The U.S. Department of Education abruptly discontinued remaining years of Hawkins Centers of Excellence grant funding at multiple institutions, jeopardizing tuition support for teacher‑candidates—particularly at historically Black colleges and universities where the grants underwrote residency programs. Affected students at Prairie View A&M and others face potential tuition gaps or interrupted pathways to licensure unless campuses replace the funding. Separately, the Education Department proposed ending a requirement that states report changes to methods for calculating “significant disproportionality” under IDEA; disability‑rights advocates say the change would reduce transparency and hinder efforts to address racial inequities in special‑education identification and discipline. Critics warned the proposal comes amid staff reductions in the department’s special‑education office and broader rollback of data collections. Taken together, the actions tighten the resources and oversight available to teacher pipelines and vulnerable student populations, increasing the burden on campuses and state agencies to fill accountability and funding voids.