The European Parliament overwhelmingly supported an increased budget and scope for the Erasmus+ student-exchange programme under the new EU budget on Thursday (22 October).
The plenary in Strasbourg opted for a €7bn increase in Erasmus+’s budget compared to the commission’s proposal, by 454 votes, with 34 abstentions, against 93, mostly from right-wing parties.
And it was an audacious move, seeing as ‘frugal’ EU capitals are pushing for €150bn of cuts to the commission’s draft.
But even a “slight increase” in Erasmus+ funds would mean more opportunities for thousands of people, said Bogdan Zdrojewski, a Polish centre-right MEP, who was the rapporteur on the file, during a parliamentary debate earlier on Wednesday.
Celebrating its 40th anniversary in 2027, Erasmus+ enables young people to study, live, and work in foreign countries both inside the 27 EU states and the programme’s 160 “associate” states worldwide.
Some 17 million people have taken part since it began, with an estimated 1 million babies also born to couples who met on exchange, in what the commission has long used as a flagship PR project for creating a feel-good factor about the EU.
Meanwhile, the UK will rejoin the programme in 2027, which means EU students will once more have the opportunity to also spend a semester in Britain, which host some of Europe and the world’s top universities.
And the parliament would also welcome Canada’s full participation in a few years’ time, Zdrojewski told press on Wednesday.
The EU Parliament would like to expand Erasmus+ to more vocational training. “Erasmus+ will be a programme for Europeans no matter what age, what stage of life,” Zdrojewski said.
And students from poorer homes should get more support to live in pricey cities abroad, he added.
The share of Erasmus+ participants who had fewer opportunities to travel under the present structure stood at 15 percent in 2023 – up from 10 percent only two years earlier, according to a commission evaluation.
“Far too often, it is still the parents’ financial situation that determines who can take part in Erasmus+ and who cannot,” said Sabrina Repp, a German socialist MEP, in Wednesday’s debate in Strasbourg.
Working students often cannot afford to quit their current job to go abroad, she added: “That is precisely what we must change.”
The EU budget talks are to be finalised early next year.
Some 83 percent of Erasmus+ participants say they gained professional skills that helped them in the labour market.
But in order for those opportunities to be available more widely, “we need more funding for this programme,” also said Lucia Yar, a Slovak liberal MEP in the Strasbourg debate.
University professor Jonathan Zimmerman argues that current collegiate sexual assault prevention programs are insufficient and calls for middle and high schools to provide comprehensive sex education that addresses the influence of pornography.
University professor Jonathan Zimmerman argues that current collegiate sexual assault prevention programs are insufficient and calls for middle and high schools to provide comprehensive sex education that addresses the influence of pornography.
On November 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that asks whether Colorado has unlawfully discriminated against a religious preschool because the school is barred from participating in the state's universal preschool program due to its refusal to accept LGBTQ families. In addition to involving multiple hot-button political and cultural issues, the case also has big implications for the future of federal antidiscrimination law.
St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy is not about a state law that directly prohibits a religious preschool from operating. Rather, at issue here is a government requirement that any preschool that wants to participate in the state's universal preschool program, and receive the public benefits that follow, must first satisfy various criteria, including that "each preschool provider provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll and receive preschool services regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level, or disability."
According to the Catholic preschools overseen by the Archdiocese of Denver, however, complying with that rule would force the schools to violate their religious beliefs. "It is undisputed that these preschools would otherwise be eligible [universal preschool] providers," the schools told the Supreme Court. "They are excluded solely because of their religious exercise—namely, their religious practices of ensuring that all enrolling families are supportive of the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage and of treating enrolled four-year-olds in accordance with their biological sex."
These schools can point to a pair of recent Supreme Court precedents that will very likely count in their favor. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), the Court held that if a state provides educational subsidies that help parents send their children to private schools, the state "cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious." Then, in Carson v. Makin (2022), the Court held that Maine's tuition assistance program violated the Constitution by excluding private schools that offered "sectarian" education. "A State's antiestablishment interest," the decision said, "does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise."
I would expect the outcome of St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy to follow in this same general pattern and hold something to the effect that when a state provides an educational public benefit, it must make some sort of accommodation for the religious views of the recipients.
In Other Legal News
Justice Elena Kagan made news a few months back when she defended her conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court from the oft-heard charge that they are totally in the tank for President Donald Trump. "I don't see this as a court that is just like, 'We're just going to rubber stamp what the current administration does.' You know, quite the opposite," Kagan said. "I think that that is a bad rap." In support of her argument, Kagan pointed to the fact that the Supreme Court had recently ruled against Trump on the two big issues that Trump himself valued the most: tariffs and birthright citizenship.
Kagan was in the news again on Tuesday, this time because she publicly blasted those same conservative colleagues for issuing decisions on voting rights and political gerrymandering that, in Kagan's words, have produced "a democracy that does not work as well as it should." According to Kagan, the Court's conservative majority "has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works."
Does this mean that Kagan has now stopped defending the conservative justices from the pro-Trump charge? Not at all. In fact, as The New York Timesput it, "she reiterated her defense of the conservative-dominated bench from a July appearance and said it was a 'bum rap' to suggest the court had been too deferential to Mr. Trump."
I don't know about you, but I find Kagan to be a refreshing public figure in these simplistic, partisan times. She is a staunch legal liberal with clearly stated objections to what the Supreme Court's conservative majority is getting up to, yet she refuses to be associated with the laziest progressive attacks on the Court. How many people of comparable public stature these days are willing to call out the shortcomings of their own side?
Portal glitches, blurred scans, and evaluation anomalies exposed weaknesses in the rollout of the OSM system. Robust SOPs, secure digital infrastructure, and free access to answer scripts can help restore accountability and public trust in the evaluation process
Surat's Prem Agarwal secured All India Rank 3 in the CA Intermediate September 2026 examination with 490 marks. He credits consistent revision, limited social media use, teachers' guidance and family...
Ohio State University (OSU) is disputing allegations from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that it is discriminating in the admissions process for its medical school. The DOJ sent a letter Wednesday to the OSU College of Medicine alleging the school intentionally discriminated against applicants on the basis of race, particularly Asian applicants, to the benefit of Black…
Ohio State University (OSU) is disputing allegations from the Department of Justice (DOJ) that it is discriminating in the admissions process for its medical school. The DOJ sent a letter Wednesday to the OSU College of Medicine alleging the school intentionally discriminated against applicants on the basis of race, particularly Asian applicants, to the benefit of Black…
The Trump administration has abandoned its goal to reform the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, dropping a legal fight over the changes this week. The Education Department wanted to place limits on who could qualify for PSLF, which gives student loan forgiveness to people in government and nonprofit jobs after 10 years of payments. It…
The Trump administration has abandoned its goal to reform the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program, dropping a legal fight over the changes this week. The Education Department wanted to place limits on who could qualify for PSLF, which gives student loan forgiveness to people in government and nonprofit jobs after 10 years of payments. It…
Fears over lack of scrutiny for key sectors as health editor position also to go in cuts aimed at saving £5.5m
The BBC will no longer have a dedicated education editor as part of a cost-cutting drive in which 100 jobs are to go across BBC News under a plan that school leaders described as “deeply regrettable”.
BBC staff have been told that the roles of education editor and social affairs editor are to be combined into a single position as part of a round of changes that will save £5.5m. However, prominent unions and campaigners are saying the reform will dilute scrutiny of two specialisms that are too important to go without a dedicated BBC role.
Schoolchildren in the 4th and 6th years (mainly from ages 9-11) “have a lot of difficulty in understanding and producing texts in Portuguese, and also in reasoning and the resolution
SALT LAKE CITY â Education Secretary Linda McMahon told Fox News Digital that the United States is due for a "reset" of public education after spending $3 trillion over decades while national reading scores have consistently declined.
"We've spent this $3 trillion that you referenced, and we've watched scores continue to come down. So we're doing something wrong. We need to reset," McMahon said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
"We know that the president believes, as do I, that the best education is the one that's closest to the child with parental involvement," McMahon added. "Our goal is to make sure that we move administrative programs that focus more on adults out of Washington, D.C., so that we can get all of those dollars back into education in the states."
McMahon visited Utah on Tuesday to highlight the Trump administration's progress in reforming K-12 education. Delivering a speech titled "The Next 250: K-12 Education," the secretary emphasized returning education authority to the states, investing in proven academic interventions and expanding school choice for families.
"In every decision we make, we are not asking what's better for growing government power, ideological agendas or bureaucrats' careers. We are returning education to its most basic obligation: to nurture the God-given potential of our children," McMahon told a crowd of students, parents and teachers at American Preparatory Academy in West Valley City.
The Utah event marked the 47th stop on the department's 50-state tour aimed at decentralizing federal education authority. According to Department of Education officials, more than $3 trillion in federal taxpayer money has been spent over the decades, while national test results show that only about three in 10 students perform at or above the proficient level in math and reading.
Speaking with Fox News Digital following her address, McMahon said parental involvement in education increased during the pandemic.
"Parents, for the first time, could see what was going on with education, with the curriculum that was being taught to their children," McMahon said. "They became involved, they became concerned, and they started going to school board meetings. I think that really started to change the focus. And that, in conjunction with looking at the fact that NAEP scores â our national report card â have simply gone down since the Department of Education was established."
McMahon pledged upon taking office to work toward dismantling the federal agency, including hiring leaders tasked with phasing out their own offices. The push aligns with President Donald Trump's broader education initiative, which he highlighted at a White House Rose Garden event promoting school choice. Trump also pledged to eliminate "far-left extremism" from classrooms and argued that federal education spending has failed to deliver acceptable academic results.
As part of the administration's broader effort to downsize federal oversight, the Department of Education announced an interagency agreement with the Treasury Department in March. Under the agreement, Treasury will take on certain responsibilities for managing federal student loans, including collections on defaulted loans, as part of the administration's effort to transfer administrative duties away from the Education Department.
The student loan transfer is one of nine interagency partnerships designed to serve as a "proof of concept" for Congress to show that federal education tasks can be reallocated.
"I've asked Congress, with this proof of concept and these interagency agreements: Let me prove to you that it works," McMahon told Fox News Digital. "I know, ultimately, Congress has to vote if we do close the Department of Education and if I, in fact, am able to fire myself. Hopefully, they will vote for it because I believe the outcome will be better for students â and that is the goal."
McMahon said that the federal agency functions largely as a "pass-through" for funding rather than controlling local school curricula, a distinction she noted is frequently misunderstood by the public.
Following her Utah visit, McMahon's four-part speaking series will continue with upcoming stops in Nevada, Arizona and Tennessee to address rising higher education costs and workforce Pell grants. Her final keynote in Tennessee later this month will focus on restoring accountability and standards in higher education.
UGC NET and Joint CSIR-UGC NET December 2026 registrations have crossed 2.19 lakh. Check application numbers, the October 28 deadline and official helpdesk details.
A friend was recently startled to find a Soviet-style hammer and sickle prominently displayed at a farmers market just a block from a monument to those who sacrificed their lives fighting totalitarianism. It's particularly jarring for immigrants from former communist countries to see these hateful symbols cheerfully displayed alongside fresh greens, organic honey and homemade pies.
When my friend engaged the affable twentysomething about her advocacy for communism in America, the conversation quickly became absurd. "Don't you know about the Gulag, the torture chambers, the Tiananmen Square massacre, the murder of 100 million men, women and children?" to which she replied, "I'm not sure what you're talking aboutâ¦"
The young woman then parried, "All I know is that America has a shameful past and we should try to atone for the crimes of capitalism."
"Iâm not sure about the specifics â¦" She then went on to deliver a short address on how communism will deliver a high standard of living by redistributing the obscene wealth of the rich.
When pressed about the historical record, either of communismâs brutality or specifics about so-called American imperialism, the young womanâs friendly smile never faltered. She really couldn't name any of the crimes of capitalism.
Calling for the overthrow of the system that allows for a peaceful Saturday at a farmer's market made the entire conversation seem absurd.
Conversations like this one, between average Americans and self-styled communists and socialists, break down due to differences of content and perspective.
When it comes to perspective, many of the 62% of young Americans, aged 18-29, that think that socialism or communism is a good idea have been educated with a simplistic neo-Marxist lens: U.S. history is a story of oppressor versus oppressed (i.e., patriarchy, race, religious bigotry). The Marxist model can be found in everything from "The 1619 Project" to the platform of the Democratic Socialists of America. Neo-Marxist critical theories attack the perspectives once widely held by most Americans regarding the American Dream and Americaâs exceptional service to humanity.
The part of these conversations that's the most flummoxing, however, is not ideological. It is the part of the conversation that is about content: cold, hard facts. Anti-communists of all stripes typically point to the overwhelming evidence of the past and present crimes of communism. At 100 million men, women and children murdered, one would think that the evidence âprovesâ that this is not just an inefficient system, but a diabolical one.
We have survivor testimony, government records, and some photographic evidence of the concentration camps (e.g., Soviet Gulag, China's Laogai), torture, extermination of minorities, deportations and forced starvation. The violence continues in todayâs communist and communist-legacy regimes, from Belarus to Cuba and Eritrea to North Korea.
The young person at the farmers market will blankly stare when you recite the crimes of communism. She has no point of reference. The crimes of communism are largely unknown; they are untaught and unchallenged in todayâs university and high school settings. She has never heard of these things and she is not sure they are believable. Indeed, she will counter, these atrocities have likely been exaggerated and were undoubtedly justified self-defensive measures against capitalist imperialism.
When one does not feel (perspective) that the evidence of communism's crimes demands a verdict, and even disregards that there is evidence of wrongdoing (content), one is living in a different reality than that of most Americans born in the twentieth century. What is to be done?
First, we need to work hard to return all of the institutions of our civic life â media, schools, houses of worship, the business sector, K-12 and higher ed and especially the family â to the basics. That is where we educate the rising generation with the facts and values of what we are for and what we are against. We adhere to the principles found in the Declaration of Independence, representative government, free-market economics, personal and local responsibility and democratic institutions.
Second, we need to transmit the facts: the personal stories and larger historical narratives of communismâs crimes and Americaâs valiant, sacrificial efforts at self-defense and global freedom: the Berlin Airlift, the creation of NATO and the United Nations, the defense of Koreans, Vietnamese and many other oppressed peoples, Cold War victory and post-Cold War friendship (i.e., Eastern Europe) and Americaâs stunning philanthropic giving.
Accurate content and right perspective should also reinforce what we are against: all ideologies and regimes that are anti-human, anti-freedom and anti-family. Communism in any form is a political fantasy rooted in envy and a political program rooted in brutality. We need to make it clear to the rising generation of citizens that communism in any form has not been good for others and will not be good for them.
How does one talk to a communist? Our best hope lies in inoculating our young against communism at the very youngest age with right perspective and accurate content.
Nation’s favourite play makes London comeback amid renewed debate about future of humanities teaching
The History Boys is to return to the West End for the first time in two decades, with a warning from its director of an “almost terminal decline” in humanities teaching in state schools.
Nicholas Hytner, who directed Alan Bennett’s play at the National Theatre and its 2006 film adaptation, said the themes of education, history and the value of literature for its own sake felt especially relevant amid renewed debate about what schools should teach.
Emmanuelle, 55 ans, a été relaxée le 8 octobre par le tribunal d'Évry-Courcouronnes (Essonne) après avoir été accusée d'outrage et de menace envers une fonctionnaire. En avril 2025, elle avait vivement critiqué des...
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