The new medical school that's approved to be established by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) aims to enroll the first batch of students in 2028. Prof. Nancy Ip, the President of HKUST, stated that an open recruitment will be conducted to attract global teaching and research talents. In her eyes, the establishment of the new medical school won't trigger competition with the two existing medical schools in Hong Kong. Instead, all the local medical schools can cooperate to elevate Hong Kong into an international medical innovation hub via differentiated development.
HKUST, Photo source: reference image
In an interview with RTHK, Prof. Nancy Ip stated that after the government's approval for the establishment of the third medical school in Hong Kong, HKUST has received numerous applications from foreign talents who have expressed their interest in joining. Many of them are graduates from the medical schools in Hong Kong who have developed their careers overseas. Upon hearing the news that HKUST plans to establish a new medical school, they have expressed a strong desire to return to Hong Kong.
Prof. Nancy Ip
Prof. Ip also mentioned that the two existing medical schools in Hong Kong are both excellent, making HKUST needs a lot to learn from them. Since there are many possibilities for each other's cooperation in the future, the three schools will closely discuss whether some courses can be shared among them and provide students with opportunities to attend curriculum exchanges, etc. Meanwhile, since the medical schools of HKU and CUHK have launched second degree programs, HKUST can learn about the challenges involved and keep optimizing its own course arrangement. She hoped that the medical school of HKUST could integrate the factors of clinical practice, scientific research, medical innovation, and entrepreneurial cooperation together in the future to form an innovative system, transforming medical research achievements into practical applications and promoting the development of the biomedical industry in Hong Kong. She also emphasized that if students are interested in establishing start-up companies based on their own research achievements, HKUST will welcome and offer assistance to them.
As for the possibility of developing traditional Chinese medicine teaching, Prof. Ip said that she would not consider it for the time being since she thought the new medical school should first lay a solid foundation for Western medicine teaching. In the future, the school would definitely cooperate with traditional Chinese medicine experts to expand the sphere of teaching and research.
The future campus of the new medical school, Photo source: online simulated picture
WASHINGTON (AP) — A year ago, the White House was unleashing a blitz on higher education. At one campus after another, Trump officials opened investigations and cut federal funding unless schools fell in line with the Republican president’s political agenda.
Now, after a campaign that put dozens of universities under investigation, President Donald Trump's administration is taking a wider approach, moving to rewrite the federal rules that govern all of higher education. Demands that were being pressed on individual schools are being written into the fine print for thousands of U.S. universities.
“We’re coming over the higher education system and course correcting,” Nicholas Kent, undersecretary for the Education Department, said in an Associated Press interview. Unlike investigations that target individual campuses, he said the new tactic has power “to affect 6,000 institutions.”
The shift comes after federal judges blocked Trump's administration from making crippling cuts at Harvard and the University of California, Los Angeles. It also follows a mass exodus in civil rights lawyers who traditionally guide investigations against universities. Still, Trump hasn’t backed down from his campaign to end what he calls “wokeness” run amok in academia.
Through regulation, the administration is going after many of the same targets it hammered with investigations — diversity, equity and inclusion policies, transgender athletes, antisemitism and a variety of practices perceived as anti-white discrimination.
One new rule being proposed by the Education Department would overhaul the system that decides which colleges can receive federal money, known as the accreditation process. Among other changes, the proposal would require accreditors to make sure colleges have “intellectual diversity,” a veiled call for more conservative voices.
Many people in higher education are alarmed by a proposal from the Office of Management and Budget that would order agencies to ensure federal grants “advance the President’s policy priorities.” Trump officials would verify that grants aren't used to promote DEI, “anti-American values” or anything denying “the sex binary in humans," according to the proposal issued last week. An OMB spokesperson said the rule aims to promote transparency.
Another proposal from the General Services Administration would require federal grant recipients, including universities and their contractors, to certify they don't have DEI policies deemed unlawful by the administration.
At least 11 new rules have been proposed at the Education Department, including one aimed at “streamlining the process” to cut money for schools that violate the Trump administration's interpretation of civil rights law.
Making federal rules can take months of debate in humdrum bureaucratic processes. But unlike earlier strategies that tested the limits of White House power, the rulemaking process is a widely accepted route to establish federal policy into law — without needing to go through Congress.
Some in higher education welcome the change. Unlike last year's attacks, the new approach opens the door for a conversation, said Ted Mitchell, president of the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents.
“We’re playing a game that has rules and referees, and that’s good,” said Mitchell, a former Education Department official under President Barack Obama, a Democrat. “It gives us an opportunity to talk about where we might agree with the administration. That was impossible to do when these were just straight-on attacks.”
Meantime, the Education and Justice departments have announced fewer higher-education investigations, issuing news releases on roughly a dozen at U.S. universities so far this year. In the same span last year, they announced more than 70, according to an AP analysis. The exact number of new investigations is unclear — a public database has not been updated since January 2025.
Kent said the Education Department will continue to open investigations as needed, describing it as using a “scalpel to cut out the bad.” But he said colleges have started to come to heel on the administration’s priorities.
“Folks realize that it’s a new day and that we’re paying attention,” Kent said.
The vast majority of the investigations opened last year are still open. The White House struck deals with Columbia, Brown and a handful of other campuses, but most cases are unresolved with no public update in months.
Catherine Lhamon, who led the Education Department’s Office for Civil Rights under President Joe Biden, a Democrat, said the barrage of investigations amounted to “performance art” that grabbed attention but had little impact. After pushback from schools, she said, the Trump administration is backing off.
“It stopped putting itself in a position to lose,” said Lhamon, who now leads the Edley Center on Law and Democracy at the University of California, Berkeley.
Still, some fights have intensified. The White House has doubled down on battles with Harvard and UCLA after federal judges blocked the administration from cutting off research funding from the campuses.
The Justice Department has sued Harvard and UCLA four times since February, alleging that both campuses tolerated antisemitism and that Harvard refused to release admissions data sought by the administration. Leaders of both universities say they have worked to fight antisemitism.
A White House official said the investigative slowdown is also the result of a mounting focus on college admissions. The administration has been building cases against colleges accused of considering race in admissions decisions even after the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action. Those investigations can take more time because they require large data collections, said the official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal strategy.
Some of those cases are now coming to bear.
The Justice Department recently concluded that medical schools at Yale and UCLA discriminated against white and Asian American students by allegedly favoring Black and Latino applicants. The universities have defended their admissions processes, saying they were rigorous and based on merit.
Trump officials are taking a hard-line approach against any use of race in admissions, clashing with colleges that invite students to discuss their race in application essays. In its 2023 decision, the Supreme Court said nothing stops schools from considering how applicants’ race speaks to broader qualities.
“We are making sure," Kent said, “that we are elevating our best and our brightest and that we’re not putting the thumb on the scale because of somebody’s skin color.”
Facing last year’s blitz, many campuses quietly made changes to avoid scrutiny. Some closed DEI offices. The NCAA moved to limit transgender athletes. Universities from UCLA to Columbia tightened campus protest rules after pro-Palestinian demonstrations were the subject of federal investigations.
Research has been scaled back as top schools face continued funding cuts.
In the classroom, there’s been a chilling effect as professors fear that what they say or teach could attract federal attention, said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors.
Still, he’s optimistic the balance of power is shifting in universities' favor. Students and faculty members on several campuses built pressure to reject a White House invitation last fall to sign on to aspects of Trump’s agenda in exchange for favorable access to research funding, he said. The AAUP has brought several lawsuits against the administration, including one that stopped funding cuts at UCLA.
“The sector is getting its feet under it, and it’s only getting stronger,” Wolfson said. “I can promise you that we will fight them tooth and nail.”
The Associated Press’ education coverage receives financial support from multiple private foundations. The AP is solely responsible for all content. Find the AP's standards for working with philanthropies, a list of supporters and funded coverage areas at AP.org.
President Donald Trump speaks in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, June 3, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
FILE - People take photos near a John Harvard statue, left, on the Harvard University campus, Jan. 2, 2024, in Cambridge, Mass. (AP Photo/Steven Senne, File)
FILE - Students sit on the lawn near Royce Hall at UCLA in the Westwood section of Los Angeles on April 25, 2019. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong, File)
