The hot higher education paper du jour is yesterday’s report from Education Trust, “Opportunity Adrift,” which takes a hard look at the financial aid and enrollment policies of public flagship institutions. Similar to a 2006 study on the same subject, the report’s authors are highly critical of public flagships, noting that “though they are subsidized [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Financial Aid'
How the Office Got Financial Aid Policy Right
In its continued quest for topicality this season, The Office turned to the issue of college tuition for its episode last Thursday. In a sequence so awkward that even Larry David would cringe, Michael Scott (Steve Carell) had to explain to a room full of high school seniors that he would not be able to [...]
Student Loan Jobs
No matter it’s structure, it’s a widely accepted fact at this point that there are ways to reform the federal student loan programs in order to reduce costs. At this point then, the more salient issue becomes exactly what these reforms should look like and what additional goals should be considered during these changes.
In mid-September [...]
The Private Loan and For-Profit School Partnership
Last week, Student Loan Xpress, a company at the forefront of the federal student loan scandals in 2007, announced that it would forgive $112.8 million worth of private student loans it made for students to attend an unaccredited flight training school based in Nevada. The school, which charged $70,000 a year for tuition, shut down [...]
Don’t Let Colleges Off the Hook with Net Price
As Kevin noted yesterday, the College Board’s Trends in College Pricing 2009 yet again shows significant percentage and absolute increases in tuition and fees in every higher education sector for this year. Regardless of how you spin it, college price is still going up while almost every other indicator for consumers plummets.
That is, unless you [...]
A Lone Student Voice Publicly Opposed to SAFRA
Earlier this week, a group of student loan companies and servicers launched Protect Student Choice, a campaign that is lobbying against the bill that would end subsidies for private lenders in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program and use those savings to increase the Pell Grant for low-income students. Based upon the list of [...]
The Limits of Financial Aid Policies
The halftime festivities of many big-time college basketball games feature a contest in which one student gets the opportunity to sink a halfcourt shot or series of shots for a chance to win a car or some other large prize. Paying off a winning prize is expensive, but the organizer doesn’t really have to worry [...]
Wasting Financial Aid on Rich People
The Brookings Institution held an event this afternoon focused on Crossing the Finish Line. It was a good discussion; Bill Bowen in particular did a great job of describing the book’s findings. In addition to the under-match / over-match / affirmative action stuff that I wrote about last week, there were also important findings about [...]
Don’t Add a Bailout to a Bailout
The College Access and Completion Innovation Fund is being billed as an exciting new reform program that will move the federal government’s traditional higher education role beyond providing grants and loans. But if that’s true, then why does the version of the fund proposed by the House of Representatives include a provision that directs money [...]
The Meaning of “Manageable” Student Debt
Starting yesterday morning, and continuing for the rest of the day, the New York Times ran this headline on the front page of it’s Web site: “In Study, Most Graduates’ Debt Load Is Manageable.” This phrase quickly multiplied across the Internet, as Times stories tend to do. The study, published by the College Board, was based [...]
Neighbors
In an illustrative example of how states differ in the way they are reacting to economic shortfalls, here’s how Illinois is meeting their financial obligations:
The state will deny the financial aid applications of an estimated 130,000 students — the most in Illinois history.
They were denied because they applied for state aid after May 15, a [...]
Charts You Can Trust – Revised
Earlier this week, the National Center for Education Statistics announced technical changes in the measure of student loan amounts for the 2007-08 NPSAS – the survey conducted every four-years on student financial aid. I won’t get into technical details (you can find them here), but the end result limits the ability to compare the most [...]
A Monopoly for Non-Profit Lenders
SAFRA, the latest acronym in financial aid, refers to the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act – a large and ambitious piece of legislation released in the House this week. The legislation follows President Obama’s budget proposal to move all future federal student loans to the Direct Loan Program, eliminating private loan companies from the [...]
B.U.: Boo Hoo
Sunday’s New York Times had an article about the Boston University admissions and financial aid offices. We learn a lot about how these offices work, and it’s mostly unflattering. See if you can find what I mean in the passage below:
For example, last year, Boston University gave $43 million in institutional aid to incoming freshmen. [...]
Merit Aid is a Lie
In an article titled “To Keep Students, Colleges Cut Anything But Aid,” the New York Times reports that:
With the economy forcing budget cuts and layoffs in higher education, colleges and universities might be expected to be cutting financial aid. But no. Students considering a wide range of private schools, as well as those who are already [...]
Words from Vowell
Sarah Vowell offers a paeon to Pell Grants:
I paid my way through Montana State University with student loans, a minimum-wage job making sandwiches at a joint called the Pickle Barrel, and — here come the waterworks — Pell Grants. Thanks to Pell Grants, I had to work only 30 hours a week up to my [...]
How to Know Your "Merit" Financial Aid Is Out of Whack
Last night my wife and I were sipping adult beverages at a swanky Georgetown pizza and beer joint. This is Georgetown, not exactly your local Pizza Hut. I overheard the couple next to us talking about Harvard’s financial aid plan. He was describing how it works:
He: Students under $60,000 pay no tuition.
He [...]
The Coin of the Realm
David Leonhardt turns in an unsatisfactory cover story in the Times Education Life supplement today about recent high-profile moves by elite universities to offer more generous financial aid to low- and middle-income students. Its starts with a dramatic moment in 2003, set in one of higher education’s iconic spaces, the Thomas Jefferson-designed Rotunda of the [...]
The Tangled Web of Financial Aid Policy
Inside Higher Ed has a great piece today on the trade-offs inherent in institutional financial aid, focusing on the impact of institutions that move to a ‘no loans’ policy without also having a ‘need blind’ admissions policy. Doing both requires a hefty endowment and for those colleges that jump on the no-loans bandwagon without going [...]
Learning Communities
Kingsborough Community College is a typical two-year institution of higher education, in the sense that it enrolls a lot of students (nearly 15,000), most of whom are eligible for need-based financial aid, it’s mission of helping first-generation and working students is tremendously important, and unless you happen to live nearby (Brooklyn, in this case), you’ve [...]
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.