The U.S. Department of Education announced on Friday that it is opening investigations into two Texas universities, including Houston’s Rice University, for allegedly engaging in race-exclusionary practices in their graduate programs.

The deep cuts across federal agencies since Donald Trump’s return to the White House include reductions in force, which mean not only layoffs but also elimination of positions altogether.

The Senate has voted to confirm former wrestling executive Linda McMahon as the nation’s education chief, a role that places her atop a department President Donald Trump has vowed to dismantle.

As President Donald Trump reshaped the Education Department, parents say investigations and mediations into kids' disability rights cases ground to a halt.

Linda McMahon on Thursday sketched out how key functions of the Education Department could be carved up to achieve President Donald Trump’s goal of dismantling the agency, vowing to “reorient” the department while continuing some of its largest programs.

The Department of Education has taken another step in advancing the Trump administration’s new transgender policy for sports by asking the NCAA and a key high-school sports organization to restore titles, awards and records it says have been “misappropriated by biological males competing in female categories.”.

A federal research office that tracks the progress of America’s students is being hit with almost $900 million in cuts after Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency found no need for much of its work.

Donald Trump’s second administration has advanced an avalanche of policy action and political pronouncements that have jolted Washington and, in some cases, the world.

Many colleges accused of tolerating antisemitism on their campuses have been settling with federal civil rights investigators in the weeks before the inauguration of President-elect Donald Trump, who urged a tougher response to campus protests against the war in Gaza.

Whether you are looking to change careers or need help starting out, there are many opportunities for training in the Houston area. From learning English to gaining new skills for the workforce, KPRC 2′s Bill Spencer details free options for personal or professional growth.

Student loan payments start up again for most borrowers in October, but more than 800,000 people who have been paying for years are having their loans forgiven.

A new federal rule threatens to cut federal money to college programs that consistently leave graduates with low pay or unaffordable debt.

Under the new plan, income and family size will determine the payments for current and future federal student loan borrowers with some payments dropping to zero dollars per month.

In 2009, James Earl Dunn Jr. was sentenced to 33 months in prison for defrauding the Department of Education.

President Joe Biden’s plan to provide up to $20,000 in federal student loan forgiveness has been blocked by two federal courts.

The Biden administration is no longer accepting applications for student loan forgiveness after a second federal court shut down the program.

Democratic Sens. Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth are urging the Education Department to strengthen regulations against excluding kids from class because of behaviors related to a disability — a practice known as informal removal.

When President Joe Biden announced a plan to forgive student loan debt, many borrowers who kept making payments during the pandemic wondered if they’d made the right choice.

The Biden administration says it will cancel any federal student loans used to attend the for-profit Westwood College from 2002 through 2015 after officials found that the school exaggerated the job prospects of graduates.

President Joe Biden says many Americans will be able to have up to $10,000 in federal student loan debt forgiven in they make less than $125,000 a year.

The Biden administration has agreed to cancel $6 billion in student loans for about 200,000 former students who say they were defrauded by their colleges.

President Joe Biden hasn't made a decision yet on how he'll handle the student loan debt issue, but his administration is trying to bring closure to one of the most notorious cases of fraud in American higher education.

After the Department of Education’s civil rights enforcement arm announced in November that it was investigating students’ allegations of discrimination and bullying at the Carroll Independent School District in Southlake, conservative parents and politicians were outraged.

The Biden administration says it will cancel more than $70 million in student debt for borrowers who say they were defrauded by the for-profit DeVry University.

Officials at historically Black colleges thought they might finally have a pipeline for long-term funding from the federal government after the Biden administration included at least $45 billion for them in its multitrillion dollar economic package.

The Biden administration has announced that federal student loan payments will remain suspended through January 2022, extending a pause that was scheduled to expire next month.

Biden also signed a second executive order formally establishing the White House Gender Policy Council, which his transition team had announced before he took office. Any effort to rewrite DeVos’ rules would have to go through a federal rulemaking process that can take years to complete. AdRepublicans slammed Biden’s move and defended DeVos’ rules. The scope of cases that colleges must address is also likely to be expanded again under the Biden administration, he said. Biden is starting the process even as DeVos' policy faces ongoing legal challenges.

New York City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza is shown this still image, from New York Mayor Bill de Blasio's media availability, Friday, Feb. 26, 2021, in New York. (New York City Office of the Mayor via AP)NEW YORK – New York City's Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza announced Friday he will step down, citing the coronavirus pandemic's personal toll on his family. Porter is set to take over March 15, ready to “hit the ground running and lead New York City schools to a full recovery,” she said. Some elementary school students returned to in-person schooling in December, but upper-grade classrooms have remained closed except for those serving some special-needs students. “From day one, Carranza challenged white supremacy in education and called out the inequity, bias and segregation in New York City schools.

Since coming under federal scrutiny, the 12 schools disclosed a combined $6.5 billion in foreign funding that was previously unreported, the department said. Yale said it failed to submit foreign funding reports for the years 2014 to 2017 but later corrected the omission. It's not unusual for U.S. colleges to accept foreign funding for research projects or exchange programs, but federal reporting requirements have long been treated as an honor system. That began to change last year, however, after a bipartisan report in Congress raised alarms about colleges’ ties with China. In response to that finding, DeVos began ordering broader investigations into universities' foreign funding.

Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Robert Redfield, speaks during a White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the Department of Education July 8, 2020, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)WASHINGTON House Democrats are criticizing the White House for blocking the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from testifying at a public hearing on safely reopening the nation's schools. Democrats said they invited CDC officials, including director Robert Redfield, to testify at a hearing next Thursday but were rebuffed by the White House. A committee spokesperson said the panel asked for any CDC official to testify but was rejected. A White House spokesperson said Friday that Dr. Redfield has testified on Capitol Hill at least four times over the last three months.

(AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)WASHINGTON Despite President Donald Trump's sharp criticism, federal guidelines for reopening schools are not being revised, the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday. Redfield commented a day after Trump complained the reopening guidelines were very tough and expensive and the CDC was asking schools to do very impractical things. Speaking of CDC officials, he tweeted, I will be meeting with them.!!!" On Wednesday, at a White House coronavirus task force briefing, Vice President Mike Pence said new CDC guidelines would be coming out next week. I want to make it very clear that what is not the intent of CDCs guidelines is to be used as a rationale to keep schools closed, he said. In his tweet on Wednesday, Trump did not clarify which of the CDC guidelines he opposed.