Different countries use different names for education institutions, which can lead to confusion. For example, in Spanish-speaking countries, colegio means high school, so many international students ignore U.S. schools with “college” in the name. In the U.S., colleges are usually smaller and focused on undergraduates, while universities are larger and offer both graduate and undergraduate programs.

Kelly Mae Ross and Anayat Durrani explain the difference in US News and World Report. (July 2023)

A federal appeals court on Monday halted a rule from President Joe Biden's administration that could make it easier to obtain student loan debt relief for borrowers who say they were victims of misleading information about the quality of education they would receive.

At issue is a rule broadening existing policy ending the debt of students who borrowed money to attend colleges and universities that are determined to have misled them on matters such as whether their courses would actually prepare them for employment in their field or the likely salary they would earn upon obtaining a degree.

Career Colleges and Schools of Texas, an association of for-profit higher learning institutions, filed a lawsuit against the rule in February. Among its complaints was that the rules are so broad that they cover even unintentional actions by a college. They also said the rule unconstitutionally gives an executive branch agency, the Department of Education, what amounts to the power of a court in deciding whether to grant claims for debt relief.

Administration lawyers said relief granted by the department could be appealed in federal court.

The colleges asked a Texas-based federal judge to block the rule while the case plays out. The judge refused in a June ruling. But three 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals judges on Monday issued a brief order granting an injunction. The order said the panel would hear arguments in November.

The three judges on the panel in New Orleans are Edith Jones, nominated to the court by former President Ronald Reagan; and two nominees of former President Donald Trump, Stuart Kyle Duncan and Cory Wilson.

According to a recent report, U.S. colleges are most interested in international students from India, with 57% prioritizing undergraduate outreach there. Outreach to Vietnam, South Korea and Brazil are next.

For graduate students, India is again in first place, but China, Nigeria and Vietnam are also attracting strong interest.

As U.S. enrollments decline, colleges are looking abroad — there were more than 900,000 international students in the U.S. in 2022. Read the report from Julie Baer and Mirka Martel of the Institute of International Education. (July 2023)

Two conservative groups are asking a federal court to block the Biden administration's plan to cancel $39 billion in student loans for more than 800,000 borrowers.

In a lawsuit filed Friday in Michigan, the groups argue that the administration overstepped its power when it announced the forgiveness in July, just weeks after the Supreme Court struck down a broader cancellation plan pushed by President Joe Biden.

It asks a judge to rule the cancellation illegal and stop the Education Department from carrying it out while the case is decided. The suit was filed by the New Civil Liberties Alliance on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and the Cato Institute.

The Education Department called the suit "a desperate attempt from right wing special interests to keep hundreds of thousands of borrowers in debt."

"We are not going to back down or give an inch when it comes to defending working families," the department said in a statement.

It's part of a wave of legal challenges Republicans have leveled at the Biden administration's efforts to reduce or eliminate student debt for millions of Americans. Biden has said he will pursue a different cancellation plan after the Supreme Court decision, and his administration is separately unrolling a more generous repayment plan that opponents call a "backdoor attempt" at cancellation.

The Biden administration announced July 14 that it would soon forgive loans for 804,000 borrowers enrolled in income-driven repayment plans. The plans have long offered cancellation after borrowers make 20 or 25 years of payments, but "past administrative failures" resulted in inaccurate payments counts that set borrowers back on their progress toward forgiveness, the department said.

The new action was announced as a "one-time adjustment" that would count certain periods of past nonpayment as if borrowers had been making payments during that time. It moved 804,000 borrowers across the 20- or 25-year mark needed for cancellation, and it moved millions of others closer to that threshold.

It's meant to address a practice known as forbearance steering, in which student loan servicers hired by the government wrongly pushed borrowers to go into forbearance — a temporary pause on payments because of hardship — even if they would have been better served by enrolling in one of the income-driven repayment plans.

Under the one-time fix, past periods in forbearance were also counted as progress toward Public Service Loan Forgiveness, a program that offers cancellation after 10 years of payments while working in a government or nonprofit job.

Biden's action was illegal, the lawsuit says, because it wasn't authorized by Congress and didn't go through a federal rulemaking process that invites public feedback.

"No authority allows the Department to count non-payments as payments," the lawsuit says. It adds that the action came in "a press release that neither identified the policy's legal authority nor considered its exorbitant price tag."

The conservative groups say Biden's plan undercuts Public Service Loan Forgiveness. The Mackinac Center and Cato Institute say they employ borrowers who are working toward student loan cancellation through the program. They say Biden's action illegally accelerates progress toward relief, diminishing the benefit for nonprofit employers.

"This unlawful reduction in the PSLF service requirement injures public service employers that rely on PSLF to recruit and retain college-educated employees," the suit alleges.

The Cato Institute previously sued the administration over the cancellation plan that was struck down by the Supreme Court. The Mackinac Center is separately challenging Biden's pause on student loan payments, which is scheduled to end this fall with payments resuming Oct. 1.

The U.S. Supreme Court recently ruled affirmative action, or preferential admissions for underrepresented groups, unconstitutional. However, the court ruling said applicants can still mention their background and life experiences in a personal essay.

Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed writes that discussing race, whether as “discrimination, inspiration or otherwise,” is acceptable; going back to the old system, and engineering college cohorts by racial category, is not. With the rules unclear, colleges are struggling to obey the letter of the law. Read Jaschik’s article for more information. (July 2023) [[

At CUNY, the public university system in New York City, officials found that investment in students increases their chances of graduating by almost double. CUNY’s highly successful ASAP program gives at-risk students financial aid, unlimited public transit access and intensive one-on-one advising.

The city believes it’s a win-win, and claims the return is three times the investment because graduates earn more money and pay more taxes. Read more in an op-ed from Elizabeth Davidson Pisacreta and Katherine Giardello in The Hechinger Report. (July 2023)

The U.S. Supreme Court struck down the use of affirmative action in college admissions, ruling that consideration of a student's race to help decide who is admitted to higher education institutions was unconstitutional. Yet there are other ways to keep college in reach for everyone: one is to admit the top graduates of every high school and another is to encourage more students to transfer in from two-year community colleges. Scott Jaschik of Inside Higher Ed weighs the merits of each. (July 2023)

Many countries practice cultural diplomacy by funding research centers at colleges, such as Germany's Goethe Institutes or the U.K.'s British Council. But in the U.S., China's Confucius Institutes have been accused of stealing scientific research and intimidating campus critics of Beijing. A new report from the National Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine provides recommendations for colleges that aim to balance cultural openness with security risks. Natalie Schwartz of Higher Ed Dive summarizes the findings. (July 2023)

washington — 

A man who was a Princeton University student when the FBI arrested him on charges related to the U.S. Capitol riot pleaded guilty on Monday to joining a mob's attack on police officers during one of the most violent clashes on January 6, 2021.

Larry Fife Giberson was on the front lines when rioters attacked police officers in a tunnel on the Capitol's Lower West Terrace. Giberson, 22, of Manahawkin, New Jersey, waved other rioters into the tunnel and then joined in a coordinated push against officers guarding an entrance to the building, according to a court filing.

Giberson tried in vain to start a chant of "Drag them out!" and then cheered on rioters using weapons and pepper spray against police in the tunnel, according to an FBI's agent affidavit. Giberson remained in the area for roughly an hour, the affidavit says.

Giberson pleaded guilty to a felony charge of interfering with police during a civil disorder, court records show. U.S. District Judge Carl Nichols is scheduled to sentence him on November 1. The judge allowed him to remain free until his sentencing.

Giberson was enrolled at Princeton as an undergraduate when he was arrested in March on riot-related charges. On Monday, a university spokesperson declined to answer questions about Giberson's enrollment status.

Charles Burnham, an attorney for Giberson, didn't immediately respond to emails and a telephone call seeking comment.

Giberson was wearing a "Make America Great Again" hat and a Trump flag around his neck when he joined the January 6 attack, which disrupted the joint session of Congress for certifying President Joe Biden's electoral victory over Donald Trump.

The FBI posted images of Giberson on social media to seek the public's help in identifying him. Online sleuths also posted images of Giberson using the "#DragThemOut" hashtag moniker.

Investigators matched photos of Giberson from the Capitol to several images found on Instagram and Princeton University's website, according to the FBI.

Also on Monday, a Florida man was arrested on charges that he assaulted several police officers outside the Capitol during the riot. Videos captured Marcus Clint Martin applying first aid to an injured rioter and then shoving two officers who tried to help, the FBI said.

Other videos show Martin, 32, of Blountstown, Florida, piling onto an officer who was knocked over and removing metal barriers after chasing officers away from their positions in front of the Capitol, according to the FBI.

Martin was arrested in Panama City, Florida, on charges including civil disorder and assaulting, resisting or impeding police. There was no lawyer immediately listed in the court docket for Martin.

Approximately 1,100 people have been charged with federal crimes related to the Capitol riot. More than 600 of them have pleaded guilty. Over 100 others have been convicted by judges or juries after trials in Washington, D.C.

Yvonne Spann Sowers and her daughter Eyamba Sowers Scott say their thirst for lifelong learning brought them back to the classroom after fulfilling careers in public service. "I still felt like I needed to learn some more," said Spann Sowers. They chose to become "non-traditional learners," and despite age, self-doubt and medical issues, both succeeded. Read the whole story from Mary Walrath-Holdridge in USA Today. (July 2023)

Many of actor Cillian Murphy’s colleagues in the new movie Oppenheimer are real scientists.

The film, which chronicles the father of America’s atomic bomb, was filmed near the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico. Real nuclear scientists were recruited to pose as background extras in many scenes.

Scientists explained their research to the actors, including Robert Downey Jr., and were consulted on many of the details of the film. Though they weren’t trained actors, it wasn’t too hard, they say.

“As a scientist, I just had to be myself a little bit,” said one scientist.

Stephanie M. Lee interviews these “extras” in the Chronicle of Higher Education. (July 2023)

President Joe Biden's $400 billion plan to cancel or reduce federal student loan debts for millions of Americans was effectively killed by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, there are smaller alternatives for borrowers. Some states, including some that challenged Biden's plan, offer loan forgiveness programs, and federal programs exist for public service workers, people with disabilities and many others. Chris Quintana, Medora Lee and Alia Wong of USA Today round up the options for graduates. (July 2023) [[ ]]

U.S. News & World Report has a breakdown on the 15 U.S. colleges offering the most financial aid for international students. International students, the article notes, often face high costs: "Not only are there expenses for tuition, housing, meal plans, books and supplies, but international students also have to pay for travel costs, including airline tickets and visa applications."

The average financial aid package at these schools tops $70,000. (June 2023)

U.S. graduate programs are seeing a surge in foreign enrollment.

So says ICEF Monitor, which describes itself as "a dedicated market intelligence resource for the international education industry."

It finds that Indian students, particularly master's students, are driving the surge. Read the full story here. (June 2023)

U.S. State Department officials and a recent report by ApplyBoard, a Canadian-based international student recruitment platform, indicate the United States is set to issue the most student visas in a year since fiscal 2016.

The tally of visas issued in fiscal 2023 has passed 392,000 to date. In fiscal 2016, a total 471,728 F1 visas were issued.

It could be close: Compared to fiscal 2022 — October 1, 2021 to September 30, 2022 — more than 411,131 international student visas were issued, including F1, according to the State Department.

An F1 visa is for those attending an academic program or seeking a full-time degree at a U.S. institution.

In order to pass fiscal 2022, the U.S. will have to issue more than 40,000 international visas before the end of September.

"Facilitating the ability of foreign students and academic exchange visitors to study at U.S. universities and colleges is a priority," a State Department spokesperson told VOA by email. "We are on track to issue the most student visas in a year since [fiscal year] 2016.

"While the US has a long way to go before rivaling its high mark of over 644,000 student visas issued in FY2015, these numbers inspire confidence that long-term, sustainable growth is ahead," ApplyBoard's July 18th report states.

Last September, the Institute of International Education released its annual study showing that international enrollment had largely recovered from the steep drop it took during the pandemic, and U.S. colleges were seeing an increase in applications for admission after significantly fewer new international student enrollments in 2020 and 2021.

Countries

According to ApplyBoard, the six countries the saw the largest percentage increases in student visas issued from fiscal 2021 to fiscal 2022 were Asian. Uzbekistan is at the top of this list for the first time, while Nepal, Bangladesh, and Vietnam show continued growth in visa issuance.

"All four countries hit 25-year highs in student visas issued," according to the report.

Meanwhile, more African students were awarded F1 visas in 2022 than ever before, the report said. Nigeria and Ghana were issued the most student visas in their histories in 2022.

According to the State Department records, the number of visas issued to students from Africa in fiscal 2022 surpassed 30,700. This marked a significant increase compared with 21,037 visas issued in fiscal 2018, followed by 20,165 in fiscal 2019, a notable dip to 7,333 because of the pandemic in 2020, and then a rebound to 23,229 in fiscal 2021.

According to the 2022 Open Doors report and State Department data, the top two countries are China and India, which together represent the majority of all international students in the United States, or about 52%.

In 2022, China remained the top country, with 290,086 students on U.S. campuses, a decrease of 9% year-over-year. That same year, India had the second most international students, with about 200,000, an increase of 19% year-over-year.

"In fiscal year 2022, our Embassy and Consulates in India broke the all-time record for most student and exchange visitor visas issued in a year, issuing more than 125,000 [new] visas. India now is the second largest origin country for U.S. international students," according to State.

Approval rate

The approval rate for nonimmigrant student visa applicants also hit a 10-year high in fiscal 2022.

"In [fiscal year] 2022, worldwide, we issued 411,131 F1 visas and refused 220,676 F1 visas," the State Department spokesperson told VOA. "In [fiscal] 2021, worldwide, we issued 357,839 F1 visas."

ApplyBoard called the data "overwhelmingly good" in its analysis.

"The new F1 visa data should be music to the ears of international recruitment offices around the United States," said ApplyBoard's report.