DC Shuttle …
Senators Ask for Loan Forgiveness for Disabled Borrowers. Senators Angus King (I-ME), Rob Portman (R-OH) and Chris Coons (D-DL) led a group of senators including Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in writing a letter to U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin and Acting Commissioner of Social Security Nancy Berryhill, urging them to immediately discharge outstanding federal student loans for totally and permanently disabled Americans, including veterans.
Ed Department to Accept Applications for Disaster Relief Grants. The U.S. Education Department announced that states and higher education institutions will soon be able to apply for a piece of $2.7 billion in education-related disaster aid funding approved by Congress last month. The $2.5 billion in funding is to restart operations at public and private K-12 schools affected by hurricanes in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and by wildfires on the West Coast. A portion of those funds will also be used to help districts and schools serving displaced students. An additional $175 million will go toward higher education institutions affected by the storms, both those directly hit by natural disasters and those receiving displaced students. Also, $25 million will go toward education services for homeless students under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act. Applications for funding will be posted here.
New Ed Dept Rules on Discrimination Investigations. The Trump administration’s new rules for investigating discrimination in the nation’s schools take effect this week. The administration says the new guidelines are aimed at improving efficiency. The new rules move away from systemic investigations. The new guidelines remove systemic investigations, aiming to narrow the scope of investigations from the systemic probes that were practiced during the Obama administration.
We publish the DC Shuttle each week featuring higher ed news from Washington collected by the New England Council, of which NEBHE is a member. This edition is drawn from the Higher Education Update in the Council’s Weekly Washington Report of March 5, 2018. For more information, please visit: www.newenglandcouncil.com.
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