Free Republic

The State Department has told U.S. embassies and consulates to expand vetting for all visa applicants who wish to come to Harvard University, including visitors as well as students, according to an email obtained by CBS News. In an internal email dated May 29 and sent by Secretary of State Marco Rubio's office to all U.S. diplomatic and consular posts, consular officers were told that this "additional vetting" applies to anyone wanting a visa to come to Harvard for "any purpose." That includes current or prospective students, faculty, employees, contractors, guest speakers and even tourists, per the email. The email...

More than a quarter-million Chinese students attending college in the United States saw their futures plunged into uncertainty Wednesday when the Trump administration announced an aggressive crackdown on student visa holders from that country. With an estimated 277,398 students pursuing primarily undergraduate and graduate degrees, China ranks only behind India among foreign countries with the highest number of students attending college in the U.S., according to data from the Institute of International Education. Since China’s middle-class boom in the early aughts, its students have flocked to U.S. institutions, which in turn welcomed the enrollment boost and mostly unsubsidized tuition fees....

Universities and colleges across the country can thank Harvard for this latest development. If federal courts won't allow the Department of Homeland Security to deal directly with Harvard on compliance for the Student Education Visa Program (SEVP), the administration can simply make it more difficult for everyone instead. That seems to be the case today, although this may have accelerated a project that would have started soon anyway. After a federal court issued a stay that allows Harvard to continue enrolling foreign students, the Trump administration paused the entire program. Embassies and consulates have been ordered to stop conducting necessary...

Acting Columbia University President Claire Shipman on Wednesday bizarrely chose to stoke the flames by acknowledging arrested ex-grad student Mahmoud Khalil at the Ivy League school’s chaotic graduation. Hordes of graduating students in the riled-up audience began chanting Khalil’s name and nearly booed Shipman off the stage throughout her remarks at the embattled university’s commencement. “We firmly believe that our international students have the same rights to freedom of speech as everyone else, and they should not be targeted by the government for exercising their right,” Shipman told the crowd of nearly 37,000. “I know many in our community are...

The U.S. government will begin seizing federal benefits from 195,000 student loan defaulters in June, with wage garnishment notices set to reach 5.3 million borrowers later this summer, the Education Department announced on May 5, marking the formal restart of involuntary collections after a years-long pause. The renewed enforcement effort begins with the Treasury Offset Program, which allows the federal government to intercept tax refunds, Social Security checks, and other federal payments to recover unpaid student debt. Borrowers affected by the program began receiving notices on May 5, the department said. “Starting today, approximately 195,000 defaulted student loan borrowers will...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — The federal government is reversing the termination of legal status for international students around the U.S. after many filed court challenges against the Trump administration crackdown, a government lawyer said Friday.The records in a federal student database maintained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had been terminated in recent weeks, often without the students or their schools being notified. Judges around the country had already issued orders temporarily restoring the students’ records in dozens of lawsuits challenging the terminations.More than 1,200 students nationwide suddenly lost their legal status or had visas revoked, leaving them at risk...

A Congressional delegation traveled to Louisiana on Tuesday to demand the release of Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student at Tufts University, and Mahmoud Khalil, a 2024 Columbia University graduate, and to examine conditions at their separate detention facilities. It’s the first time a delegation has visited with either detainee. The visit was first reported by CNN. Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) shared on X that he was heading to Louisiana to demand the release of Ozturk, one of his constituents. Markey was joined by fellow Democrats, Reps. Troy Carter (La.), Bennie Thompson (Miss.), Ayanna Pressley and Jim McGovern (Mass.). Ozturk’s arrest...

The Department of Education is poised to resume collections on defaulted federal student loans in May for the first time since 2020. While the first Trump administration paused referring federal student loans to collections in March 2020 at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the extended lapse has prompted Trump administration officials to worry that the federal student loan portfolio is "headed toward a fiscal cliff if we don't start repayment in collections," according to a senior department official. "The result has been that the federal government student loan portfolio has continued to grow, and we've got a record number...

Millions of student loan borrowers are expected to see their credit scores drop by summertime, reversing progress made under pandemic-era protections that lifted credit scores but expired last year.New York Fed research released Wednesday found that over 9 million borrowers with past-due balances could see "significant" decreases in their credit scores. The warning comes after many student loan borrowers' credit scores increased during the period of federal student loan forbearance, which temporarily suspended payment requirements and interest during the COVID-19 crisis. The typical borrower's score jumped 11 points in 2020, rising from 662 to 673.Ads by Money. We may be...

A sophomore at Brown University is facing the school's wrath after he sent a DOGE-like email to non-faculty employees asking them what they do all day to try to figure out why the elite school's tuition has gotten so expensive. "The inspiration for this is the rising cost of tuition," Alex Shieh told Fox News Digital in an interview. "Next year, it's set to be $93,064 to go to Brown," Shieh said of the Ivy League university. Brown's website estimates the total charges to attend the school for the 2025-2026 school year is even higher at $95,984. "‘And I think...

An Ohio substitute teacher was busted for allegedly offering a high school student $2,000 to kill her estranged husband in a bizarre murder-for-hire plot – that was foiled by the teen’s mother. Stephanie Demetrius, 44, was arrested Wednesday on first-degree conspiracy after the student’s mom discovered texts between her son and the sub at Academy for Urban Scholars High School discussing the lethal plan and contacted the police, according to court documents obtained by WSYX. “This particular teacher was attempting to groom this young person into committing murder,” Sgt. James Fuqua, with the Columbus Division of Police, told the outlet....

I’m Gen X. I was pretty young when I earned my PhD, so I’ve been a professor for a long time—over 30 years. If you’re not in academia, or it’s been awhile since you were in college, you might not know this: the students are not what they used to be. The problem with even talking about this topic at all is the knee-jerk response of, “yeah, just another old man complaining about the kids today, the same way everyone has since Gilgamesh. Shake your fist at the clouds, dude.”1 So yes, I’m ready to hear that. Go right ahead....

The U.S. student charged with 'child homicide' after allegedly throwing her baby out of a Paris hotel window has been moved to a secure psychiatric unit. Mia McQuillin, 18, was on Thursday out of formal police custody and in a specialist care unit. She was arrested on Monday in her second floor room at the Ibis Styles Hotel in the French capital's 20th arrondissement after a newborn was found on the street below. The child still had 'the umbilical cord' attached and was wrapped in a single sheet. Passers-by saw the baby lying on the pavement, and noticed the hotel...

Senate Democrats are very worried about just one Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) aide set to gain access to an IRS system after the Biden administration authorized 53 researchers and student volunteers – and hundreds of additional individuals – to access unmasked IRS data, an inspector general report detailed in September. The contradiction underscores the political success of DOGE’s initiative to cut waste, fraud, and abuse. Not only is the Trump administration seeking to save taxpayers money, but it is also forcing Democrats into a corner to presumably support waste, fraud, and abuse. Democrat Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Elizabeth...

The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals put a final end to former President Joe Biden's student loan forgiveness plan on Tuesday. Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey originally sued the Biden administration over its $500 million effort to wipe away student loans, known as the SAVE plan. The court's Tuesday ruling found that Biden's secretary of education had "gone well beyond this authority by designing a plan where loans are largely forgiven rather than repaid." Bailey noted in a statement that the ruling has no active impact beyond blocking future presidents from attempting Biden's maneuver. "Though Joe Biden is out...

Score another win for parental rights and common sense. Three school districts in New Jersey were given the green light to drop a controversial transgender student policy after years of legal wrangling. On Monday, a state appellate court issued the ruling allowing Monmouth County districts Middletown, Manalapan-Englishtown and Marlboro to remove from their books the state’s guidelines on how parents are notified if their child decides to transition. The decision was welcomed by members of the Middletown school board. On Thursday night, they voted 7 to 1 to toss controversial policy 5756 in the dustbin — and simply deal with...

If you have a complete and total disability, you may not be liable for repaying certain types of federal student loans. This is based on eligibility for the Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) Discharge Program, which is offered through the United States Department of Education and overseen by student loan servicer Nelnet. You need to meet specific disability requirements to qualify for loan forgiveness through this program, and there are three main ways you can get approved. If you are experiencing a total disability and you struggle to repay federal student loans as a result, read on to find out...

President Donald Trump’s executive order on foreigners who “support designated foreign terrorists” could be the start of a previously promised crackdown on radical pro-Palestinian students on American college campuses. The Monday directive from Trump orders the U.S. government to deport foreigners who “bear hostile attitudes toward [American] citizens, culture, government, institutions, or founding principles, and do not advocate for, aid, or support designated foreign terrorists and other threats to our national security.” That could describe plenty of foreign students advocating for Hamas and other terrorist groups at American universities, an analyst told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If a student...

That relief includes nearly 85,000 people who attended schools that “cheated and defrauded their students,” 61,000 borrowers with a total and permanent disability and another 6,100 public service workers, Biden said in a statement.

A UCLA student is suing multiple California health care providers and hospitals for medical negligence, alleging she was wrongly diagnosed with gender dysphoria and then “fast-tracked onto the conveyor belt of irreversibly damaging” puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgery, according to her lawsuit. Kaya Clementine Breen, 20, said she experienced sexual abuse as a young child, and by the time she was 11, she “began struggling with the thought of developing into a woman and began to believe that life would be easier if she were a boy,” according to her suit filed last week in Los Angeles County Superior...