Welcome back to After 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, Inside Higher Ed’s news editor, who is ready for vacation.
It’s Day 292 of the second Trump administration, and the government has been shut down for a record 38 days. The prolonged shutdown continues to disrupt funding for institutions and key benefits for families, such as federal food assistance. We reported this week how the delay in SNAP funds sent colleges scrambling to make sure their students didn’t go hungry.
The shutdown has also created an opportunity for Education Secretary Linda McMahon to progress her plan to shutter her own agency. The department furloughed most of its staff, laid off 500 people at the start of the shut down and McMahon said on X that the fact that millions of American students are still going to school, teachers are getting paid and schools are operating as normal during the shutdown confirms that the department is unnecessary. To better understand the state of the agency, we asked outside observers, experts and former staffers what they think. Your co-host Jessica Blake heard a range of opinions. The main gist was that the department has taken a hit but continues to fulfill its core functions.
Still, some experts worry that when the full consequences of the staff cuts are clearer, it could be too late to make any changes. Others remain hopeful that the department can be resuscitated under a future administration.
“The way that I’ve been thinking about this is if you take the major organs out of a human, do you still have a human or do you have a corpse?” said Jason Cottrell, who worked in the Office of Postsecondary Education for nearly 10 years before he was fired in March. “It’s effectively dead to me.”
The Policy Corner: After nearly two weeks of talks, the Education Department has settled on a definition for professional programs that will determine which ones are eligible for the $200,000 loan cap. Students in other graduate programs will only be able to borrow up to $100,000.
When these negotiations started, ED officials proposed including only 10 degree programs in the professional definition. Their latest plan, which the rulemaking committee approved Thursday, would add a few more programs to that category.
While consumer protection advocates supported a narrow definition in an effort to curb student debt loads, institutional leaders have argued that the loan caps will restrict access to graduate and professional programs and could lead some programs to close. (Previously, graduate students could borrow up to the cost of attendance through Grad PLUS but Congress eliminated that program over the summer in the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.)
Now, the department has to finish drafting the proposed regulations before opening them to public comment. The loan caps will take effect July 1, 2026.
On Tap For Next Week:
- Senators continue discussing how to reopen the government. Meanwhile, we’re expecting preliminary fall enrollment numbers on Monday, and international student enrollment data on Nov. 17. Stay tuned!
That’s it for Week 42. I’m off next week, so send any story tips or thoughts about this week’s newsletter to Jessica at jessica.blake@insidehighered.com. And if you want to hear more from me and my thoughts about the news or, more importantly, Dancing With the Stars, check out this week’s episode of The Key.
As always, if news breaks this afternoon or over the weekend, you can find the latest at InsideHigherEd.com. In the meantime, I’ll be gallivanting around Boston and hoping my flights don’t get canceled.
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