Most clicked story of the week:
The King’s College, a Christian nonprofit in New York City, is officially closing after two years without classes. The New York State Education Department gave the King’s College until July 15 to present a plan to stay open, but the struggling institution said it couldn’t meet the deadline.
What does the public think of higher education?
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Confidence in higher education is on the upswing for the first time in a decade, according to a new survey by Gallup and Lumina Foundation. Among just over 1,400 surveyed adults, 42% said they had high confidence in the sector, up from 36% in each of the two years before.
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However, another poll released last week suggested most adults aren’t satisfied with the sector. In the ninth annual Varying Degrees report from New America, which polled more than 1,600 adults, only 40% of respondents said higher education is “fine how it is.”
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Even so, about 6 in 10 surveyed teenagers said it is “extremely” or “very important” for them to finish college, according to a new AP-NORC poll of 1,060 teens. A lower share of adults — about 4 in 10 — shared that view when asked in a 2022 UChicago Harris/AP-NORC poll.
Supreme Court allows Education Department firings:
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The U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the U.S. Department of Education to fire roughly half of its workforce, a major victory in the Trump administration’s quest to dismantle the agency. However, the ruling only strikes down a preliminary injunction blocking the firings — it does not address whether they are legal. That question will remain with lower courts to decide.
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The Supreme Court ruling also did not touch a lower court order protecting jobs at the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights, which investigates civil rights complaints at colleges and K-12 schools, according to USA Today. In court documents filed July 15, the Education Department said it was still working on bringing back OCR employees who were put on administrative leave earlier this year.
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The Education Department is shedding its workforce at the same time it is expected to create two new student loan repayment programs, establish new borrowing limits, and expand Pell Grants to short-term programs following enactment of Republicans’ massive domestic policy bill. Former workers and Democratic lawmakers have voiced concerns that the agency won’t be able to handle the workload, but the Education Department has pushed back on those worries, Politico reported.
