President Obama has asked states to identify and turnaround or close the bottom 5 percent of persistently low-performing schools. He has asked each federal agency to identify their bottom 5 percent of discretionary programs. And today, his Secretary of Education announced plans to cut off the bottom 5 percent of for-profit higher education training programs from federal financial aid programs. This is officially a trend with this Administration.
On one hand, it’s a relatively arbitrary decision. In many cases, there aren’t noticeable differences between a school or program falling at 4.9 percent versus one that falls at 5.1. On the other hand, it’s a clear message that schools and programs must have continuous improvement, because this year’s 6th-10th percentile becomes next year’s bottom five. It’s also a smart move for Obama to apply the same bottom five percent rule to federal agencies, because it shows he’s not just imposing the pain of turnarounds and closures on schools, but is also bringing the same rhetoric to his employees and the federal budget.
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5/11/2012 | U.S. News & World Report highlights ideas from "Moving On Up: How Tuition Tax Breaks Increasingly Favor the Upper-Middle Class." 
5/11/2012 | In Diverse, Steve Burd comments on the Obama administration's plans to address student debt. 
5/11/2012 | Kevin Carey talks to Salon about the government's role in rising student debt.
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Continuous improvement? No. What’s going to happen is that the same 25% or so of schools that happen to be in the less wealthy areas are going to be continually recycled into the hopper.
Several lenders in Scandinavia provide 30 years fixed loans for only 4 percent.
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