April 27, 2025

President Trump and his education secretary, Linda McMahon, have said repeatedly that they want to send education "back to the states." But in recent lawsuits, the administration is accused of doing the opposite: wielding the power of the federal government to tell schools what they can and cannot teach.

Alex Brandon/AP

Hello Dear Reader!

It’s Cory here, writing from beside an open window so I can smell the lilac. I wish I could share the sweet scent in this sentence somehow, but, alas, my writing talents tend toward news.

It was another struggle this week on the NPR education team to decide what to highlight in our newsletter because, well, so much happened.

Every day seemed to bring a new development in the Harvard story that my colleague Elissa Nadworny has been covering. Here’s her latest write-up. Or this!

And Thursday, three different federal judges, in Maryland, New Hampshire and Washington D.C., blocked the Trump administration (for now) from cutting off federal funding to K-12 schools that fail to abide by its anti-DEI mandates. You can read my latest on that here.

But this week we’re going to focus on student loans and the Trump administration’s announcement on Monday that it will resume forced collections on borrowers in default.

For much of the history of the student loan program, the U.S. Department of Education has been required by law to collect on defaulted student loans (a borrower defaults after going more than 270 days without making a scheduled payment).

The Department has several tools at its disposal: It can claw back part of a borrower’s tax refund or Social Security benefits, and it can even seize a portion of their paycheck. But, in March of 2020, at the outbreak of the pandemic, such collections were temporarily paused. That pause lasted more than five years! And now, the Trump administration is pressing play.

This is going to be a rude awakening for the more than 5 million borrowers who have been in default since before the pandemic. According to Education Department data, another 4 million are in "late-stage delinquency" right now and have been reported to credit bureaus. For these delinquent borrowers, default is just a few more missed payments away.

For more on all of this, and how to get out of default, you can read the latest from my colleague Rachel Treisman.

And when you’re done with that, do yourself a favor: Step outside and find a lilac to smell.

— Cory Turner, Correspondent, NPR Ed

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Weekly round up...

1. A judge orders changes to a $2.8B NCAA deal, which attorneys say could trigger chaos. The judge overseeing the rewriting of the college sports rulebook is insisting parties in the $2.8 billion antitrust lawsuit redo the part of the proposed settlement involving roster limits that many schools are already putting in motion. However, in preparing for the settlement to be approved, schools across the country have been busy cutting players who, in turn, were finding spots on new teams. Read the story here.

— The Associated Press

2. Trump signs executive actions on education, including efforts to rein in DEI. The collection of orders aim to cement Trump's conservative agenda for the U.S. education system, including rolling back the policies from the Biden administration, bolstering workforce training, improving teaching about artificial intelligence in schools, and launching a new White House initiative on historically Black colleges and universities. Read the story here.

— Elissa Nadworny, Correspondent, NPR Ed

3. Supreme Court leans toward parents who object to LGBTQ books in public schools. The conservative Supreme Court majority seemed more than ready Tuesday to tell public school districts that they must allow parents to pull their kids out of certain classes because the course material conflicts with the parents' religious views. At the center of the case is the school system in Montgomery County, Md., the most religiously diverse county in the U.S., with 160,000 students of almost all faiths. Read the story here.

— Nina Totenberg, Correspondent, Legal Affairs

From his early promises to his policy decisions, we’re making sense of Trump's extraordinary approach to presidency—and what it all might mean for you. LISTEN NOW.

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

This undated photo, issued by SVT, shows Moose in Junsele, Sweden, during preparations for the livestream 'The Great Moose Migration' to document the annual Moose migration near Kullberg in northern Sweden.

SVT via AP

Need something to take your mind off of current events? Well, the moose are on the move again.

Across Sweden, that is. The mammals have begun their annual migration in the small village of Kullberg, in the northern part of the country. And over the past few years, they've had millions of eyes on them.

The Great Moose Migration is a 24-hour livestream program categorized as "slow TV," which is live, unedited and hours-long coverage of some routine event, usually with a theme or journey in mind.

Read the full story about their journey here.

Student Podcast Challenge...

Hey there! It’s NPR Ed producer Janet Woojeong Lee! A friendly reminder… we’re ONE WEEK AWAY from closing the 2025 Student Podcast Challenge.

🚨 Deadline is Friday, May 2. 🚨

(But I will leave the form open for an extra week or two, or if you’re worried about meeting the deadline… you can reach me at studentpodcastchallenge@npr.org!)
You can find all that information and more here. Good luck! I can’t wait to listen to all your stories!

As always, thank you for reading and listening!

— The NPR Education Team

— Janet Lee, Associate Producer, NPR Ed