts mark a turning point in how universities respond. Rather than issuing individual statements or hoping that controversy will pass, or trying to hide (I know a university nearby using this approach), faculty are now taking collective action. These mutual defense compacts are more than symbolic gestures; they represent the infrastructure of resistance. They aim to ensure that when universities are politically targeted—whether over curriculum, hiring practices, or research agendas—they can respond rapidly, forcefully, and in solidarity.

This is not just a movement. It’s a mobilization. The compacts emerging from Rutgers, Indiana, and UMass represent the early contours of a broader national strategy to defend higher education from authoritarian encroachment. And the time for action is now. As political attacks on academic institutions intensify, the preservation of public higher education as a space for critical thought, innovation, and truth-telling depends on how boldly and collectively we respond.

Read more here: https://cloakinginequity.com/2025/04/1 ... -defense/

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Indiana Republicans take aim at public universities

Source: Axios

Republican lawmakers dismantled several key tenets of the public higher education system, including tenure, with language slipped into the state budget bill at the last minute.

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State of play: Provisions eroding tenure and shared governance — the concept by which governing boards, administrators and faculty members share responsibility for decision-making at higher education institutions — were added to the 215-page bill 24 hours before it was set to be voted on by the Indiana General Assembly.

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The latest: The budget bill passed the House, 66-27, and the Senate, 39-11, a little after midnight.

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"All we've heard is that there was a group of people, who no one can remember their names, that met behind closed doors and decided they're going to tear apart one of the greatest universities in the country," said Rep. Ryan Dvorak, D-South Bend. "I think that's unacceptable."

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Read more: https://www.axios.com/local/indianapoli ... governance

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Trump Administration Disqualifies Harvard From Future Research Grants

Source: New York Times

A letter from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, said university leaders must demonstrate more responsible management before receiving additional federal grants.

The Trump administration on Monday sought to force Harvard University back to the negotiating table by informing the nation’s oldest and wealthiest college that it would not be eligible for any new federal grants.

That decision was relayed in a contentious letter to Alan M. Garber, the president of Harvard, from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, who blasted the school for “disastrous mismanagement.”

“This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” Ms. McMahon wrote in the letter.

It was the first significant response from the administration since Harvard sued to challenge the government’s decision to cut billions of dollars in research funding after the university defied demands for intrusive oversight.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/05/us/p ... =url-share

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The Real World Costs of Eliminating Head Start
by Stephanie Schmit
May 1, 2025

Introduction:

(Other Words) All of us want our kids to get a fair start in life. And for millions of American families, that start has come from the federal Head Start program.

But unfortunately, President Trump has frozen Head Start funds, laid off many federal Head Start employees, and closed numerous regional Head Start offices across the country. Now a leaked draft of the president’s budget proposes eliminating Head Start altogether.

This would be a catastrophic decision for children, families, Head Start workers, and the entire economy. Since its founding 60 years ago, Head Start has provided early education and comprehensive services for whole families and employed millions of teachers and staff.

The program was founded as part of the War on Poverty and has made life better for countless children and expecting parents from low-income families suffering from poverty and discrimination.

Head Start “was a cornerstone for my education, especially since I didn’t speak English when I started school,” one former participant told us. “My bilingual teachers highlighted the significance of education. Their examples left a lasting impact, motivating me to continue my studies.”

Read more here: https://otherwords.org/the-real-world- ... d-start/

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Attacks on Higher Education and the New Illiberal Electorate
by Michael B. Harris-Peyton
May 6, 2025

Introduction:

(Liberal Currents) The political truism that conservatives hate education because educated people don’t fall for conservative politics is—like “orange man bad” and “it’s all vibes”—startlingly accurate.

The right-wing destruction of American higher education institutions is a strategic move. In just the last month alone, several graduate students have been extralegally detained for the crime of having opinions and several of the nation’s most elite universities have lost or risk losing federal funding over essentially imaginary offences that, again, amount to the crime of having an opinion. While Harvard may have called this administration’s bluff for now, other schools have neither the resources nor the administrative backbone to do the same—though 150 seem inclined to try. The dismantling of the Department of Education, which cannot actually be dismantled without an act of Congress, is occurring via a process familiar to the average university faculty member: “it’s not that you’re fired legally, it’s that we’re paying you less and your working conditions are getting worse.”

The explanation in left and centrist circles is the generally correct but very shallow notion that, without these institutions, the American voter will somehow be less well-informed and easier to manipulate. Voters without college educations are markedly more conservative. College is frequently the place young people first become politically engaged.

The problem is that most of these explanations skip past the mechanical processes—the how—of this attack on education and papers over the length of this attack: as any employee of a higher education institution can attest, this isn’t new, it’s just an escalation.

Understanding this matters because any path to a liberal American Reconstruction runs through higher education, and any sustained future liberal democratic society depends on the creation of liberal, democratic citizens. Higher education, along with other civil society institutions like unions, municipal governments, hobby organizations, and third spaces, are where liberal democratic citizens are made. Attacking the processes for citizen-creation is a deliberate strategy for destroying the concept of civic life, and thus reducing people from citizens to employees and expendable bodies.

Read more here: https://www.liberalcurrents.com/attack ... ctorate/

(This article is a little longer (a "13 minute read") than the typical article that I cite, but the longer read is well worthwhile if the topic interests you).

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Judge blocks Trump administration from attempting to dismantle Department of Education

https://abcnews.go.com/US/judge-blocks- ... =122078365

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This is fucking dumb. I'd say what he is doing is borderline treason.

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Donald Trump Freezes All New Student Visa Interviews: Report

Last edited Tue May 27, 2025, 11:42 AM - Edit history (1)

Source: Newsweek

Published May 27, 2025 at 12:24 PM EDT | Updated May 27, 2025 at 1:22 PM EDT

The Trump administration has ordered a freeze on all new student visa interviews at U.S. embassies and consulates, as it weighs a plan to require foreign applicants to undergo social media vetting, according to a State Department cable obtained by Politico. The cable, dated Tuesday and signed by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, outlines the forthcoming shift in vetting procedures. The news outlet also reported Tuesday that the Trump administration is considering a policy that would require all foreign students applying to study in the United States to undergo social media screening. Newsweek has reached out to the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) via email for comment.

Why It Matters

Pausing the visa category, which saw over 400,000 issuances in fiscal year 2024, would mark a shift in the Trump administration's efforts to limit immigration, dramatically slow down the process for international students, and potentially cut off more funding to institutions that welcome them.

What To Know

"Effective immediately, in preparation for an expansion of required social media screening and vetting, consular sections should not add any additional student or exchange visitor (F, M, and J) visa appointment capacity until further guidance is issued septel, which we anticipate in the coming days," the cable seen by Politico stated. Septel is shorthand for "separate telegram." The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) began planning increased screening of immigrants' social media accounts in early March, stating that it would increase national security.

People applying for permanent residency (green cards) or citizenship from within the U.S. were already required to provide social media account information, but expanding the program to those planning to immigrate to the U.S. was aimed at around 2.5 million yearly immigrants. The State Department's involvement in the process occurs at the embassy or consular level, where its staff determines eligibility for visas during interviews.

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/donald-trump-f ... rt-2077588