Most-clicked story of the week:

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two laws recently to expand the bachelor’s degrees that the state’s community colleges can offer. The legislation will allow community college districts to offer between two and 12 new bachelor’s degrees, depending on the share of their students who complete their credentials and the percentage who transfer to four-year institutions. 

Number of the week: 15.6% 

That’s the decline in international enrollment that Indiana University saw this fall compared to last year, with numbers of foreign students tumbling to 4,763. It’s one of several higher education institutions that have reported big drops in international enrollment in the early days of the fall term. 

Budget troubles across higher education:

• The University of Maine is preparing to lay off staff and faculty to help address a projected $19 million budget shortfall. UMaine leaders said options to limit those cuts will be “pursued aggressively.”

• The Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania is staring down a similarly sized deficit — $17 million. The public university could cut up to 175 jobs, including through layoffs, to close the budget gap. 

• The leader of Minnesota State Colleges and Universities said the 33-institution system will likely have to turn to campus closures to address budget difficulties. “I think we probably will have some campuses that close ... but not institutions,” Chancellor Scott Olson told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “What would probably happen to institutions is that they would align or merge.”

The latest federal policy news:

• A group of researchers sued the National Institutes of Health this month, arguing that the agency violated their First Amendment rights by screening and often terminating grants based on 235 keywords related to subjects that the Trump administration disfavors. 

• The U.S. Department of Education is redirecting roughly $235 million to historically Black and tribal colleges that was originally intended for other minority-serving institutions, including Hispanic-serving colleges, Inside Higher Ed reported. Last year, the department canceled $350 million in funding for MSI grant programs, arguing that many of them were racially discriminatory. 

• A federal advisory panel failed to reach a decision on whether to recommend that the Education Department pull federal recognition from the American Bar Association’s accreditation arm. The Trump administration has targeted ABA, lambasting the accreditor for its now-repealed diversity standard.