Have any NCES data users gotten a disclosure review approved for a paper/report since spring? I've been waiting for 6+ months 😞

The new survey component that the Department of Education is recklessly forcing ~1,600 4-yr colleges and universities to complete by March 2026 will cost colleges millions of dollars to implement this year, according to the agency itself.

Summer vacation proves kids don't need to go to school.

NEW: Epstein survivors release the most powerful PSA I have ever seen. Make this go viral so every member of the House of Representatives sees it.

I read the documents the Department of Education published yesterday about ACTS, the new admissions and graduation survey the Trump Administration created to "catch" colleges violating the SFFA decision and civil rights law. Here's my summary. tl;dr: this is happening next month. wp.me/p6kg2q-hZ

Highly selective colleges have been leaning into early decision. At more than 70 colleges and universities last year, they enrolled 40%+ of their class through ED. Evan Mandery and I are asking them to reverse course in this @bostonglobe.com op-ed. www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/15/o...

I read the documents the Department of Education published yesterday about ACTS, the new admissions and graduation survey the Trump Administration created to "catch" colleges violating the SFFA decision and civil rights law. Here's my summary. tl;dr: this is happening next month. wp.me/p6kg2q-hZ

‘No! Not Larry Summers!’ Wails Devastated Nation

I'm working my way through all the ACTS documents & will post a summary later today, but here's what we're looking at: The new survey is going out next month. All 4 year colleges that aren't open enrollment will need report 5 years of data + this year by March 18, 2026.

The average number of hours it takes an institution to complete *all* of IPEDS: 78.5 The estimated number of hours is will take to complete *just* the ACTS survey component this year: 200. The party of small government has more than doubled the administrative burden on colleges & universities.

"For the ACTS survey component, institutions will be asked to prepare student-level data files that are free of direct student identifiers."

Great piece by Zadie Smith. When the right talks about classics or "Western" culture, these works are only important to the extent that it demonstrates their superiority, they have no interest in art in and of itself beyond that www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

It looks like ED is going to open a 30-day comment period on the new ACTS survey component in IPEDS. If so, it will close on December 14. And then.... The idea that this new massive component can be implemented this year is crazy.

My intuition was that the more selective a college is, the less important tuition would be as a share of total revenue. My intuition was wrong. I would love to be able to break this out by undergrad vs grad tuition revenue.

Reports of the death of the bachelor’s degree have been greatly exaggerated. Enrollment is near pre-pandemic levels, real tuition is flat or down, and the college wage premium remains high. I explore how the narrative became disconnected from the data. cbnewsletters.chalkbeat.org/p/is-college...

Joe Winkelmann & I have released a new @wheelockpolicybu.bsky.social working paper: "Labor Market Strength and Declining Community College Enrollment" We show stronger labor markets since 2009 explain most of the decline in community college enrollments. wheelockpolicycenter.org/high-quality...

New WSJ: After flying an FBI jet to see his girlfriend sing at a wrestling match, FBI director Kash Patel took the jet to a private Texas hunting resort called the Boondoggle Ranch. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

As 22M people face rising premiums and 4M risk losing coverage, proposals to expand health savings accounts do nothing to make care affordable; extending premium tax credit enhancements would ensure enrollees continue to have access to care. www.cbpp.org/blog/expandi...

My daughter's taking the SATs tomorrow for the first time. She got an email from the College Board with a $15 gift certificate for a meal due to the SNAP benefit interruption. Make sure that your kids are applying for fee waivers for the SAT/ACT/college applications, whatever, if you need it.

This project was fueled by RAGE RAGE whenever I read or heard about (another) abuse of power by faculty RAGE whenever I was asked to discuss a paper about gender wage differentials that attributed gaps to "preferences" with no consideration of how "preferences" are formed

If I were an American I would save money by simply buying lottery tickets with winning numbers and not those with losing numbers.

Alright let me try this ask again: what should I read about how higher ed works to continue my learning?

We keep paying teachers more for graduate degrees, but the evidence they improve teaching is not there. Add the surge in online credentials and you’ve got a really ugly incentive structure.

New from me: I was invited to submit something to the inaugural issue of the Journal of Education Finance and Law. So I put in one place a lot of my thoughts on how schools spend money on staff compensation. We Need to Talk About How We Compensate School Staff doi.org/10.5406/3067...

The coordinated nature of this—none are facing voters in 2026—means that either Schumer approved it or failed in his job as Senate Majority Leader to stop it. Dems voting "no" get zero credit until they demand a change in leadership. Schumer out as Leader, Durbin out as Whip.

The RIFs language is actually great. Not only does it rehire the people RIFed during the shutdown, it makes it an unequivocal Antideficiency Act violation to do ANY MORE RIFs through the duration of the CR (Jan 30) Completely stops Trump/Vought Phase 2 for now Would love to see this standardized

‘The presence of two words — “equity” and “inclusion” — on page 50 of a 5-year-old grant application just killed a program at UC Berkeley that for half a century helped thousands of East Bay teens recognize that they could go to college and even pay for it.’

Judge rules Education Department messages blaming Democrats for the shutdown unconstitutional www.nbcnews.com/politics/tru...

While small colleges will have higher per-student operating costs, New College of Florida is blowing that out of the water. The state is asking more questions as their US News ranking is down 60 spots in recent years. www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...

One winning candidate attributed the sweep to “the state of the world.” She said voters “know they can trust teachers.”

Look everybody! It's your annual reminder to look at the actual cost of attending college, not the sticker price. Even if it means acknowledging the the COA of public colleges has been falling.

On it's 50th birthday, special ed law is fighting for its life. On Oct 10, the Department of Ed cut hundreds of positions from OSEP, which oversees implementation of the law & investigates complaints from students who’ve been denied needed services. www.bu.edu/articles/202...

I added Tufts to the post-SFFA tracker, which now contains 23 colleges and institutions. No Hopkins, no Duke, no Stanford, no Brown, no Dartmouth. At this point last year, I had 35. I do not think we are going to get there this year.

It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out and whether University of Austin survives. Making it free is a great move, and I'd love to see more places do it, but I'm not confident that even a gift of this size will be enough to keep it tuition free, unless it stays very small.

Flying Squirrel Loves It Every Time

My comments in @bostonglobe.com on how dismantling of ED affects colleges: “When you haphazardly cut whole teams, and people from other teams quit or are forced to retire, there are going to be problems with everything.” @ditikohli.bsky.social www.bostonglobe.com/2025/11/04/b...

So much D over-claiming about last night. Bingo card: -"This proves we have to {do what I wanted to do anyway}" -"{A winning D} supported {position on which Ds are vulnerable} therefore it doesn't matter" -"{A losing R} used {issue/tactic on which Ds are vulnerable} therefore it doesn't matter"

Up to 75,000 spouses or children of veterans who have died, are missing, or have a service-connected disability may be waiting for overdue GI Bill payments for housing and education. www.militarytimes.com/news/your-mi...

BREAKING: Colorado voters approved a ballot measure that would raise state income taxes on higher-earning households to fund free meals for all public school students. Follow AP for live updates.

This is pretty amazing, not just for finding trends but for finding papers quickly and easily.

with the firing of Hugh Freeze at Auburn, US universities now owe nearly $200 million to ex-football coaches

I've frequently been told that college boards are inordinately obsessed with sports and admissions.

Is social media dying? How much has Twitter changed as it became X? Which party now dominates the conversation? Using nationally representative ANES data from 2020 & 2024, I map how the U.S. social media landscape has transformed. Here are the key take-aways 🧵 arxiv.org/abs/2510.25417

This billionaire is trolling hardworking educators—and making jokes about gutting supports for special needs kids.

Today is the deadline for Early Decision. I've got a new report out called "The Use and Abuse of Early Decision." I'm worried that the political and financial pressure created by the Trump Administration is going to lead some colleges to lean in even more on ED.

That a federal judge had to block the Trump administration from pushing millions of Americans into hunger says everything about this President and the party he leads. Grateful to our Attorney General for being on the frontlines of this fight.

I am the Ghost of Education Research, here to remind you that Standards for Excellence in Education Research exist. ies.ed.gov/use-work/sta...

They're putting less chocolate in the chocolate.

As climate change has helped push cocoa prices higher, companies are changing candy recipes in subtle ways. From NYT Climate: www.nytimes.com/2025/10/30/c...

Interesting. www.cnbc.com/2025/10/31/s...