The National Governors Association lobbied hard against the “maintenance of effort” provision included in the recent Higher Education Act reauthorization. It should come as no surprise then that the NGA has already asked for an across-the-board waiver, citing the recent economic crisis and expected state government shortfall. The law does include a waiver provision for, [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Higher Education Act'
HEA, at Long Last
Congress passed a new version of the Higher Education Act yesterday, which President Bush is expected to sign. This is a real milestone — it’s been ten years since the last reauthorization, which is supposed to happen every five years. There’s a lot in there to discuss, but in my mind the most disappointing thing [...]
Accreditation Explains Everything
InsideHigherEd reports a new flare-up in an ongoing dispute about the way the U.S. Department of Education regulates people who regulate colleges. Yes, this sounds very boring. It’s not; it actually explains much about higher education as well as school vouchers and other hot-button K-12 issues. But first, a little history:
For a long time the [...]
Higher Ed Hypocrisy
We live in a time of information abundance. It’s now possible to track and record most of what happens to an individual student over their entire educational lives, from the time they enter kindergarten to the day they graduate from college, and beyond. This isn’t something we could do, it’s something a growing number of [...]
Life After Sallie
There have been numerous news reports of the “tightening” credit markets and their potential impact on student loan availability. The majority of federal student loans are made through private banks and if these banks can’t find investors to buy their loans, they don’t have money to make new loans—hence, a problem with student loan availability [...]
Improving the Higher Ed Market
One of the frustrating thing about working on higher education policy issues is that DC is pretty much a one-issue town: all anyone cares about is costs. From the average politician’s perspective, our higher education system is fantastic with one exception: it costs too much, and costs more every year. This is reflected in the [...]
A Faulty Argument
Back in December, I blogged about a proposed Higher Education Act provision that would change the way default rates are calculated by the Department of Education. I hypothesized that this change could increase default rates by about 60 percent, putting some schools at risk of losing their eligibility to participate in the federal loan program [...]
Welcome to the Dark Age
The U.S. House of Representatives passed a new version of the federal Higher Education Act yesterday. The floor debate included a lot of back-and-forth about student loans, spiraling tuition costs, affirmative action, and other hot-button issues. Little attention was given to the following provision, which was added last year by the House Committee on Education [...]
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.