News: Colleges left out of disaster relief

Monday, December 23, 2024

Colleges left out of disaster relief

Dec 23, 2024

PROGRAMMING NOTE: We’ll be off starting Wednesday for the holidays but back to our normal schedule on Monday, Jan. 6, 2025.

Mike Johnson speaks with reporters.

House Speaker Mike Johnson speaks with reporters as he emerges from the House chamber at the U.S. Capitol. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

NO RELIEF FOR COLLEGES: Congress approved a stopgap spending bill early Saturday morning, skirting a federal shutdown. But some higher education advocates were disappointed that one measure still didn’t make it into the final version: emergency funding for schools.

The continuing resolution — which passed after a chaotic 48 hours, in which Elon Musk and President-elect Donald Trump worked to spike a previously-negotiated agreement — includes more than $110 billion in disaster aid and a one-year farm bill extension. However, it excludes the White House’s $1 billion request for emergency funding to support schools and colleges following hurricanes Helene and Milton.

Several campuses across the Carolinas faced flooding, downed trees and broken power lines in the aftermath of the storms. Others are dealing with structural damage that could take years to repair, according to higher education advocates.

In North Carolina, Montreat College’s insurance company estimated the school saw $1.6 million in damage, though College President Paul Maurer told Carolina Public Press that the number could rise closer to $2 million. At least 10 campus buildings had been severely damaged, from the windows to the ceilings, he said.

The American Council on Education spoke to more than 30 institutions from North Carolina, South Carolina and Florida about their financial needs due to the hurricanes.

The schools they contacted said some of their largest storm-related expenses included removal of debris, repairs to academic buildings on campus, issues with restoring internet service, mutual aid including janitorial supplies, lodging and meals for people who were displaced and setting up red cross shelters.

“After having conversations and hearing back from institutions, around $150 million is still needed,” Emmanual A. Guillory, senior director of government relations of American Council on Education. “Institutions have needs from the impacts from the hurricane and tropical storm, and it should not go unnoticed by Congress what these needs are.”

IT’S MONDAY, DEC. 23. WELCOME TO WEEKLY EDUCATION. I’m your host, Rebecca Carballo. Let’s talk: rcarballo@politico.com. The team: Bianca Quilantan at bquilantan@politico.com, Juan Perez Jr. at jperez@politico.com and Mackenzie Wilkes at mwilkes@politico.com.

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STUDENT DEBT

WINDING DOWN: The Biden administration is officially withdrawing its sweeping proposals to cancel student debt for tens of millions of Americans, effectively closing the door on mass loan forgiveness in the waning days of Joe Biden’s presidency, Michael Stratford reports.

The Education Department said in a notice Friday that it was rescinding two of its major pending proposals to cancel student debt, one of which was already preemptively blocked by a federal judge in a lawsuit brought by Republican attorneys general.

The judge in that case, Matthew Schelp of the Eastern District of Missouri, a Trump appointee, had ordered the department to explain its plans for the rest of the Biden administration in court by Friday.

In withdrawing the plans, the Education Department cited the “operational challenges” of implementing both rules and said the administration wants to use its remaining time to prioritize “helping at-risk borrowers return to repayment successfully.”

Department officials also wrote that they maintained the legality of the plans, though the incoming Trump administration is likely to take a different view. POLITICO previously reported that Trump transition officials and allies have been exploring ways to quickly wind down Biden’s various student debt relief programs.

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Athletics

TRANS SPORTS: The Education Department is withdrawing proposed federal regulations that would have bolstered transgender students' rights to play on sports teams, Juan Perez Jr. reports.

This is a significant retreat for the Biden administration from a plan that drew widespread conservative condemnation when it was first floated last year.

The proposed rule was a rebuke to state laws that bar transgender women and girls from participating in athletics consistent with their gender identity. But the department was buffeted by political attacks and tens of thousands of comments that included requests for updated language or concerns that the planned regulation was unclear or too complex to implement.

Biden’s separate effort to update Title IX regulations that prohibit sex-based discrimination with strengthened civil rights protections for transgender students has also been tied up in the courts. Trump is further expected to dismantle that rule when he takes office as part of the broader commitments to embrace conservative gender politics he made during his 2024 campaign.

“The Department recognizes that there are multiple pending lawsuits related to the application of Title IX in the context of gender identity, including lawsuits related to Title IX’s application to athletic eligibility criteria in a variety of factual contexts,” the agency said in a regulatory document set to be formally published next week.

Syllabus

It can be lonely to have a middle-of-the road opinion on the Middle East. The New York Times.

Chicago school board fires CEO. Chalkbeat Chicago.

4 ways for-profit colleges could benefit from a new Trump term. Hechinger Report.

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