In this week’s roundup:
The Trump administration will reject all initial and new requests for entry into the DACA program, ICE announced that new international students will not be permitted to come to the United States if their classes are fully online and a federal judge did not decide on whether or not to block the new Title IX rule.
Stay tuned for our weekly roundup on what trends we're seeing across institutions, how individual colleges and universities are responding to them and what national policy changes are affecting higher ed.
Week of July 22 - 29
- The Trump administration will reject all initial and new requests to enter the DACA program, as well as to reduce the renewal period from two years to one.
- U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced on July 24 that new international students will not be able to enter the United States if they are taking classes completely online. This decision comes after Harvard University and University of Southern California told their international students not to come to campus to take classes remotely.
- A federal judge did not decide on whether or not to enact a preliminary injunction to block the new Title IX rule. Instead, he asked for information regarding whether or not states can ignore the new regulation when dealing with a Title IX violation.
- Colleges and universities are running into an obstacle as they make plans for the upcoming fall semester: mandatory quarantining. Some states are requiring out-of-state visitors to self-quarantine for 14 days after arriving, with penalties for those who don’t comply.
- Most colleges and universities are utilizing a combination of in-person and online classes for the fall semester, according to the College Crisis Initiative. Some are starting online with the intent to return to campus after a few weeks’ time.
- More colleges and universities are announcing reductions on tuition and/or fees along with a decision to hold classes primarily online.
- One of the major considerations for the fall semester is contact tracing and how to implement it. Oklahoma State will utilize WiFi hotspot information, card-swipe data and class attendance records as part of their contact tracing efforts.
- Senate Republicans have proposed an initial $29 billion in relief for higher education in the next stimulus package. Senate Democrats proposed $132 billion.
- Another point of discussion for the next stimulus package: what to do about student loan debt.
- Dominion Energy announced their intent to give $35 million in donations to historically black colleges and universities in an attempt to promote higher education equity. Additional prominent donors have made gifts recently, including Mackenzie Scott’s gift of $40 million to Howard University.
- A study by two Dartmouth researchers found that college students saw an increase in stress, depression and anxiety during the initial onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The New York Times published a database with information about confirmed COVID-19 cases at 270 colleges and universities. Although not comprehensive, and with a call for more contributions, the survey currently points to more than 6,300 cases.
