Working on federal policy and keeping your wits about you requires a pretty high tolerance for cognitive dissonance and general b.s. But I’m having a really hard time wrapping my head around this: In September 2009, the House of Representatives passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act, or SAFRA. The bill was designed to [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'FFEL'
Cohort Default Rates: FFEL vs. DL
When asked by the Chronicle of Higher Education why the chain of for-profit schools he oversees had such a high three-year cohort default rate, Arthur Benjamin, the chief executive of ATI Career Training Center, cited the fact that his institutions did not provide loan counseling after two years. What’s funny about that explanation is that [...]
Higher Ed By the Numbers
There’s been a lot of different higher education things going on lately, so here’s a few figures to consider:
80 Score out of 100 given to the Direct Loan servicing in 2008 on a test of customer satisfaction given by CFI Group. (Scores represent satisfaction, satisfaction relative to expectations, and satisfaction relative to ideal service.)
71 Comparable [...]
Federal Student Aid’s Annual Report
Federal Student Aid (FSA), the office within the U.S. Department of Education that handles loans and grants, recently published its fiscal year 2009 report. This document provides a lot of interesting information about the general state of federal postsecondary assistance and also rates the office’s performance over the past year. It’s a fairly long document, [...]
About CBO’s Alternative Student Loan Cost Estimate
Last week, the U.S. House of Representatives’ Committee on Education and Labor voted 30-17 to pass a bill (PDF) that increase the Pell Grant and also establishes new programs to help community colleges, increase college completion rates, and improve early childhood learning.
These initiatives would be paid for by eliminating subsidies that are currently given to [...]
Real Conversations
Higher Ed Watch writes today about one of the arguments private lenders are using in support of the FFEL program, and against Obama’s proposal to provide all loans through the federal government’s Direct Loan program: that the profits the government will make on loans to primarily middle class students will be used to subsidize increased [...]
A Quick History Lesson
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, would-be commerce secretary Senator Judd Gregg evokes a revisionist history of the FFEL (private lenders) vs Direct Loans (government as lender) debate as evidence of Democrats’ intentions to move to a single-payer, government-based health care system. I can’t comment on Democrats’ future plans for health [...]
Lowering Student Loan Default Rates: What One Consortium of Historically Black Institutions Did to Succeed 
College and Career-Ready: Using Outcomes Data to Hold High Schools Accountable for Student Success
03/19/10 | Ben Miller is quoted on college graduation rates and the NCAA Tournament in the Detroit Free Press.
03/19/10 | Linda Perlstein links to Education Sector's "College- and Career-Ready" event.
03/17/10 | Ben Miller's column on graduation rates and NCAA Tournament eligibility is mentioned on The Wall Street Journal's The Daily Fix.
03/17/10 | Kevin Carey's critique of Diane Ravitch's latest book is quoted in Doublethink's Conventional Folly blog.
03/15/10 | Ben Miller pens an op-ed for US News & World Report on using graduation rates to determine NCAA Tournament eligibility.