Our entire massive multibillion-dollar federal financial aid system runs on credit hours. Credit hours are used to determine a student’s full- or part-time status, which changes the amount of aid an individual can receive. But as we note in our report Cracking the Credit Hour, credit hours simply measure time, not learning. Despite the trillions of dollars spent by students and taxpayers on higContinue Reading »

While policymakers of all stripes are waking up to the college completion crisis, very little attention has been paid to the college quality crisis (that we have one, why we have one, or what we can do about it). Last week I wrote about the release of our new report, Cracking the Credit Hour, which reveals the credit hour’s curious origins and the fact that credit hours were never meant to measContinue Reading »

As anyone who has ever attended college probably realizes, the currency of degrees and credentials are credit hours.  But few people know where the credit hour comes from. Today the New America Foundation and Education Sector have released Cracking the Credit Hour, a report that covers the credit hour’s history from the days of Andrew Carnegie to the latest “credit hour” regulation. This new poContinue Reading »

The White House recently announced the second round of funding for the $2 billion, uninspiringly-named Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training (TAACCCT) grant program. I was involved in drafting the first application and confess that it was not written in anything resembling plain English. So I forgive those who read the first application and don’t want to readContinue Reading »

While yesterday may have been another sad day for ESEA reauthorization hopes, there was an unexpected and understated glimmer of good education policy hope as  Representative Hunter (R-CA) introduced The Student Right to Know Before You Go Act.

Faithful readers of The Quick and the Ed might be asking, “But didn’t Senator Wyden—a Democrat— just introduce the same thing?” Given the completContinue Reading »

Even though research has shown that a college education provides enormous individual and public returns on investment, steep tuition increases and a stagnant job market have left students, families, and taxpayers wondering whether a college degree is truly worth it. Why? Although consumers have good data on the value of college degrees in general, they have very little data on the value of specContinue Reading »

Given that in an election year, it’s hard to get the opposition party to do anything other than completely vilify whatever the incumbent President does, the Republican response to President Obama’s higher education speech last week was as close to supportive as one could get. In a statement issued Friday, Chairman John Kline, of the House Committee on Education and the Workforce, said:

&Continue Reading »

Good news for those of us who can’t wait until 9:45 this morning to hear the details of the President’s plan to put colleges “on notice”—we don’t have to. In the wee hours of the morning, the New York Times posted an article previewing the college affordability speech the President will give at the University of Michigan. There’s a lot in here—and the President will need Congress to help make iContinue Reading »

Photo from whitehouse.gov

Given the increasing attention being paid by the President, Vice President, and Secretary of Education to college costs, we expected to hear something about it in the State of the Union. The question was whether the President would just continue to use his bully pulpit to implore institutions and states to keep costs down or whether heContinue Reading »

Photo Credit: Shutterstock

Next week the President will give his annual State of the Union. A few weeks after that, he will present his FY2013 Budget Proposal. Given the President’s long-standing interest in increasing college completion and his more recent focus on college costs, I imagine that the budget will call for resources to increase student outcomes andContinue Reading »