Hello and welcome back to The Markup, Inside Higher Ed’s weekly roundup of all things higher ed policy. I’m your host, Jessica Blake, IHE’s federal policy reporter.
In the last week, two federal student loan borrowers with disabilities sued the Trump administration arguing that it wrongfully denied them proper consideration for debt relief.
Meanwhile, the White House is holding the role of plaintiff in a different case as it once again takes Harvard University to court. Attorneys representing the institution, however, say Trump lacks legal standing and argue that the latest case is just a “do-over” of a different suit the university already won.
Also in court, the president opted to remove two judges who ruled in favor of pro-Palestinian international students, dismissing the deportation lawsuits filed against them. Roopal Patel and Nina Froes, both federal immigration judges, were two out of six total removed from office.
This Week’s Big Story
Since taking office, Education Under Secretary Nicholas Kent has promised to use accreditation—or the system of quasi-governmental agencies that gatekeep federal financial aid—to overhaul the ideology of academia. And this week he really started to make that idea a reality.
The Education Department had already issued guidance that cuts how long it will take for new accreditors to be recognized and emphasized that institutions are no longer limited to accreditors within their geographic region. On top of that, it used a competitive grant program that typically bolsters student success to fund the development of aspiring agencies and sent warning letters to two existing accreditors that had not fallen in line with the president’s priorities.
But the department’s latest plans to overhaul accreditation, which are subject to negotiated rulemaking, will likely lead to the most consequential reforms. Among other changes, the administration wants to make it easier for new accreditors to gain federal recognition, change who serves on panels that evaluate institutions and require accreditors to set minimum standards for student achievement. These benchmarks must include metrics related to return on investment, completion rates, placement rates and state licensing exam success.
Going in, higher education policy experts, student advocacy groups and legal experts warned that the Trump administration’s proposals were vague, abstruse and posed a major threat to the future of institutional autonomy.
Not much changed as the week of rulemaking got started. ED officials repeatedly stressed that they were unlikely to make major changes as they were firmly committed to accomplishing the goals laid out in President Trump's accreditation executive order issued a year ago.
In addition to the proposals, some advocates are concerned about who is at the table giving feedback on the changes and which voices the department decided to leave out. I dug into those concerns in this story about how this committee compares to a 2019 panel that also considered changes to accreditation rules. This time around, institutions and accreditors have fewer voters.
I’ll have more for you next week about where the talks stand at the end of week one.
![“[Title IX] is one area where certainty and consistency are critical and we have neither.” -Jody Shipper, managing director of Grand River Solutions, a legal compliance advising group](https://www.insidehighered.com/sites/default/files/2026-04/Quote_Trump_04172026.png)