The Markup—June 5, 2026

Hello and welcome back to The Markup, Inside Higher Ed’s weekly roundup of all things higher ed policy. I’m your host, Katherine Knott, IHE’s news editor who is not ready for mosquito season.

Today marks Day 501 of the second Trump administration. In the last week, the National Science Foundation reversed a funding hold on some universities, including Harvard, and the Education Department updated the FAFSA so now students can find out right away how much aid they are eligible for.

This Week’s Big Story

States could play a greater role in administering some TRIO programs after the Education Department reworked the grant competition rules to give them a leg up. 

As Ryan Quinn reports, it’s not yet clear how many states applied for TRIO funding. But under the grant competition for Talent Search—one of the oldest and largest college-access programs under the TRIO umbrella—state entities could receive up to $10 million a year for five years, while all other recipients are limited to $1 million annually. If states do get money this year, that would mark a big shift for the college-access program, as individual colleges and universities historically received the funding.

Some advocates worry the boost for states could mean fewer options for students, but state officials have said they can use this opportunity to secure funding and better help their communities through offering unified approaches to providing tutoring, college advising, grant monitoring and more.

For instance, the Ohio Department of Higher Education applied for $50 million over five years to serve 20,000 students annually across 54 of the state’s more than 600 school districts, according to an application shared with Inside Higher Ed. Ohio will use the money to support “a  model of high-dosage tutoring, pre-apprenticeship/apprenticeship, high demand credentials, and learning and employment records.”

Meanwhile, West Virginia plans to use $1.8 million a year to provide students with “high-impact tutoring, course advising, family workshops, disconnected student programming, college admissions advising and coaching (including all application and enrollment activities), career exploration, financial literacy activities, and more,” according to its application. 

In Other News 

• House Republicans propose boosting the Pell Grant by $50 and closing the estimated $17 billion shortfall by ending subsidized loans, Ryan Quinn reports. Higher education groups appreciated the decision to protect Pell but are concerned about how lawmakers address the shortfall. In addition to subsidized loans, lawmakers proposed cuts to Federal Work-Study and the Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grant as well as the Institute of Education Sciences.
• A bipartisan group of senators has a plan to overhaul college athletics, though experts are skeptical that this latest legislative proposal will advance, Jessica Blake reports. Among other changes, the bill known as the Protect College Sports Act would allow athletic conferences to collectively negotiate their media rights; create a national framework for athletes’ name, image and likeness rights; and prohibit midseason coaching transitions. But the legislation doesn’t address perhaps the thorniest issue in debates over the future of college athletics: whether student athletes can bargain collectively. 
• International education advocates are bracing for significant federal policy changes this summer, but at a recent conference, no representatives from the Department of Homeland Security were on hand to answer their questions. Johanna Alonso reports on the search for answers at the annual NAFSA conference.
• Legal challenges to the new graduate loan caps are piling up, and Jessica Blake broke down the key arguments from the states and professional associations that are suing. The definition of a professional program is at the heart of the lawsuits. 

And that’s it for Week 72. 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 sitting in a park reading Mansfield Park.

Just the Headlines

• $50M TRIO Grants? ED Gives States a Leg Up in College Access Program
• To Fund Pell, House Appropriators Suggest Ending Subsidized Loans
• After RIFs, ED Turns to Contractor to Hire New Civil Rights Attorneys
• How Challengers Are Trying to Block ED’s New Loan Limits
• At NAFSA, More Questions Than Answers on What’s Ahead for International Students
• NSF Reverses Funding Freeze for Duke, Harvard and Yale
• Students Filling Out FAFSA Can Now See Their Results Immediately

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