The growing popularity of professional graduate degrees over the past several decades ' including programs in business administration and engineering management ' has reshaped the economics of higher education. Unlike traditional academic graduate programs, which are often centered on research and scholarship, these professionally oriented degrees are designed primarily for workforce advancement and typically charge much higher tuition. Some universities and colleges also leverage their brands to offer online, executive or certificate-based versions of these programs, attracting many students from the U.S. and abroad who pay the full tuition. This steady revenue helps universities subsidize tuition for other students who cannot pay the full rate, among other things. Yet a quiet tension underlies this evolution in higher education ' the widening divide between practical, technical training and a comprehensive education that perhaps is more likely to encourage students to inquire, reflect and innovate as they learn....

The Trump administration has taken the government shutdown as an opportunity to end federal oversight of the education services offered to more than 8 million children with disabilities in America. Last month, the Department of Education attempted to fire nearly every staff member left at the Office of Special Education Programs'an action now stuck in litigation. The department had already canceled millions of dollars in grants to provide teacher training and parental support for students with disabilities, and it is now 'exploring additional partnerships' to move special-education services elsewhere in the government. Ostensibly, these cuts and administrative changes are part of a broader effort to empower states. But whatever the motive, the result is clear: The government has abandoned its commitment to an equitable education for all children. This attack did not come out of nowhere. Over the course of five decades, Congress has repeatedly weakened the transformative law that has governed education for disabled students, putting it in the precarious and dysfunctional position it was in when Donald Trump took office....

A federal judge on Oct. 16, 2025, paused the Trump administration's latest round of layoffs, which targeted more than 4,000 federal workers at a range of agencies, including 466 workers at the Department of Education. U.S. District Judge Susan Illston said that the administration's layoffs, which it has justified because of a lapse of funding during the government shutdown, are 'both illegal and in excess of authority' and called them 'arbitrary and capricious.' The Trump administration is expected to appeal the judge's decision. The Trump administration first eliminated about half of the Department of Education's more than 4,200 positions in March 2025. This latest round of cuts would eliminate almost all of the work of the remaining Department of Education offices, including that of the Office of Special Education Programs. OSEP is responsible for ensuring children with disabilities across the U.S. receive a free, appropriate public education, as required by federal law. Amy Lieberman, the education editor at The Conversation U.S., spoke with Josh Cowen, a scholar of education policy, to understand how these cuts would hinder the educational opportunities for children with special needs....

At an age when many kids prefer to play games on their phones, 11-year-old Vivan Mirchandani wanted to explore physics videos. Little did he know that MIT Open Learning's free online resources would change the course of his life. Nontraditional education has granted Mirchandani the freedom to pursue topics he's personally interested in. This year, he wrote a paper on cosmology that proposes a new framework for understanding Einstein's general theory of relativity. Other projects include expanding on fluid dynamics laws for cats, training an AI model to resemble the consciousness of his late grandmother, and creating his own digital twin. That's in addition to his regular studies, regional science fairs, Model United Nations delegation, and a TEDEd Talk. Mirchandani started down this path between the ages of 10 and 12, when he decided to read books and find online content about physics during the early Covid-19 lockdown in India. He was shocked to find that MIT Open Learning offers free course videos, lecture notes, exams, and other resources from the Institute on sites like MIT OpenCourseWare and the newly launched MIT Learn....