Opposition to Republican COVID-19 Plan
A top Democrat on education issues said the first proposal put out by some Republicans to find a bipartisan proposal to provide more coronavirus relief would not do enough for higher education. The comments by Representative Bobby Scott, the Virginia Democrat who chairs the House education committee, came as President Biden reportedly rejected a proposal by a group of 10 Republican senators as too small. Though Biden did not close the door on further negotiations with Republicans, he urged Democratic senators to go ahead with trying to pass the $1.9 trillion package he proposed, three times larger than the $618 billion proposed by the group of Republicans. [T]he Republican proposal would offer no further aid to colleges and universities, despite their request for an additional $97 billion to make up for their losses during the pandemic. ( Inside Higher Ed - Feb. 3, 2021)
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For-profits Make Case for More Coronavirus Relief
Concerned they are being left out of getting additional help in the next coronavirus relief package, the association representing for-profit colleges and universities said their students were helped by previous relief funding and would be helped by more aid. Eighty-four percent of 15 top officials at for-profit institutions said funding from the two relief packages passed by Congress and former president Trump last year had an “extremely positive impact on student ability to attend class,” said a survey released Wednesday by the association, Career Education Colleges and Universities. For-profits have been concerned after a fact sheet released by the Biden administration on its coronavirus relief proposal mentioned giving $35 billion in aid to “public institutions, including community colleges, as well as, public and private Historically Black Colleges and Universities and other Minority Serving Institutions,” but did not mention the for-profits. ( Inside Higher Ed - Feb. 3, 2021)
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Education Equity Advocate Named to Ed Department Post
The Education Department has named Michelle Asha Cooper, a respected longtime champion for education equity, to a top role helping shape the Biden administration’s higher education policies. Cooper, who was most recently president of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, was listed on the department’s website Tuesday night as acting assistant secretary for postsecondary education. A department spokesman was unavailable for comment. Cooper comes to the department after heading IHEP since 2008, but she has prior experience working in the federal government as deputy director of the Education Department’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance. She was also a program associate at the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ Office of Diversity, Equity and Global Initiatives from 2001 to 2004 and also worked at the Council for Independent Colleges. ( Inside Higher Ed - Feb. 3, 2021)
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A Federal Look at Managing Online Programs
Early last year, two key Democratic senators wrote to five companies that contract with colleges to take their academic programs online, asking for information designed to address the lawmakers' concern that the companies' business practices "appear to undermine the best interests of students." Now another federal review is under way —also apparently initiated by leading Democratic senators, including Warren and Brown. But this one —a Government Accountability Office analysis requested by Senator Patty Murray, the top Democrat on the Senate's education committee —by most accounts takes a more even-handed approach to the topic than the Warren and Brown letters were seen as doing. ( Inside Higher Ed - Feb. 3, 2021)
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Biden Orders Review of Policies Impeding Legal Immigration
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed an executive order directing agency heads to review existing agency actions, regulations and policies with an eye toward identifying policies that impede access to the legal immigration system or fair, efficient adjudication of immigration benefits. The order, “Executive Order on Restoring Faith in Our Legal Immigration Systems and Strengthening Integration and Inclusion Efforts for New Americans,” directs agency heads to make recommendations on how to rescind or revise policies and actions “that fail to promote access to the legal immigration system,” a broad category that encompasses individuals on temporary visas, such as students and exchange scholars, as well as routes to permanent residency through employment or family-based visas. Many higher education officials viewed Trump administration policies as harmful to attracting international students and scholars to study and work in the U.S. ( Inside Higher Ed - Feb. 3, 2021)
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Senate Confirms Alejandro Mayorkas as First Latino Homeland Security Secretary
The Senate on Tuesday confirmed Alejandro Mayorkas as Homeland Security secretary, making him the first Latino and immigrant to oversee the third-largest government department. The Cuban-born former federal prosecutor was confirmed on a 56-43 vote, with six Republicans joining 50 Democrats in voting for him. Mayorkas will inherit a department that was fraught with constant leadership turnover under the Trump administration. He will be the first Senate-confirmed secretary at the department since April 2019, when Kirstjen Nielsen was forced to resign from her post. The position has since been held by a series of acting secretaries. Mayorkas also will take over the department as the nation continues to recover from the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, as well as other domestic terror and cybersecurity threats. One of the orders tasks Mayorkas to begin work on reviewing several Trump-era immigration policies. ( Roll Call - Feb. 2, 2021)
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