The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released the May 2013 baseline cost estimates for the Pell grant and student loan programs. One of the things that jumped out at me was that for 2013 and 2014, the government estimates that it will make more money on student loans than it spends on Pell grants.

Indeed, if the CBO is right, then student loans are now a profit center for the government; the government no longer subsidizes them. Only “subsidized” student loans are subsidized, and only starting in 2016. Until then, even “subsidized” student loans are unsubsidized. Note that that these numbers are [...]Continue Reading »

An unusual organization of policy leaders has joined the chorus for higher education reform. Chief state budget officers rarely speak collectively or publicly about higher education—instead focusing on state revenue issues, adjusting budgets in light of revenue surpluses (a rare event of late) or shortfalls, and enacting a budget.

But in a recent report, these state officials spoke out on higher education. In it, they explore the realities of increased enrollment demands, limited state funding, slower growth in tuition, concerns about institutional spending patterns, performance-based funding, and a changed federal-state partnership. These realities led the state budget heads to a set [...]Continue Reading »

According to the U.S. Department of Education, the Perkins Loan program “provides lowinterest [sic] loans to help needy students finance the costs of postsecondary education.” Pell grants target needy students as well, so the chart below shows the number of students receiving Perkins loans and the number of students receiving Pell grants at a sample of colleges.

The blue line shows how many Pell and Perkins recipients colleges would have if Perkins loans were distributed on the basis of need (roughly 5 Perkins loans for every 100 Pell grants), and the red line shows the best fit line for the actual [...]Continue Reading »

The big news out of the latest Public Education Finances Report is official confirmation that school districts spent less money per student in 2010-11 than they had the year before, the first one-year decline in nearly four decades. It’s worth taking some time to reflect on that fact, but the full report is also a valuable source of data on state and district revenues and expenditures and the entirety of the $600 billion public K-12 education industry. One key takeaway is that employee benefits continue to take on a rising share of district expenditures.

The table below uses 19 years of [...]Continue Reading »

More than 50 percent of students who have completed Algebra II in high school find themselves in a remedial math course in college. (Even 13 percent of those who complete Calculus do.) How can this happen?

A new report suggests that these students have been pushed through basic math concepts, such as math modeling and complex measurement, so they can complete high school graduation requirements. The problem is that these students haven’t mastered the content along the way. (This is why the report, by the National Center on Education and the Economy, pushes for the elimination of Algebra II as a [...]Continue Reading »

Vermont has had school choice for over a century, and yet the struggle of one southern Vermont public school to close its doors and reopen as an independent school has stirred up all the controversy that one might expect elsewhere in the country. Despite significant pushback from some local voters, the independent school has ultimately been approved at both the local and state level. Still, opposition is strong against what many see as a slippery slope to the widespread privatization of public schools.

The decision to turn the North Bennington Graded School from public to independent was not driven by an [...]Continue Reading »

High schoolers working for NASA. High School Students United with NASA to Create Hardware or HUNCH brought in 16 high school students to help design and build a disorientation chair for NASA. The Barony Chair helps pilots experience what it is like to be disoriented in outer-space. (Education Week)

Whatever. This University of California, Santa Barbara student pranks his peers around campus by pretending to steal their phones, staring at them, and hugging strangers. (YouTube)

I am not a “yes man.” A veteran teacher from Illinois resigns via video after finding out she was being transferred to another school.  (The News Tribe)

Peer [...]Continue Reading »