Headline News

Annabelle Boudreau arrived in court with her victim impact statement in hand. She had been too exhausted to attend the reading of the verdict. Her cousin’s sentencing hearing, though, she wouldn’t dare miss. Tears streaming down her cheeks, she described to the judge the years of mental and emotional scars he had caused.  A wave of relief washed over Boudreau when she finished. But that relief turned to shock, she said, when Grimstad’s attorney referenced a letter in support of his character written by his coach at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, the NCAA Division III college where Grimstad competes for the men’s swimming team.

Holden Thorp, editor-in-chief of Science and a former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and former provost of Washington University in St. Louis, and Buck Goldstein, former entrepreneur-in-residence at UNC Chapel Hill, write:  Much has been written about how confidence in higher education has plummeted. As devastating as they are, the surveys cited showing this crisis of confidence predate the disastrous events in December when three prominent and accomplished college presidents were ambushed in Congress about antisemitism on their campuses. If the surveys were run now, the results would likely be even worse.

Congress tasked the incoming Biden administration with carrying out one of the most consequential updates to the federal financial aid system. The project was ambitious. The budget was lean. But delivering the new Free Application for Federal Student Aid — a simpler, shorter version of the decades-old form — could have been a major win for the administration. Instead, it has been a major headache. The financial aid form debuted in December 2023, more than a year later than promised. 

President Joe Biden this morning is set to roll out his annual budget request to Congress where he’ll again push to increase the Pell Grant — a key plank of the administration’s college affordability agenda. On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden promised to double the Pell Grant and his budget proposals since taking office have proposed a path to doing so over about a decade. So far, Biden has signed into law increases to the maximum Pell Grant totaling $900.

A new report by State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli highlights the challenges New York’s higher education sector is facing, including a looming enrollment cliff, growing costs of attendance, and rising student debt. The report examines both public and private institutions of higher education.