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The U.S. Department of Education continues to lag on finalizing two key Title IX proposals anxiously awaited by district leaders for over three years — and now policy experts say it’s likely the department will finalize both this spring, after the department’s latest self-imposed deadline of March. The broader Title IX proposal released in June 2022 would protect LGBTQ+ students under the federal anti-discrimination law for the first time. It would also change Title IX implementation in a way that public education experts say make it more practical for schools, including shortening investigation and resolution timelines. The second proposal, released nearly a year later in April 2023, would create a framework for transgender students’ participation on sports teams aligning with their gender identities.

For Christopher L. Gardner, the looming change in the federal rule governing overtime pay “feels a little bit, like Yogi Berra would say, déjà vu all over again.” Gardner was assistant vice president for finance at Wofford College (SC) in 2016, the last time the U.S. Department of Labor set out to tweak the section of federal law that governs which workers get paid overtime for working more than 40 hours a week and which workers don’t. Now he’s chief financial officer of Wofford, a small private college in Spartanburg, S.C., and the government is changing the rule again. But there’s a critical difference. In 2016, Gardner (no relation to this reporter) and other administrators spent months preparing for the overtime-rule change, bracing themselves for red-tape headaches and budget impacts, only to watch the proposed change fizzle. Now, with the final language of the new rule expected in April, Gardner and many other college leaders may be facing bigger headaches and more substantial budget blows.

In statements and a fact sheet, the Biden administration highlighted Friday several ongoing efforts to crack down on so-called junk fees in higher education. Those efforts include a proposal in the president’s latest budget to eliminate student loan origination fees. 

House Republicans are seeking to end the use of “political litmus tests” at public colleges and universities in a wide-ranging bill released Friday that aims to ensure students’ First Amendment rights are protected. Institutions that don’t comply would face a serious penalty—losing access to federal financial aid for a year. The Respecting the First Amendment on Campus Act is the third in a series of GOP bills aimed at updating the Higher Education Act of 1965. 

A California mother drove 80 miles this month to find an SAT testing center with an open seat where her high school junior could take the exam. During college tours this spring, a teen recalled hearing some would-be applicants groan when admissions staffers announced they could not guarantee test-optional policies would continue. And across the country, college counselors are fielding questions from teenagers alarmed, encouraged or simply confused by what seems like the return of the standardized test in admissions — maybe? Sort of? In some places, but not in others?