Compiled by SUSAN JONES

The Trump administration and Secretary of Education Linda McMahon are moving ahead to slice up the Department of Education by transferring management of six programs to other federal agencies. One of the early announced goals of the administration was to eventually close the department and give states more control over education funding decisions.

The moves include:

• TRIO and numerous other higher education programs, including grants that support student success, historically Black colleges and universities, and other minority-serving institutions, to the Labor Department as part of a broader effort to dismantle the agency and “streamline its bureaucracy.”

• nternational education, foreign language studies programs and Fulbright-Hays grants to the U.S. Department of State.

• Indian Education and programs for tribal colleges to the Interior Department.

Several of the offices that have overseen these grant programs were gutted in recent rounds of layoffs, but any staff members who are still managing them will transfer to their respective receiving agencies. 

NOV. 17:

• One week after President Donald Trump contradicted his own policies by stressing how important international students are to sustaining university finances, there’s new evidence that his administration’s crackdown on visas and immigration is hurting international student enrollment and the American economy. While overall international student enrollment has declined only 1 percent since fall 2024, new enrollment has declined 17 percent, according to fall 2025 snapshot data in the annual Open Doors report, published by the Institute for International Education. The 825 U.S.-based higher learning institutions that responded to the fall snapshot survey host more than half of all international students in the country.

• The State Department is proposing to suspend 38 universities including Harvard and Yale from a federal research partnership program because they engage in diversity, equity and inclusion hiring practices, according to an internal memo and spreadsheet obtained by the Guardian. The memo recommends excluding institutions from the Diplomacy Lab – a program that pairs university researchers with state department policy offices – if they “openly engage in DEI hiring practices” or set DEI objectives for candidate pools.

NOV. 13:

• Texas A&M University System regents will require professors to receive approval from the school president to discuss some race and gender topics, tightening rules months after a viral video of a student confronting an instructor over her lessons threw the flagship campus into upheaval. The new policy will apply to all 12 schools within the system, including at Texas A&M, one of the largest universities in the country. The new policy states that no academic course “will advocate race or gender ideology, or topics related to sexual orientation or gender identity” unless approved in advance by a campus president.

• Johns Hopkins University announced it will now be tuition-free for all undergraduate students from families earning up to $200,000 a year. Students from families earning up to $100,000 will receive additional aid to cover tuition, fees, and living expenses, allowing them to attend Hopkins with a $0 parent contribution.

NOV. 11:

• Total postsecondary enrollment increased 2 percent this fall compared to the previous year, with undergraduate enrollment rising 2.4 percent across all sectors, according to preliminary data by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Community colleges posted the strongest gains among undergraduate institutions, with enrollment climbing 4 percent. Public four-year institutions saw a 1.9 percent increase, while private nonprofit four-year colleges grew 0.9 percent. The biggest gains came from students studying for short-term credentials, whose ranks increased 6.6 percent, while the number of students enrolled in associate and bachelor’s degree programs rose 3.1 percent and 1.2 percent, respectively. Graduate enrollment remained largely flat, edging up just 0.1 percent from fall 2024.

• For the first time since 2020, average tuition and fees at public colleges and universities increased faster than the general inflation rate, according to the College Board's annual "Trends in College Pricing and Student Aid" report. The average 2025-26 tuition and fees at public two-year and public four-year institutions rose just above the 2.6% inflation rate, ending a four-year streak of below-inflation increases between 2021-22 and 2024-25. Average published 2025-26 tuition and fees for in-state students at public four-year coleges is $11,950 (up $340 or 2.9%), and $45,000 for private nonprofit four-year students (up $1,750 or 4.0%), all before adjusting for inflation.

NOV. 10:

• The Education Department announced its priorities for the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) program, reinforcing its focus on accreditation reform, artificial intelligence, civil discourse and short-term training programs. Each administration can set its own priorities within the criteria outlined in the statute created by Congress in 1972, to determine how it will allocate FIPSE awards with each new competition. The latest competition includes four categories, one for each priority, with award amounts ranging from $7 million to $60 million.

• University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s chancellor on Monday unveiled a final budget recommendation that would cut four academic programs at the university, two fewer than he originally proposed in September. However, Chancellor Rodney Bennett’s new plan would eliminate two programs that a university committee voted to recommend keeping. The program cuts would trim $6.7 million from UNL’s budget, mainly through doing away with roughly four dozen full-time equivalent jobs.

NOV. 7:

• A federal judge ordered the Trump administration to stop its “coercive” threats against the University of California system, effectively stymieing the government’s efforts — at least for now — to wrest a $1.2-billion settlement from the University of California at Los Angeles and to deny its researchers millions of dollars in federal research support, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

• The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill made clear that it won’t sign the federal “Compact for Academic Excellence in Higher Education” that has been extended to all institutions after seven of the original nine universities invited rejected the offer, WRAL reported. 

• Cornell University has reached a deal with the Trump administration to pay the government a $30 million settlement — and invest another $30 million in agricultural research — in exchange for having its frozen federal research funding restored. The agreement makes Cornell the latest institution to strike a deal with the federal government in an effort to settle investigations into alleged civil rights violations. U.S. Secretary of Education Linda McMahon cast the deal as an example of colleges “refocusing their attention on merit, rigor, and truth seeking — not ideology.”

• Facing budget shortfalls due to state cuts, uncertainty over federal support and increasingly acute student needs, the University of California said that it would seek a nearly $130 million zero-interest loan from the state, according to the Los Angeles Times. UC's top finance manager made the emergency request in a letter to the state Department of Finance, asking for fast-tracked approval from lawmakers so the loan could be used during the current fiscal year.

NOV. 6: Faculty at all Florida public universities must now make syllabi, as well as a list of required or recommended textbooks and instructional materials for each class, available online and searchable for students and the general public for five years. The new policy is part of an amendment to the Florida Board of Governors’ regulation on “Textbook and Instructional Materials Affordability and Transparency,” and it passed unanimously without discussion at a board meeting, Inside Higher Education reported.

OCT. 29: Western Kentucky University directed its Society of Black Alumni either dissolve the organization or remove “black” from its name, mission statement and scholarship recipient preferences if it wanted to remain operationally supported by the university, prompting the organization to cut ties with the university.

OCT. 27: The University of California system eliminated the systemwide Department of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, and replaced it with a new Office of Culture and Inclusive Excellence. UC officials did not clarify why the change was being made, but the university system has for months faced scrutiny from the Trump administration. The White House has proposed an agreement to resolve civil-rights concerns that would levy a $1-billion fine on the University of California at Los Angeles and require a number of DEI-related changes. The UC system’s president, James Milliken, has called the proposed fine a “threat” to all 10 UC campuses.

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

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