On December 5, 2025, the U.S. Department of Education sent a letter asking some Office for Civil Rights (OCR) employees, who have been put on administrative leave since March 21, 2025 to return to work by the end of December 2025 to prioritize the OCR’s current caseload of discrimination complaints. According to K-12 Dive, a USDE official confirmed that, beginning on December 15, 2025, the USDE is temporarily bringing back OCR staff from administrative leave. The official also stated that, “The Department (USDE) will continue to appeal the persistent and unceasing litigation disputes concerning the Reductions in Force, but in the meantime, it will utilize all employees currently being compensated by American taxpayers.”

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The U.S. Department of Education (USDE) has launched a new disclosure feature that warns students who fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) if they’re interested in colleges whose graduates have relatively low earnings, the agency said Monday. 

According to a December 8, 2025 statement by U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon, “Families deserve a clearer picture of how postsecondary education connects to real-world earnings, and this new indicator will provide that transparency. Not only will this new FAFSA feature make public earnings data more accessible, but it will empower prospective students to make data-driven decisions before they are saddled with debt.”

Students submitting the FAFSA form digitally will see a yellow warning box notifying them that some of their selected colleges show “lower earnings,” stating: “Students graduating from some of the schools you selected don’t always earn more money than people with only a high school diploma.”

The new policy, which went into effect on December 7, 2025, is meant to warn students when they’ve indicated interest in a college whose graduates have relatively low incomes.

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As a result of a November 18, 2025 announcement by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) that said it was developing interagency agreements with other federal agencies to support six programs, an amended lawsuit was filed on December 2, 2025 claiming that the USDE’s plans are illegal and harmful to K-12 and higher education students, educators and families. The suit was filed by a broad coalition of school districts, employee unions, and a disability rights organization and seeks to halt the outsourcing of USDE programs. 

In fact, a December 2nd statement by Democracy Forward on behalf of the plaintiffs said, “Taking away the services and supports students rely on will irreparably hurt children, families, educators, schools, and communities, in states across the nation. The Department of Education offers important support to educators and communities throughout the nation and the unlawful attempts to shut down the Department are nothing less than an abandonment of the future of our country.”

In response, a USDE statement was emailed to K-12 Dive on December 3rd, saying, “It’s no surprise that blue states and unions care more about preserving the DC bureaucracy than about giving parents, students, and teachers more control over education and improving the efficient delivery of funds and services.”

The updated complaint in Somerville v. Trump, which was consolidated with New York v. McMahon, was brought against the USDE by groups of states, school districts, and teacher unions. The Arc of the United States is now an additional plaintiff in the case.

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A negotiating committee convened by the U.S. Department of Education (USDE) agreed to a recent proposal that excludes education from being considered a “professional degree,” according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. A lowered cap on federal student loans available to certain graduate students was approved in the “One Big, Beautiful Bill,” which established the term “professional degrees” to be used internally by the agency to distinguish programs that qualify for higher student loan limits, according to a USDE fact sheet released November 24, 2025. The law also directed the USDE to identify “professional degree” programs that will be eligible for the higher federal lending limits, which resulted in education being omitted.

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