Updates May 18, 2025

Federal

• Student financial aid

• The current bill would increase credit requirements for Pell grants: estimates of 1/2 to 2/3 of recipients may have their funding reduced or eliminated.

• Immigration

• A federal District judge tentatively grants a motion against ICE from taking actions against international students whose records were temporarily deleted from SEVIS.

• NIH

• Through grant terminations, RIFs, and many steps to block or slow down processes, NIH has released $2.7B less in funding (35%), compared to the same period in 2024-- ahead of any budget cuts. NIH released a list of funding opportunities that are being terminated early, including health equity grants on: community level interventions to improve minority health, factors that contribute to maternal mortality, research support for resource-limited universities, HIV, and Native American Research Centers for Health. By delaying release of funds, members of Congress can claim order funds appropriated to NIH for 2025 to be returned (rescission), and argue for reductions in future NIH budgets .

• NSF

• Eliminated the Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM as part of ending all 37 divisions, terminated over half its grants, and cancellations disproportionately affected women (58% of cancelled PIs vs 34% of all NSF-funded PIs), and Black PIs (17% of those cancelled vs. 4% of all PIs) (no reporting on Black women, alas). 

• Equal Employment Opportunity Commission

• Issued a commissioner charge (ahead of investigation) against Harvard citing the decline in white male faculty as evidence of discrimination in Harvard's hiring practices against white, Asian, male and heterosexual faculty-- this is consistent with what the administration has proposed for other civil rights cases.

• Higher education accreditation

  • Of the three agencies specifically noted, the American Bar Association has suspended Diversity and Inclusion standards in accreditation for the rest of the year, the Liaison Committee on Medical Education still has diversity standard but  replaced race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and gender identity with socioeconomic status and "demographics," and replaced 'diversity' with 'diverse,' e.g. "diverse learning environment," and the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education has suspended its diversity requirements until board discussion in June.

  • The Dept of Education announced it's making it easier for colleges to change accreditors and approve new accrediting agencies, to comply with the April 23 Executive Order against DEI in accreditation. So far the Western Senior College and University Commission (UCD accreditor) has only stated they are reviewing the EO. The handbook still lists DEI as part of its standards.

• Department of Justice

• The capacity to enforce civil rights protections will be largely undercut as 70+% of attorneys from the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice leave.

• The Dept. of Justice notified Harvard that it is conducting an investigation into admissions under the False Claims Act, arguing Harvard’s admissions policies are secretly discriminatory and thus the university is defrauding the federal government.

There’s a lot in the House budget, check back for a separate budget breakdown.

Resource: the Chronicle of Higher Education administration actions in higher education tracker