June 15, 2025

Mar Hernandez for NPR

Hello Dear Readers!
It’s Cory Turner here, correspondent on the NPR education team. I’m writing this from home today, where my family’s cats, two calico sisters, are sunning themselves in separate, wide-open windows and couldn’t care less about me or the news this week.

Gosh, I love cats.

The story I want to highlight this week is a big deal in higher ed: How to hold colleges accountable when their students leave with a ton of loan debt but no income boost to pay for it?

The Obama and Biden administrations pushed a policy called Gainful Employment, though it largely focused on for-profit colleges, much to the chagrin of Republicans, who have long argued that all colleges should be held to the same standard.

Well, nestled inside the One Big Beautiful Bill Act is House Republicans’ version of college accountability: a risk-sharing plan that would force colleges and universities to literally repay a share of the debts their students don’t – and reward schools that give students the best value.

I spoke with a bunch of student loan experts across the political spectrum about this proposal, and it’s the rare policy idea where everyone agreed, broadly, that something needs to be done. As always, though, the devil is in the details. You can find my digital story here, including the names of the schools likely to pay the largest penalties if the bill passes.

If you’ve got three minutes to spare, I also tried really hard to squeeze this complicated monster into a quick, understandable audio story. It’s at the top of the story page. Just press play!

I’ll also add, in case you missed it, the House voted this week to claw back federal funding it had previously approved for NPR and PBS. Now all eyes turn to the Senate.

— Cory Turner, Correspondent, NPR Ed

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In other news...

1. All the ways the Trump administration is going after colleges and universities. A federal judge has once again stepped in to block the latest assault on Harvard University by the Trump administration – part of a larger escalation in the conflict between the president and elite colleges.

— Elissa Nadworny, Education Correspondent, NPR

2. Almost all of the Fulbright board resigns, citing Trump administration interference. The resignation letter says the administration denied Fulbright awards to a "substantial number" of individuals it had selected for the 2025-2026 academic year, while also subjecting another 1,200 foreign Fulbright recipients to "an unauthorized review process and could reject more." Read the story.

— Rachel Treisman, Reporter, NPR

3. A federal law helps homeless students get an education. Trump's budget could weaken it. In Middletown, R.I., school district staffer Megan Mainzer says federal dollars helped staff a high school food pantry, and helped pay for transportation, after-school care, internet hotspots, gas and groceries for families. But she may not be able to rely on that funding going forward. Read the story.

— Lee V. Gaines, Freelance Reporter

4. This week, NPR’s Throughline podcast dives into the making of the first Department of Education. Whose job is it to educate Americans? Congress created the first Department of Education just after the Civil War as a way to help reunify a broken country. A year later, it was basically shut down. But the story of that first department's birth – and death – set the stage for everything that's come since. Listen to the episode.

The House has voted to defund public radio.

The House has voted to claw back all federal funding for public media, and the proposal now moves to the Senate. We’re running out of time to protect public radio’s essential news, music, and emergency broadcast services to communities across the nation. But you can still stand up for public radio.

Spend 10 seconds at the link below. The consequences of this vote fall directly on the Americans who rely on local, independent stations serving communities across the country. Don’t abandon them now.

SAVE PUBLIC MEDIA ➔

Jackie Lay/NPR

And here's something to make you smile...

17 new books our critics can't wait to read this summer. With summer — and some welcome downtime — on the horizon, we have just the thing to help you spend those hours by the pool, at the beach, or on a plane: New books!

Our critics have considered the great titles publishing this summer and are here to let you know which ones they are most excited about. Here's a look at what fiction and nonfiction they can't wait to read.

As always, thank you for reading and listening!

— The NPR Education Team

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