Welcome back for another edition of The First 100 Days, Inside Higher Ed’s weekly roundup of news from the Hill to the Oval Office. I’m your host, Katherine Knott, the news editor.
It’s Day 81. This week, we got more insights into just how far the Trump administration’s crackdown on international students reaches. Last week, we reported that the administration was quietly revoking students’ visas without telling colleges. And as more college officials started checking the Student Exchange and Visitor Information System, we learned about more revocations. As of Friday morning, 795 students have lost their visas. That number represents the ones that have been reported publicly and is certainly an undercount. We expect it to grow in the coming weeks.
We’re collecting the data on the number of international students who have been affected here and mapping the colleges, so bookmark that link.
In Other News: Northwestern and Cornell joined the growing list of colleges that have had their federal research funding frozen. And the Trump administration continues to put pressure on Columbia, freezing all of its NIH funding and then threatening to put the university under a consent decree. Of course, the administration isn’t explaining why it’s going after Northwestern and Cornell, what grants it is freezing or what legal authority it is using.
And I know we’ve talked a lot about the administration’s actions against four-year colleges in this newsletter, but community colleges haven’t been spared. Our Sara Weissman checked in with several community college leaders who have dealt with their own grant cuts and had to curb some DEI programming.
On Tap for Next Week:
- Congress finally adopted a budget blueprint for reconciliation, committing to $1.5 trillion in cuts. Agreeing to the blueprint is the first step.Now lawmakers need to figure out where to make up the money . The House resolution called for $330 billion to be clawed back from higher ed programs while the Senate resolution (which was agreed to) calls for at least $1 billion.
- A federal judge also might approve the settlement in House v. NCAA. The judge called it a “good settlement” earlier this week, but said she wanted to see some changes to caps on how many athletes can play in a certain sport and how future students are affected by the deal.
- And in D.C., speculation is rife that President Trump might sign an executive order about accreditation. Like we did for the executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, we’re all just waiting for it to drop.
So, that’s the latest from Week 12. I hope you are all hanging on tight in the whirlwind news cycle. With everything going on, what are the biggest questions or concerns that you have? Anything we aren’t covering enough? Let me know at katherine.knott@insidehighered.com.
As always, if news breaks this afternoon or over the weekend, you can find the latest at InsideHigherEd.com.
In the meantime, I’m dog sitting and preparing myself emotionally for the season finale of The Pitt. Have a good weekend! (If you need a moment of levity, here’s my recap of the battle between two winless baseball teams.)
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