The US Supreme Court blocked President Biden’s expansive mandate that would compel all companies with more than 100 employees to implement a vaccine-or-test requirement for their staff.

The policy, which would have affected about 84 million Americans (roughly two-thirds of the workforce), is a major blow to Biden’s push to vaccinate more Americans as the latest Covid wave sweeps across the US.

• Just over 63% of the US population is fully vaccinated, according to Johns Hopkins University. That puts it 59th in the world and behind virtually all of its wealthy Western peers.

In a separate ruling, the Supreme Court did uphold Biden's other vaccine mandate for employees at federally funded health care facilities.

Dissecting the decision

In blocking the large company vax-or-test mandate, the court was split along ideological lines, with the six right-leaning justices ruling against the requirement and the three liberal justices allowing it to proceed.

The reasoning: The conservative justices argued that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), which was in charge of enforcing the mandate, has not been given authority by Congress to regulate “public health more broadly”—just workplace hazards. And they think Covid-19 isn’t a danger specific to one’s workplace.

• “Although Covid-19 is a risk that occurs in many workplaces, it is not an occupational hazard in most. Covid-19 can and does spread at home, in schools, during sporting events, and everywhere else that people gather,” the majority said.

Some corporations are requiring vaccines anyway

Earlier this week, United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby penned a memo praising his company’s vaccine mandate for “saving lives.”

• Of the 3,000 employees who were Covid positive at the time of his writing, 0 were hospitalized.
• Prior to the vaccine requirement, which went into effect last September, more than one United employee on average was dying of Covid per week, Kirby said.

A slew of other major companies, from Tyson Foods to Google, have also imposed some version of a vaccine requirement on their employees. And beginning today, all Citigroup employees who haven’t been vaccinated will be put on unpaid leave and then fired at the end of the month.—NF

New data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center found that 1.2 million fewer students are enrolled in US colleges now compared to Fall 2019.

In 2021, Fall enrollment fell 3.1% from the previous year, according to the research. Combined with the 2020 enrollment drop, that brings the total decline since Fall 2019 to 6.6%. Per the lead researcher behind the enrollment data, it’s the largest 2-year decrease in more than 50 years.

Not all higher ed sectors have been hit equally, though.

• Associate degree seekers dropped 6.2% in 2021, and 14.1% over the last two years.
• Community colleges have lost around 15% of students since 2019.
• Of the largest majors, liberal arts fell off the hardest, declining 7.6% this year.

Zoom out: US college enrollment has been burning down for the last decade, but the pandemic added some fuel to the fire. The “Covid gap year” that many officials hoped was the primary cause of 2020’s steep decline appears to have been more fiction than fact—only 2% of the high school seniors who chose not to enroll in 2020 ended up enrolling in 2021.

+ While we’re here: After reaching a settlement with 39 states, Navient—one of the largest student loan servicers—will be required to cancel $1.7 billion in private student loans for ~66,000 borrowers.—MK

January is typically one of the slowest months for residential real estate, as people mostly hunker down in their homes rather than try to leave for a new one.

But during Covid times, you can throw historical patterns out the window. This January is “shaping up to be the most competitive month in housing history,” the real estate company Redfin wrote.

How they back up their case:

• The median home sale price soared 16% annually in the week ending January 9, notching a new record of $365,000.
• In the past month, 41% of homes sold for above their listing price, up from 33% a year earlier.

Won’t rising interest rates cool down the market? Experts say that, yes, as the Fed moves to hike borrowing costs, the homebuying frenzy we saw in 2021 will slow. And mortgage rates are climbing—this week the average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit 3.45%, its highest level in nearly two years.

But in the near term, Redfin says, that’s only fueling more demand as potential buyers flood the market to lock in their loan before mortgage rates move even higher.—NF

Stat: Charli D’Amelio raked in $17.5 million in 2021, making her the highest-earning TikToker last year, according to Forbes. But it’s probably time to call her a “business mogul” instead: D’Amelio’s compensation was more than the CEOs of Exxon Mobil, Starbucks, Delta, and McDonald’s, per the WSJ.

Quote: “Besides the fact that he’s as mute as a wooden mannequin, everything else [about him] is pretty good.”

As if blind dates weren’t awkward enough, a Chinese woman identified as “Ms. Wang” has been stuck with her date since January 5, after the neighborhood they were in was abruptly locked down for Covid. Apparently the guy is not much of a conversationalist and his food is “mediocre,” but “he’s still willing to cook, which I think is great,” Wang told Shanghai-based outlet The Paper. Wang’s gone viral on Chinese social media for documenting their life in lockdown.

Read: Is the “future of food” the future we want? (Eater)

The feeling of getting a 5/5 on the Brew’s Weekly News Quiz has been compared to rewinding a show on HBO Max without accidentally going back to the beginning of the episode.

It’s that satisfying. Ace the quiz.

No one cares about you: We’re really bad at estimating how much the world notices us, and this episode of Founder’s Journal argues that’s actually a good thing. Watch on the Brew’s YouTube channel.

What we’re watching: January is the perfect month to plop down on your couch and get lost in a TV series. Some shows the Brew writers are binging right now are Station Eleven, Euphoria, The Righteous Gemstones, and Yellowjackets. Or you could go to the movies and watch the new Scream.

Visuals of the week: A bingo card of 2022 predictions; 24 hours of flights between Europe and the US; the birthplaces of the 100 fastest 10,000-meter runners of all time; the rise and fall of Alexa.

It’s Matty’s birthday: Send her a message!

Slow work day coming up? Try to unscramble the following 11 letters to make a single word.

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