As students at every level know well, the cost of college is not just tuition and fees and books. It’s also housing and food, utilities and transportation, adding up to thousands — often tens of thousands — in expenses that must be covered by a varied mix of part-time jobs and, at the graduate level, graduate assistantships. 

No student mandate will be in place ahead of the start of the spring semester on Tuesday, after a panel of state legislators failed to approve emergency vaccine mandate regulations last month. 

As one Nevada college sought to fire a professor after he criticized a new remediation program, questions arose about the faculty discipline process and academic freedom itself.

The inaction came amid mounting concerns that the delay or revocation of terminations the day before they were planned would create “operational chaos” across all eight NSHE institutions. 

In a party-line vote on Tuesday, six Republican lawmakers blocked the state Board of Health’s COVID-19 vaccine mandates for college students and state health and corrections workers from becoming permanent.

Carnegie classifications are updated on a three-year cycle based on a range of institutional metrics, with the latest cycle designating 137 institutions out of nearly 4,000 as R1, or "Very High Research." 

A vote by regents and a judicial ruling made Friday could extend both mandates well into next year.

Wednesday’s deadline marked the beginning of a termination process that could last into January, and one that provides a handful of off-ramps should employees choose to get the vaccine over the course of the next two months. 

With nearly as many job openings as there are unemployed people, experts say it’s not so much a lack of available positions, but mismatches between job seekers’ experiences and the needs of employers.

Western Nevada College President Vincent Solis announced Tuesday that he will leave the Carson City school at the end of 2021 after being named the new president of a community college outside Houston. 

Rose said she is focused on expanding educational attainment, helping diversify the state economy and protecting the health and safety of local communities, with vaccine mandates in place for college staff.

However, leading administrators say large numbers of unvaccinated students at this point in time may not necessarily result in large numbers of disenrolled students or fired workers.

In separate votes, the board voted 7-4 to name Regent Carol Del Carlo as new chair pro tempore and Regent Amy Carvalho as vice chair pro tempore.

Filed in U.S. District Court on Tuesday, the suit named UNR President Brian Sandoval, Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Melody Rose and Democratic Gov. Steve Sisolak as defendants.

Though McAdoo and Carter will retain their seats on the 13-member board, which regents might emerge as leaders in the interim is unclear. 

In an email sent Monday, search chair and Regent Patrick Carter added that he recommended the current search for a new special counsel be canceled and that an outside firm be retained to conduct a new search. 

Three weeks after the chancellor of the Nevada System of Higher Education leveled serious allegations against the top two members of the Board of Regents, little has changed. 

In an extraordinary 21-page rebuke of the top two members of the Board of Regents, Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Melody Rose outlined an alleged pattern of hostility ultimately designed, she said, to force her from her position as the system’s top administrator. 

Nevada System of Higher Education Chancellor Melody Rose accused Board of Regents leaders of persistent hostility and undermining her ability to do the job in a hostile work environment complaint filed Monday, a stunning split between the system’s chief administrator and the governing board that hired her. 

The Board of Regents voted 10-3 on Thursday to approve a wide-reaching higher education employee vaccine mandate, giving more than 5,000 unvaccinated employees until Dec. 1 to either get vaccinated or, barring limited exceptions, have their employment terminated.