Hello and welcome back to The Markup, Inside Higher Ed’s weekly roundup of all things higher ed policy. We’re your co-hosts, Katherine Knott, IHE’s news editor, and Jessica Blake, IHE’s federal policy reporter, who are both ready for the weekend.
In the last week, the Trump administration’s campaign to end in-state tuition for undocumented students reached Nebraska, and officials there quickly agreed to end the challenged state policies. Nebraska governor Jim Pillen called the policy “deeply misguided and unconstitutional” and thanked federal and state officials for “this long-overdue correction.” For those keeping track, the administration has now sued eight states.
And colleges caught a break when the Justice Department gave them another year to comply with new federal accessibility guidelines designed to reduce the hurdles students with disabilities face in accessing increasingly complex information on web pages and mobile apps. As the deadline loomed, institutions warned that they didn’t have the technical or personnel resources to update their content in time by today’s deadline.
This Week’s Big Story
Are you sick of accreditation yet? We sure hope not, because we have more updates for you this week.
This time last week, the Education Department was wrapping up the first of two weeklong negotiated rule-making sessions—the product of which will likely shape higher education oversight for years to come.
Not a whole lot changed from day one to day five, as the Trump administration has stood firm on its priorities: making it easier for new accreditors to join the market, providing more detailed guidance on how accreditors should evaluate colleges and ensuring accreditors remain “separate and independent” from academic and trade associations.
The amendments that were made, many policy experts say, are largely structural, not substantive. For example, the department heard many concerns about new text that directs accreditors to set minimum student performance standards and ensure academic freedom policies are clearly articulated and applied consistently. But rather than cutting or amending the actual text, the department simply moved it to a different section of the proposal.
Critics say the Trump administration’s approach ignores “the spirit and the letter of the law” and demonstrates yet another instance of executive overreach. But one negotiator who represented state officials said he was more open to ED’s proposal, as it prioritizes setting standards for academic outcomes, which in his view are “so obviously necessary.”
As we head into week two, starting May 18, it seems unlikely that the committee will reach consensus. But we said that last time and the department defied the odds. So maybe we should just stop playing the betting game.
