In this week's roundup:
half of governors oppose student debt relief, lawmakers address hazing on campus, and vaccine mandates make a big difference.
September 8-14
- Princeton University will pay the tuition for all students whose families make up to $100,000. The Ivy League institution announced that this will take effect in Fall 2023 and more than a quarter of students qualify.
- Faculty at Eastern Michigan University ended a week-long strike over health care premiums. Faculty returned to work on Monday, Sept. 12.
- Lawmakers plan to introduce a bill they say will reduce hazing on college campuses, specifically among fraternities. The Report and Educate About Campus Hazing (REACH) Act would require the development of hazing prevention programs.
- Nearly half of governors oppose the Biden administration’s student debt relief plan and have sent a letter to the president asking him to withdraw the plan.. The governors who signed the letter, all Republicans, argue that taxpayers should not have to “pay off the student loan debt of an elite few.”
- The US Bureau of Labor released data that suggest that tuition has not been affected by inflation.
- According to a survey from the American College Health Association, an institution’s COVID-19 vaccine mandate makes a difference in students’ decisions to get vaccinated. Ninety-seven percent of students vaccinated when they were required to, compared to 75% of students who were not.
- New Title IX regulations from Secretary of Education Miguel Cardona have drawn attention from higher education associations. With more than 235,000 comments about the proposed regulations, many are questioning how far they will go.
- A lawsuit has been filed against six trustees, including the interim president, of Seattle Pacific University following protests earlier this year. The lawsuit alleges that the institution “breached fiduciary duty by placing their religious beliefs above their responsibility to steward the Christian institution when they preserved an anti-LGBTQ hiring policy.”
- Graduate student workers at Boston University are relaunching their union after three years. Student workers are fighting for higher wages that cover the cost of living in Boston, workload limits and improved health care.
- New research from Humanities and Social Sciences Communications found that around 5% of students identify as caregivers who take care of children or chronically ill relatives. The survey also found that caregiving students were mostly women, had lower GPAs on average, and reported more depression and anxiety symptoms.
