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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf

@jbeowulf.bsky.social
2K followers 1.1K following 160 posts

Investigating predatory colleges and talking federal higher ed policy for @NewAmerica.org. Formerly of @insidehighered.com and Higher Ed Dive. Signal: jbeowulf.03 (he/him)

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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 28/01/2026
My latest for @newamerica.org: The Trump administration rerouted tens of millions of dollars that Congress set aside for student-support grants, including food and housing aid, to aspiring college accreditors—most of which are unlikely to serve a federal purpose. www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Trump Administration Diverted Student Aid to Accreditors Unlikely to Ever Serve a Federal Purpose
The U.S. Department of Education gave out millions of dollars in grant funding to aspiring accreditors.
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Stephanie Baker @stephabaker.bsky.social · 15/10/2025
This was such a good panel, am eager for the recording bc I could only make the 1st half. Highly encourage others to listen when it’s ready!
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 16/10/2025
My latest for @educationwork.newamerica.org: My investigation with @antoinetteflores.bsky.social into how NACCAS, a beauty school accreditor, allows colleges with violations to keep accessing federal aid. Many fail to disclose sanctions to students. 🔗 www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Cosmetology Without Accountability: Failures of a Beauty School Accreditor
Accreditation is a system built to protect students and taxpayers, but NACCAS has turned it into a shield for failing beauty schools.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 25/09/2025
Trump's ED Department has punished Harvard with heightened cash monitoring, an oversight tool for financially shaky colleges. But as ED squeezes Harvard, it’s letting unstable colleges slide off HCM—leaving students & taxpayers unprotected: My latest: www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Heightened Cash Monitoring Weaponized: Failing Schools Skirt Scrutiny, Harvard Takes the Blow
The Trump Administration is twisting a longstanding oversight tool for political gain.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 22/08/2025
I went to my first SHEEO policy conference last week! A highlight was presenting New America’s work on cosmetology schools, which shows many students earn less than high school grads, while industry lobbying keeps licensure strict and stifles new pathways. Read 👉 www.newamerica.org/education-po...
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
In an unsurprising display of hypocrisy, the Trump administration, which has been deeply critical of student loan forgiveness, is now offering to forgive student loans. As incentive to join ICE. www.dhs.gov/news/2025/07...
dhs.gov
DHS Launches ‘Defend the Homeland’ Nationwide to Recruit Patriots to Join ICE Law Enforcement And Remove Worst of the Worst from U.S.  | Homeland Security
Murderers, rapists, terrorists, and child pedophiles—ICE is recruiting patriotic, brave Americans to remove these criminal illegal aliens from America’s streets
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 29/07/2025
Ohio just cracked down on online program managers, or OPMs, shadowy third-party recruiters and program builders. Guardrails like the ones Ohio instituted can help stop abuses. A great breakdown from the Century Foundation: tcf.org/content/comm...
tcf.org
Ohio Takes Action to Protect Students by Placing Guardrails on Online Program Managers
On June 30, Ohio Governor Mike DeWine signed into law House Bill 96, a bill that included a provision to regulate the use of online program managers
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 25/07/2025
Today, I’m helping break down how the Big Beautiful Bill affects higher education finance and students’ ability to afford college. Join us today at 3 ET virtually ⤵️
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 24/07/2025
Just because you wrote it down does not make it so. www.insidehighered.com/news/governa...
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Eddy Conroy @econroy.bsky.social · 26/06/2025
🧵1/n 🚨New publication alert! We just published a brief on what happens to parenting students' chances of success in college when they are threatened with eviction. The results are devastating. I have never cried when writing up research before. I did this time. www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Ousted from Opportunity: Eviction's Adverse Impact on Parenting College Students
New America partnered with the Eviction Lab to understand how eviction affects parents who are attending college while caring for children—and found it likely leads to severe negative consequences.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 05/06/2025
Two big takeaways from my new piece today. One, the Trump administration is trying to strong-arm an accreditor into doing its political bidding. Two, Columbia’s accredition isn’t in real jeopardy if the proper processes are followed. www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
The Trump Administration Is Wielding Accreditation as Political Weapon Against Columbia University
The administration's actions threaten the entire integrity of the accreditor system, which is supposed to be insulated from political pressures.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Mind you, a GOP priority (allegedly?) is rooting out foreign influence in American colleges, and donations from Qatar have come under scrutiny before. But Republicans are fine Qatari officials just giving the president a $400M+ plane, I guess. www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Trump’s Bureaucratic Purge Renders GOP’s College Foreign Gift Bill Unenforceable
The U.S. Department of Education, whose staff has been cut by about half, would need to enforce the legislation.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 11/05/2025
Princeton University’s student newspaper is reporting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth plagiarized portions of his senior thesis. www.dailyprincetonian.com/article/2025...
dailyprincetonian.com
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth ’03 ‘plagiarized’ small portions of his senior thesis, experts say. But how serious is it?
A review of the senior thesis of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ’03 by The Daily Princetonian, in consultation with three plagiarism experts, found eight instances of uncredited material, sham paraphr...
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
It wanted Harvard to hire an auditor who would identity the departments that lacked viewpoint diversity. And if they did then they needed to “be reformed by hiring a critical mass of new faculty,” the administration said.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
The Trump administration definitely wants to see more conservative voices in academe. One of the conditions it tried to impose on Harvard was “viewpoint diversity” in its hiring. www.harvard.edu/research-fun...
harvard.edu
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
The new guidance simplifies this process. Now, if the Department of Education doesn’t respond within 30 days, the switch is automatically approved—even sometimes for colleges facing sanctions like probation.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Under the Higher Education Act, colleges must show “reasonable cause” to change accreditors. Previously, this meant providing detailed documentation to prevent institutions from dodging oversight.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
The Trump administration has issued new guidance that significantly eases the process for colleges to switch accreditors. This move could allow institutions under scrutiny to evade accountability and continue receiving federal aid.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 02/05/2025
Your Friday reading, besides the Fetterman profile, is this explanation of Trump’s accreditation policies from me and @wesleywhistle.bsky.social. www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Trump's Accreditation Guidance Sidesteps Core Higher Ed Safeguards
New Education Department policies may disadvantage students and taxpayers by inviting fraudsters into the accreditation system.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
Thanks, Goldie!!
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 30/04/2025
A few new accreditors want federal recognition. Their leaders are tied to predatory for-profit colleges, some of which defrauded students. My latest: www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Meet the Would-Be Accreditors Tied to Predatory For-Profit Colleges
The Trump administration is laying the groundwork for potentially exploitative accreditors to enter the federal financial aid system.
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Will Ragland @citizenwillis.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
🚨 How are DOGE cuts impacting your community? Under Musk's leadership, DOGE has implemented sweeping reductions in grants, contracts, and leases. Here’s a new tool I built that identifies grant and lease terminations by congressional district.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
This is excellent work.
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Education & Work @educationwork.newamerica.org · 08/04/2025
The president's mass layoffs strategy is backfiring—and sabotaging the priorities of his own party. ↘️ Here, our investigator @jbeowulf.bsky.social explains how this "government paralysis" will make implementing new legislation "likely impossible."
newamerica.org
Trump’s Bureaucratic Purge Renders GOP’s College Foreign Gift Bill Unenforceable
The U.S. Department of Education, whose staff has been cut by about half, would need to enforce the legislation.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 03/04/2025
Tufts has issued a statement saying the graduate student who ICE agents abducted last month did not have a record that would warrant her arrest, and that a pro-Palestine essay she wrote did not violate university policy. www.tufts.edu/president/sp...
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Trump's Education Department has reportedly frozen half of Princeton's federal funding after its president wrote a public essay criticizing the administration's attack on higher education. This is government retaliation, pure and simple. From @chronicle.com: www.chronicle.com/article/near...
chronicle.com
Nearly Half of Princeton U.’s Federal Funding Has Reportedly Been Frozen by the Trump Administration
The university appears to be the next target in a campaign to go after higher education for allegedly failing to suppress campus antisemitism.
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Bill Grueskin @bgrueskin.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
So @garrettshanley.bsky.social, the Univ of Florida student journalist who broke the Ben Sasse scandal wide open, has another banger today about Florida's surgeon general, who has almost nothing to show for his six-figure, second job as a tenured prof at UF www.alligator.org/article/2025...
Now, more than three years into his tenure, internal records and interviews with more than a dozen professors and administrators raise questions about whether Ladapo is meeting UF’s expectations. 

Ladapo’s work calendar shows monthslong stretches with little or no activity. Instead of attaining grants and conducting research, he spent his first year revising manuscripts and writing his memoir, “Transcend Fear,” which details his skepticism of vaccines. 

He also promised to bring hundreds of thousands in research dollars from the University of California at Los Angeles, his previous employer. That never happened. He blamed his former boss, claiming she withheld the funds over disagreements about COVID-19 policies. A review of internal reports and public directories indicate Ladapo hasn't secured any research grants for UF.

His classroom contributions are similarly sparse. Ladapo agreed to dedicate 20% of his time to teaching; so far, that’s amounted to a handful of seminars and guest lectures. A proposed course on “critical evaluation of scientific evidence” has yet to materialize.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Also worth noting that even the Education Department and Congress are still trying to understand Section 117. No one even really knew it existed until Trump’s first term, when the Education Department essentially weaponized it. I did a big piece on it in 2022 ⤵️ www.highereddive.com/news/college...
highereddive.com
Colleges twist in the wind with foreign gift requirements in limbo
Higher education is struggling to understand its current legal requirements, even as Congress debates changes to those laws.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Essentially Republicans have passed a messaging bill, because there’s zero chance Section 117 can be enforced as is, let alone the new requirements the GOP is pushing for.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Trump hasn’t axed the specific team that enforces and monitors Section 117. But he has gotten rid almost all staff in the department’s legal office, who had necessary security clearances to answer questions from other federal agencies about Section 117.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
The bill would lower that threshold to $50K and do a bunch of other things like force colleges to seek a department waiver to contract with China or Russia. Again — this reporting is all run through the Education Department, specifically the Office of Federal Student Aid. It collects this data.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Here’s what’s going on. Republicans are trying to change Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, which requires colleges to report any foreign gift and contract to the federal govt worth $250K or more in a calendar year.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 01/04/2025
Last week, the House passed a GOP bill that would beef up colleges’ mandates to report foreign gifts and contracts to the Education Department. Except there’s a problem — Trump and DOGE have fired staff in the department who would help carry out the legislation. www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Trump’s Bureaucratic Purge Renders GOP’s College Foreign Gift Bill Unenforceable
The U.S. Department of Education, whose staff has been cut by about half, would need to enforce the legislation.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
The board had cited one of President Donald Trump’s anti-trans executive orders as impetus for the ban. The judge wrote in court filings the board’s arguments for the ban are “both faulty in logic and contrary to longstanding First Amendment jurisprudence.”
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 24/03/2025
A federal judge has ruled against the Texas A&M University System board for banning drag shows on campuses. The “Draggieland” event, which prompted the board to cancel drag shows, can proceed as planned this week. storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
storage.courtlistener.com
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 20/03/2025
President Trump just claimed during his remarks that everyone supports his idea to shut down the Education Department. That's wrong. Most Americans want the Education Department to stay open, as my colleagues just wrote about: www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Trump’s Proposal to Dismantle the Education Department Unpopular Among Americans
New poll findings show Trump's proposal for education unpopular among Americans.
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Kevin Carey @kevincarey1.bsky.social · 14/03/2025
Everyone--EVERYONE--in higher education has to understand that this is Trump's plan for you, too: federal control over scholarship, curricula, discipline, admissions--everything. They want you to submit. Your only other option is to stand up, together.
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Education & Work @educationwork.newamerica.org · 14/03/2025
A political appointee recently demanded that @georgetownlaw.bsky.social stop teaching about diversity. 🎓 Here, our investigator @jbeowulf.bsky.social implores #HigherEd institutions to stand firm against authoritarian actors—and ignore their illegal orders.
newamerica.org
U.S. Colleges Should Not Abandon Their Principles
Institutions have the opportunity to be defenders of diversity efforts and academic freedom as the Trump administration assails those values.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 13/03/2025
Senator, I am one of 700,000 DC residents who would feel the pain of a $1B cut that this CR would create. & this is DC’s budget, largely paid for with locals’ tax dollars, not federal money. Passing the CR would hurt the district and give new leeway to Trump-Musk and their razing of the government.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
So proud to do this work with Ewa.
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Ben Mullin @benmullin.bsky.social · 10/03/2025
Scoop: Washington Post editor Ruth Marcus says she’s resigning after a column on Jeff Bezos’s Wall Street Journal-like opinion pivot was rejected by Will Lewis
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 07/03/2025
The acting U.S. attorney for DC demanded Georgetown Law stop teaching diversity-related topics. It’s wrong (and illegal) for political appointees to try to dictate what colleges can teach. But institutions must also stand up to authoritarian actors. My latest: www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
U.S. Colleges Should Not Abandon Their Principles
Institutions have the opportunity to be defenders of diversity efforts and academic freedom as the Trump administration assails those values.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
And most Americans don't agree with the idea of shutting down the Education Department, FYI, as New America polling shows: www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
Trump’s Proposal to Dismantle the Education Department Unpopular Among Americans
New poll findings show Trump's proposal for education unpopular among Americans.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Our fearless leader @kevincarey1.bsky.social summed it up nicely. Shutting down the Education Department "is only a nihilistic act of civic vandalism, carried out by ideological zealots who don’t understand what they are trying in vain to destroy." www.newamerica.org/education-po...
newamerica.org
There’s Nothing “Final” About McMahon’s Mission to Destroy the Department of Education
The Trump administration lacks both the legal authority and the political power to actually close the Department of Education.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
This is an important point to keep repeating as a certain executive order starts grabbing headlines. Trump *cannot* close the Education Department unilaterally, period.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Hey @nytimes.com, you are wrong here. www.nytimes.com/live/2025/03... The power to shut down the U.S. Department of Education rests squarely with Congress. It's not "likely" federal lawmakers would need to approve closing the department, they are the only ones who can!
nytimes.com
Trump Live Updates: Latest Department of Education and Tariff News
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
I'm so proud of this work, which has taken on new meaning as President Donald Trump reportedly drafts an executive order to shut down the U.S. Department of Education. The department has a chief role overseeing failing institutions of all sorts, including beauty schools. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...
wsj.com
Exclusive | Draft of Trump Executive Order Aims to Eliminate Education Department
Secretary Linda McMahon would be directed to “take all necessary steps to facilitate the closure” based on “the maximum extent appropriate and permitted by law.”
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Many beauty schools peddle lackluster and outdated training in which students don't get the skills they need to learn contemporary trends, such as coloring. One student told me her instructor didn't show up for a week straight once, so she just played around on her phone during class.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
We unearthed that the cosmetology education industry maintains a powerful lobby dating back decades. The industry advocates nationwide to keep burdensome state licensure requirements in place that lock cosmetology students in school longer that needed to earn their credential.
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Jeremy Bauer-Wolf @jbeowulf.bsky.social · 06/03/2025
Most cosmetology students can't earn a living wage, no matter their state. That's a horrifying reality, one that my team and I tease out in our new report on for-profit beauty schools we published today. This has been in the works for years, FYI! www.newamerica.org/education-po... Read on ↓
newamerica.org
Cut Short: The Broken Promises of Cosmetology Education
Cosmetology education in the U.S. needs dire reform. It fails to meet student expectations and leaves graduates with burdensome debt.
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