The U.S. Education Department is handing off some of its biggest grant programs to other federal agencies as the Trump administration accelerates its plan to shut down the department. It represents a major step forward for the administration’s dismantling of the department, which has mainly involved cutting jobs since President Donald Trump called for its elimination with an executive action in March. Six planned agreements to be signed by the Education Department will effectively move billions of dollars in grant programs to other agencies. Most notable is one that would put the Department of Labor over some of the largest federal funding streams for K-12 schools.

A new report finds that foreign students enrolled at U.S. colleges in strong numbers this fall despite fears that a Trump administration crackdown would trigger a nosedive. Still, there are signs of turbulence as fewer new, first-time students arrive from other countries. The Institute of International Education found that new students entering the United States for the first time fell by 17%, the sharpest decrease since the COVID-19 pandemic. The falloff is less severe than some had forecast, but it has hit some universities harder than others, with some seeing rapid backslides that punched big holes in tuition revenue.

Texas A&M University System regents on Thursday adopted a new policy requiring professors to first get approval to discuss some race and gender topics. The change comes months after a viral video of a student confronting an instructor over her lessons on gender identity threw the campus into upheaval. The new policy, approved by the Texas A&M University System Board of Regents, will apply to all 12 schools within the system. The new policy appears to be the first time a public university system in Texas has put in rules on what faculty can talk about in their classroom on the topics of race and gender.

A faculty adviser for Indiana University's student newspaper has filed a federal lawsuit over his firing. Jim Rodenbush filed a complaint in U.S. District Court on Thursday. He says his constitutional rights to free speech and due process were violated when he was dismissed Oct. 14 for refusing a directive to ensure no hard news was published in the paper's homecoming edition. The complaint says Rodenbush was ordered to “censor student work in the campus newspaper and print only fluff pieces about the upcoming homecoming festivities.” The university had canceled future print editions of the heavily subsidized newspaper. The chancellor announced Thursday that he was allowing them to print through the end of the school year.

An Associated Press analysis finds that the number of Black students enrolling at many elite colleges has dropped in the two years since the Supreme Court banned affirmative action in admissions. New enrollment figures from 20 selective colleges provide mounting evidence of a backslide in Black enrollment. Many campuses have also seen decreases in Hispanic enrollment, though they have been more scattered and less pronounced. At Princeton and some others, the number of new Black students has fallen by nearly half. Some colleges attribute it to natural fluctuations. Some students say the changes are too big to ignore.

The U.S. Justice Department has announced an agreement with the University of Virginia to pause civil rights investigations. The Charlottesville campus became a target of President Donald Trump’s administration in April when the Justice Department began reviewing the university’s admissions and financial aid processes. Officials accused its president of failing to end diversity, equity and inclusion practices Trump has called unlawful. Under the agreement, the university will abide by department guidance for not engaging in “unlawful racial discrimination” and will provide relevant information and data to the department on a quarterly basis through 2028, the department said. Unlike some deals with the Trump administration, the Virginia deal does not involve a fine.