This Week in College Admissions: Harvard’s Records Fight, the Summer Aid Scramble, and 15 HBCUs Make History

On Monday, May 6, the Justice Department filed an amended complaint that broadens its admissions-records lawsuit against Harvard. The new version folds in allegations from a parallel Education Department civil rights investigation that has been quietly running for months. The trigger: Harvard’s continued refusal to hand over individualized applicant data — race, grades, standardized test scores, admissions outcomes, and internal evaluator notes — that federal investigators say is needed to verify the university is complying with the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling on race-conscious admissions.

Harvard’s position is that the request exceeds the federal government’s lawful authority and threatens applicant privacy. The two sides aren’t close on this, and the amended complaint now ties both the DOJ records fight and the ED investigation to a single legal posture. A single court ruling could shape both.

I’ll say what I’ve said for the last two years: even if your student isn’t applying to Harvard, the outcome here matters. Whatever Harvard is compelled to produce — or not — will quietly become the documentation norm at every other selective university.

The Department of Education finalized the bulk of its OBBBA implementing regulations last week — Parent PLUS caps, the elimination of Grad PLUS, the new Direct Graduate loan, and the new Repayment Assistance Plan. All of it goes live July 1, less than two months away.

The final rules came so late that the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators called it “a national problem” in a report this week. The on-the-ground reality: aid offices are manually building estimated offers because internal systems aren’t yet updated. Some schools are warning that students enrolled in summer programs may not see their aid disbursed in May or June on the normal schedule.

And about that new repayment plan — the Repayment Assistance Plan (RAP) becomes the only new income-driven repayment plan available starting July 1. Payments are 1% to 10% of total AGI on a sliding scale, with a $10/month minimum and forgiveness at 30 years. For families looking at debt-heavy majors, this is the new math.

On April 29 at Howard University, the Association of HBCU Research Institutions (AHRI) formally launched with 15 founding members and a three-year, $1.05 million grant from Harvard. Howard — currently the only HBCU classified as Carnegie R1 (Very High Research Activity) — anchors the coalition. The other 14 institutions are working to get there.

Why this matters in plain terms: R1 status drives federal research funding, graduate program quality, and faculty recruiting. The 15 schools in AHRI already account for about half of all competitive federal research funding awarded to HBCUs. They’re pooling research administration, compliance infrastructure, and grants-management capacity to lift more of them into the top tier.

Harvard’s Office for Sponsored Programs is providing technical assistance, hosting HBCU administrators, and supporting lifecycle grants administration. Translation: this isn’t a press release. It’s structural.

Two more things on the OBBBA timeline that you can’t afford to forget. First: Parent PLUS loans get capped at $20,000 per year and $65,000 lifetime per student on July 1. New loans lose Income-Driven Repayment eligibility. Existing borrowers get a three-year grandfather window.

Second: Workforce Pell Grants launch July 1. For the first time, Pell can fund short-term (150–599 clock hour, 8–15 week) training programs in IT, healthcare, skilled trades, and similar fields. Notably, students who already hold a bachelor’s degree are eligible — a real break from the existing Pell rules.

For families with a student who isn’t locked in on the four-year path — or one who’s wavering — Workforce Pell is a quiet but meaningful funding lever. Worth a conversation.