News You Might Have Missed--5/1/26
A roundup of items related to higher education and college admissions over the last week.
New Anti-Fraud Tool Arrives on FAFSA Website
Some users who encounter the Free Application for Federal Student Aid website may find a few extra steps in creating an account. A new identification verification tool has been added to the FAFSA during account creation. The announcement from the Department of Education touted that this tool helps take out AI bots, fraud schemes, and “ghost students.” The DOE also took swipes at the Biden Administration by asserting claims that it found $1 Billion in Federal Financial Aid fraud.
What the statement does not do is explain either precisely how the tool works or how many users would be flagged. The tool appears to be a video identification process that requires showing government IDs on camera. It also will only be triggered if the system suspects an applicant is likely to be attempting fraud. How precisely that is assessed or what students can do to avoid that before the verification step was not mentioned.
Likely, this new tool will prevent students from completing the FAFSA, as any barrier reduces completion rates in any application. Additionally, whether this tool does a good job of finding actual fraud is unclear, since it is brand new. A full reckoning of what this accomplishes will not be possible until future FAFSA deadlines, and full accountancy will need at least one complete cycle. So let’s check back in a year.
NCAA is Expanding Basketball Tournaments in 2027
The NCAA Men’s and Women’s Basketball Tournaments will expand to 72 teams next season. Kind of. Technically speaking, the 64 team tournaments will maintain their classic knock-out brackets with four regions holding 16 teams each. What is expanding is the play-in games heretofore known as the “First Four.” Instead of eight games to place four teams in the 64-team bracket, there will now be 24 games to place 12 teams in the 64-team bracket. Although not a done deal, the extra approvals necessary are apparently “formalities,” according to ESPN’s anonymous sources.
This may seem like a “college” topic, but not related to college admissions. The NCAA Basketball Tournaments (I will NOT be running into trouble by using a phrase similar to “Third Month Insanity”) provide a huge visibility boost for any schools that make it but aren’t traditional basketball powerhouses. Teams who make this extra play-in are more likely to not be powerhouses. While most teams who make the tournaments only thanks to expansion won’t go on runs, there is still the chance to be a Cinderella team. Davidson, Florida Gulf Coast, and St. Peter’s all became household names–even if for only a month or two–thanks to March winning streaks.
Faculty Are Changing Research After Anti-“DEI” and “Woke” Legislation
A new report from ITHAKA S+R shows that faculty have changed their research after state and federal legislation targeting “what [the laws’] supporters have referred to as ‘divisive concepts,’ ‘woke ideologies,’ ‘DEI,’ or ‘critical race theory.’” The authors are actually only sharing the initial findings of a survey of 4,003 responders at various institutions across the U.S. This is merely the portion related to these “divisive policies.”
Yet the findings are stark. On the extreme end, eight percent of respondents had a federal grant cancelled in 2025, and eleven percent said these policies are forcing them to leave their current positions. But 26% of respondents report new laws restricting research or publication, a number that shoots up to 48% for respondents in states where these policies were implemented. Unsurprisingly, that was even higher–66%--for respondents at state-funded institutions.
Arguably, this would be seen as a success by the law’s advocates. Yet it’s going to impact what faculty are willing to do at institutions in states with such policies. There may even be some brain drain out of states with these policies, if researchers feel they can’t do their job.
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