California
California community colleges are struggling with low completion rates as many students fail to graduate with a degree or certificate or transfer within four years…
Roughly 99,000 more California Community College students were awarded a Cal Grant this fall, according to the California Student Aid Commission…
Admission to University of California campuses will from now on be done without standardized tests…
Coronavirus
Faced with rising infections and an anticipated surge in holiday travel, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Friday, 11/19, endorsed booster shots of the COVID-19 vaccines for all Americans over 18…
The Biden administration plans to spend billions of dollars to expand manufacturing capacity, with the goal of producing at least one billion additional COVID-19 doses a year beginning in the second half of 2022…
A new ABC News-Washington Post poll found that just 46 percent of adults with a child younger than 18 at home said they’re confident the vaccine is safe for 5- to 17-year-olds…
President and Administration
Last week,, the U.S. Education Department announced the approval of Puerto Rico’s American Rescue Plan Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ARP ESSER) plan and distributed the final $990 million in ARP funding…
President Biden's infrastructure bill - which was signed into law last week - and Build Back Better reconciliation bill will not add to inflationary pressures in the U.S. economy, economists and analysts in leading rating agencies announced last week…
Detroit’s two biggest automakers - Ford Motor and General Motors - are looking to get into the semiconductor business, after a year of computer-chip shortages that snarled their global factory output…
The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) is extending the methadone take-home flexibilities for one year, effective upon the eventual expiration of the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency…
U.S. consumers withstood rising inflation to power a burst of shopping ahead of the holiday season, with big retailers reporting higher sales and expectations for a solid finish to the year…
Last week, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen extended the deadline for a potential catastrophic default on government debt to 12/15 from 12/3…
Rebounding economic activity and natural gas shortages recently pushed the developed world’s oil reserves to their lowest since early 2015, but growing crude supply could soon ease that pressure, the International Energy Agency said last week…
Congress
The House on Friday, 11/19, passed $1.7 trillion in new funding to expand the social safety net, sending it to the Senate after months of infighting…
As the U.S. approaches the 12/3 deadline, top Democrats are considering a stopgap further into December as their leading option - potentially 12/17 or even closer to Christmas - rather than a longer continuing resolution that pushes the deadline into the new year…
A cloture vote on Wednesday, 11/17, to expedite debate on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) will kick into gear senators’ push to tack their priorities onto must-pass spending bills before the end of the year…
Last week, the Senate confirmed Jonathan Kanter on a bipartisan basis as the Justice Department’s top antitrust official…
Steve Bannon, who served as a senior aide to President Trump, surrendered to authorities and appeared in federal court last week, three days after he was indicted by a grand jury on two counts of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide information to the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol…
President Biden pardoned two turkeys, named Peanut Butter and Jelly, on Friday, 11/19, during the first traditional turkey pardon ceremony of his presidency…
Education
College students are taking on more private loan debt than ever before, with private loans now comprising nearly eight percent of all student debt, according to the Institute for College Access and Success’s new report on the Class of 2020’s student debt burden…
The House Education and Labor Committee held a subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, 11/17, to conduct oversight of how institutions have been using the $76 billion invested in the Higher Education Emergency Relief Fund (HEERF)…
The Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans awards $25,000 and $10,000 in college scholarships each year, for a total of more than $20 million a year in such awards…
Last week, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Education Department needs to update its plans for responding to cyberattacks against grade schools, as they face growing online threats, including ransomware, denial-of-service attacks, email scams and pandemic-era concerns like disruptions to virtual learning environments…