News and updates

Here’s a selection of articles the Federal Relations team is enjoying this week.

VP Picks – Now that Trump has locked down the nomination, the latest speculation is who will be named his running mate. Read more at The Hill. 

Pell – The federal Pell Grant program, a federal financial aid offering earmarked for the neediest college students, is expected to have a $7.8 billion surplus next year. The fight is on to claim that money. Read more at the Wall Street Journal.

Opioids – Prince died of an overdose from opioid painkillers, becoming the latest high-profile victim of America’s opioid epidemic. Read more at Vox. 

No Enforcement – Last week, the University of North Carolina system told a federal court that it won’t enforce a law requiring transgender students to use bathrooms corresponding to the sex on their birth certificates. Read more at the Associated Press. 

Tricky, Tricky – The Third Way is out with a new report on the low graduation rate of these students attending private nonprofit colleges. Only 55 percent graduate within six years and of the 1,027 private colleges studied, 761 have graduation rates of less than 67 percent. Read more at The New York Times. 

“It’s okay to max out your credit card.” – A spate of stories on Trump University have hit the media this week from, admittedly, disgruntled employees about the for-profit institution being an unscrupulous business that relied on high-pressure sales tactics, employed unqualified instructors, made deceptive claims and exploited vulnerable students willing to pay tens of thousands for Mr. Trump’s insights. Read more at The New York Times. Read more at Vox. 

Only in DC, both from the Washington Post:

Maryland congressman’s daughter uses dad’s car — and congressional license plates — to drive for Lyft. 

A warning left on a nanny’s car. License plates stolen. And a top Pentagon official in big trouble.

Here’s a selection of articles Federal Relations is enjoying this week.

Migratory Patterns – Since before the founding of the nation, Americans have historically been explorers and wanders: the Westward expansion, the Northern Migration, moving from the country to the city. Americans are rolling stones moving in search to discover opportunity — a propensity that has been economically invaluable. That doesn’t seem to be the case anymore. Americans aren’t taking the risk and moving to potential opportunity, and that might be hurting our economy. Read more in the New York Times. 

Tough Sledding – While the job market for recent graduates is booming, those young people without a degree are finding it much more challenging to find a job, and if you find a job, moving up in the operation without a degree is not always and option. Read more in The New York Times.

More Protections – Recently, letters sent by officials at the American Legion, the National Military Family Association, the Military Officers Association of America and nearly 20 other groups called on the department to improve its oversight of colleges that have engaged in deceptive recruiting and other illicit practices but that continue to receive millions in funding under the G.I. Bill. Read more at The New York Times. 

Really, Really Unpopular – This week’s NBC News|SurveyMonkey Election Tracking Poll probed how American voters feel about the presidential front-runners. A majority of voters expressed negative feelings about both of them. Traditionally, a fair number of partisans on either side of the aisle express negative opinions about the other party’s candidate – but the latest poll found that a majority of voters express negative feelings about both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Read the poll at NBC News. 

Increasing – Federal agencies obligated $30.8 billion to 996 academic institutions for science and engineering (S&E) activities in Fiscal Year (FY) 2014, the most recent year for which such information is available, a 6 percent increase over the previous year and the first increase in such funding since FY2009. Read more at NSF. 

Overtime – The Obama Administration’s new overtime rules could be costly for U.S. colleges and universities, who will now need to pay overtime to some post-doctoral researchers, athletic coaches, admissions counselors and other lower-level salaried employees.  The University of Colorado, which employs roughly 30,000 people across the state, is still calculating how expensive the rule-change will be. The new regulations, issued by the U.S. Department of Labor last week, take effect Dec. 1. Read more at the Colorado Daily. 

Science in China – From building the biggest experiments the world has ever seen to rolling out the latest medical advances on a massive scale and pushing the boundaries of exploration from the deepest ocean to outer space – China’s scientific ambitions are immense. Read more at the BBC. 

Celebrity of a Different Sort – NIH Director Francis Collins was at a Washington Nationals game this week to sing the national anthem. Afterwards, Collins was inundated with requests for pictures and autographs…because of course he was — this is DC. Read more in The Washington Post. 

Hey Neighbor! – The biggest news in DC this week is the revelation of the neighborhood the Obamas will move to after they leave the White House. The Obamas had already announced that they will be staying in the District for Sasha to finish high school, and apparently she will be traveling from Kalorama to Sidwell Friends. Read more in Roll Call.