When the Department of Education determines how much aid to award a student, the two biggest concepts are cost of attendance (CoA) and expected family contribution (EFC). EFC is how much the government thinks the student (and their parents if dependent) can be expected to afford without assistance and is calculated from the information submitted on the FAFSA form. CoA is the college’s determinaContinue Reading »

Late last week, the Department of Education released its annual update on student loan default rates. Not surprisingly, the overall two-year default rate shot up from 8.8 to 9.1 percent over the course of the last year, and the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and other news outlets all ran stories highlighting yet additional evidence of the poor economy and job market, and their impact on Continue Reading »

I just might have to pinch myself. One of my dreams for higher education looks like it is actually going to come true. On Wednesday, the Department of Education released an action plan to enhance postsecondary graduation rate data. If you’re not excited about this, you should be. For years, we’ve been using incomplete—woefully incomplete—completion data. And yet policymakers and researcContinue Reading »

Prospective students, beware: the job placement rates that for-profit colleges are required to disclose remain as unreliable as ever. The Obama administration had a chance to ensure schools release more accurate data, but fumbled it. And judging from a notice that the U.S. Department of Education issued shortly before Christmas, the administration doesn’t plan to make another play on it anytimeContinue Reading »

Given that the United States Congress has been reduced to debating whether or not the nation should be economically ruined, it’s no surprise to learn the Obama administration is moving ahead with plans to offer waivers from NCLB. A few thoughts:

No policy surprises. The Department of Education staked out its policy preferences pretty early in Secretary Duncan’s tenure and theContinue Reading »

Yesterday  I put forth a list of stories to watch during the shift to 100 percent Direct Lending. One of these involved the contracts that will be given to nonprofit loan companies to keep them in business by acting as servicers. Well an astute reader passes on some information showing that at least some of my questions around this issue have some initial answers. But some of these responses yiContinue Reading »

Last December, the Department of Education’s Inspector General released a bizarre alert memorandum concerning American InterContinental University, a for-profit school with branches throughout the country, and its accreditor, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools (HLC). As Kevin noted at the time, the report certainly seemed like strong stContinue Reading »

Discussions of higher education quality almost always treat institutions monolithically. As such, we raise concerns about whether University of Phoenix students are well prepared or Clinton Hill Junior College’s student loan default rate as if every department and degree is the same. While it is easier to discuss colleges and universities as undifferentiated entities, doing so presents reContinue Reading »

Last week, we had a couple of posts talking about how the Obama administration’s proposal to freeze most non-defense discretionary spending for three years could create trouble for Pell Grants, which often have costs that are hard to accurately estimate. But despite these initial fears, senior administration officials promised last week that Pell Grants would be unaffected by the spendingContinue Reading »

Kevin already has his reactions to last night’s State of the Union up here, but here are a couple of other observations about the parts of the speech with a bearing on higher education.

Help for Borrowers

As expected, President Obama proposed improvements to the income-based repayment program (IBR) that will cap monthly payments at 10 percent of discretionary income and forContinue Reading »