Author: Collin Binkley

WASHINGTON • The Biden administration plans to ask the Supreme Court to reinstate the president’s student debt cancellation plan, according to a Thursday legal filing warning that Americans will face financial strain if the plan remains stalled in court when loan payments are scheduled to restart in January. The Justice Department is fighting to keep…

WASHINGTON • The Biden administration plans to freeze federal student loan payments through Aug. 31, extending a moratorium that has allowed millions of Americans to postpone payments during the coronavirus pandemic, according to an administration official familiar with the White House’s decision-making. Student loan payments were scheduled to resume May 1 after being halted since…

WASHINGTON • In a first step toward reversing a contentious Trump administration policy, President Joe Biden on Monday ordered his administration to review federal rules guiding colleges in their handling of campus sexual assaults. In an executive order, Biden directed the Education Department to examine rules that the Trump administration issued around Title IX, the…

BOSTON • Harvard does not discriminate against Asian American applicants, a federal appeals court ruled Thursday in a decision that offers relief to other colleges that consider race in admissions, but also sets the stage for a potential review by an increasingly conservative U.S. Supreme Court. The decision came from two judges on the 1st…

BOSTON • Facing eight federal lawsuits and opposition from hundreds of universities, the Trump administration on Tuesday rescinded a rule that would have required international students to transfer or leave the country if their schools held classes entirely online because of the coronavirus pandemic. The decision was announced at the start of a hearing in…

Determined to reopen America’s schools despite coronavirus worries, President Donald Trump threatened Wednesday to hold back federal money if school districts don’t bring their students back in the fall. He complained that his public health officials’ safety guidelines are impractical and too expensive. Shortly afterward, Vice President Mike Pence announced that the Centers for Disease…

President Donald Trump on Tuesday launched an all-out effort pressing state and local officials to reopen schools this fall, arguing that some are keeping schools closed not because of the risks from the coronavirus pandemic but for political reasons. “They think it’s going to be good for them politically, so they keep the schools closed,”…

BOSTON • A federal judge Tuesday cleared Harvard University of discriminating against Asian American applicants in a ruling that was seen as a major victory for supporters of affirmative action in college admissions across the U.S. In a closely watched lawsuit that had raised fears about the future of affirmative action, a group called Students…

BOSTON • Fifty people, including Hollywood stars Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin, were charged Tuesday in a scheme in which wealthy parents allegedly bribed college coaches and other insiders to get their children into some of the nation’s most selective schools. Federal authorities called it the biggest college admissions scam ever prosecuted by the U.S.…