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Federal Judge Rules Trump Administration Can’t Cancel Grants Over New Agency Priorities Jul 30, 2026

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Federal agencies cannot terminate grants simply because a new administration decides the money no longer matches its priorities, a federal judge ruled Friday.

U.S. District Judge Indira Talwani of the District of Massachusetts granted summary judgment to a coalition of 20 states, the District of Columbia, and the governors of Kansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania in their lawsuit against the Office of Management and Budget, Director Russell Vought, and eleven grant-making agencies, including the Departments of Justice, Agriculture, and Homeland Security, the EPA, FEMA, the National Science Foundation, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The case turned on the "Termination Clause" in 2 C.F.R. § 200.340, an OMB regulation that allows an agency to end a federal award that "no longer effectuates the program goals or agency priorities." Since January 2025, agencies have cited that language to cancel billions of dollars in funding, often with termination letters stating only that the work no longer aligned with agency priorities.

Education Department Asks Court To Toss Final Lawsuit Blocking SAVE Plan Shutdown Jul 29, 2026

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The Justice Department told a federal judge on July 14 that the last active lawsuit trying to stop the SAVE plan shutdown should be dismissed. They argue that the borrowers are suing over a potential tax bomb they ignored by not taking action in 2025, miscalculated payments, forgiveness timelines that wouldn't have made a difference due to the OBBBA, and that the rest of the case amounts to $1,320 the government has already promised to refund if it loses.

The 58-page filing in Havens v. U.S. Department of Education opposes the borrowers' request for a preliminary injunction and asks the court to dismiss the case outright.

DOJ Opens Civil Rights Investigation Into Harvard’s $630 Million In China-Based Funding Jul 28, 2026

Show notes

The Justice Department announced Monday that it is investigating whether Harvard University's financial aid practices discriminate against American students, opening a compliance review under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 focused on scholarship programs funded by China-based donors.

At the center of the investigation is a question with implications far beyond just Harvard: can a university accept foreign donations that come with strings attached (specifically, requirements that the money fund financial aid favoring students from particular countries) while also receiving federal dollars that prohibit discrimination based on national origin?

"Every American student should have an equal opportunity to compete for college scholarships, grants, and other kinds of financial aid and benefits," said Assistant Attorney General Harmeet K. Dhillon, who leads the Civil Rights Division. "Schools cannot take federal dollars and then turn around and accept money from foreign sources to give financial aid that deliberately excludes American citizens — doing so is illegal, and we will stop it wherever we find it."

The department stressed it has not reached any conclusions. Harvard, in a statement to The Harvard Crimson, said it "does not unlawfully discriminate on the basis of race, ethnicity, or national origin in allocating financial aid" and that it is reviewing the letter and will engage with the government.

Gallup: Americans’ Confidence In Higher Education Falls To 38% As AI Doubts Grow Jul 27, 2026

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Americans' confidence in higher education slipped to 38% this year, down from 42% in 2025, according to the new Lumina Foundation-Gallup Confidence in Higher Education survey. The drop erases most of the modest recovery colleges saw last year.

The survey, conducted in June 2026, found that 38% of U.S. adults have "a great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education, 37% have "some," and 25% have "very little" or none. When Gallup first asked the question in 2015, 57% of Americans expressed strong confidence.

Common Sense Media Rates Google AI Search An “Unacceptable Risk” For Kids Jul 24, 2026

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Common Sense Media's Youth AI Safety Institute has given Google Search's AI Overview and AI Mode its lowest possible rating (an "unacceptable risk" for kids and teens) after seven weeks of testing found the features failed all five of the group's severe-harm "Red Lines," fabricated facts with confidence, and cannot be turned off by parents, schools, or users.

The assessment, published July 14, 2026, tested more than 2,600 interactions on accounts registered to an 11-year-old and a 15-year-old, both with SafeSearch active.

IRS Data: Families Paid Just $464 On Average In 529 Plan Penalties Jul 23, 2026

Show notes

New IRS data shows that the dreaded 529 plan penalty is far less common, and far less painful, than most families fear.

According to the IRS Statistics of Income division's line item estimates for tax year 2023 (the most recent year with data available, released in June 2026) just 165,152 tax returns paid the 10% additional tax on non-qualified distributions from 529 plans and education savings accounts, totaling $76.6 million. That works out to an average penalty of about $464 per return for people reporting 529 plan distributions.

Out of the more than 160 million individual returns filed for 2023, roughly 0.1% paid this penalty at all.

Nelnet FAQ Signals Department Of Education Cut SAVE Exit Timeline By 3 Months Jul 22, 2026

Show notes

Nelnet has quietly revised its end-of-SAVE-plan FAQ to shorten its notice timeline: every 90-day notice from the servicer will now go out by the end of 2026. The FAQ previously said notices would be delivered between July 2026 and March 2027, a window Nelnet has now cut by three months.

The updated FAQ states: "Nelnet is notifying nearly three million Nelnet borrowers, so we're reaching out in waves. You'll receive your notice by the end of 2026."

When Dollar Cost Averaging Works And When It Doesn’t Jul 21, 2026

Show notes

Dollar-cost averaging is a simple but effective strategy for addressing stock market volatility. Instead of trying to time the market with a large lump-sum investment, it invests smaller amounts at regular intervals.

Sometimes, dollar-cost averaging works better than lump-sum investing. Sometimes lump-sum investing works better.

Learn when each option works best.

How Employers Can Contribute $2,500 To Trump Accounts Jul 20, 2026

Show notes

Employer contributions to Trump Accounts become legal on July 4, 2026 — one year to the day after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act created the new children's savings accounts. For small business owners, the launch opens a question worth real money: can your business fund your own kids' accounts with pre-tax dollars?

The answer appears to be yes for many owners, but the mechanics matter. The tax break runs through new Internal Revenue Code Section 128, which lets an employer contribute up to $2,500 per year to the Trump Account of an employee or an employee's dependent without the amount counting as taxable income to the employee.

For a solopreneur who is also an employee of their own company, that can mean a business deduction on one side and no income tax on the other — a combination that is hard to find elsewhere in the code.

But the provision comes with paperwork requirements, contribution caps, and several unresolved questions the IRS has not yet answered. Here is what the rules require, where the opportunity sits for owner-operators, and the mistakes that could undo the benefit.

New Department of Education Rule Makes Accreditors Prove Degrees Are Worth The Cost Jul 17, 2026

Show notes

The job hasn't changed, but the degree required to get it has. Over the past three decades, one profession after another has raised its educational entry price: a bachelor's became a master's...a master's became a doctorate...a short training course became a year of mandatory classes.

These new requirements are adding years of tuition and borrowing for careers that pay roughly what they paid before the new requirements were added. The labor market simply doesn't pay more because you got more education.

Economists call it degree inflation, and the most surprising part isn't the cost. It's who decides "what's required". In many licensed fields, the degree you must "buy" isn't set by Congress or your state legislature. It's set by private organizations most Americans have never heard of: accrediting agencies.

And because of how the higher education system is wired, a single change by one of these groups can raise the required degree standards for an entire profession in all 50 states at once, with no election, no hearing in your statehouse, and no vote by anyone you can vote out.

That system is now squarely in Washington's crosshairs. The Department of Education's negotiated rulemaking committee reached consensus on May 21, 2026, on new regulations that would put a stop to this practice. The Department had named "credential inflation" as an explicit target when it launched the committee in January.

To understand why that matters for your family's college costs, you first have to understand a system that almost nobody outside higher education knows exists.

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