College affordability is a problem that can be solved. Recent reports show many ideas to improve or solve college affordability. The most promising ideas promote strategic use of federal aid focused on financial need and partnerships with states to expand state, need-based financial aid programs and increase state investment in higher education. Sensible ideas about income-contingent loan repayContinue Reading »

Representative Petri has introduced a new bill that would replace our mess of student loan repayment programs with a new one based on the principles of income contingent lending (ICL). The commentary to date is quite confused, which is understandable since there are a lot of different versions of ICL. There are the international versions (see the appendix of this Education Sector report for a gContinue Reading »

The Income Based Repayment (IBR) program already has some issues and the changes going into effect next week exacerbate one of the main problems – ill-targeted loan forgiveness. A clever calculation by Jason Delisle and Alex Holt asks how much of Senator Marco Rubio’s student loans would have been forgiven if the new IBR policies were in place back when Rubio went to school.

DelislContinue Reading »

While I’m on the topic of income continent lending, there seems to be something about invoking the legacy of Milton Friedman that clouds people’s judgment. About a year ago, some folks misread Friedman on whether vocational education should be subsidized. And recently, Alex Holt and Jason Delisle argued that Friedman doesn’t deserve credit for the concept of income contingent lending (ICL):

The sorry state of student lending in this country is understandably generating considerable interest in alternative systems. Unfortunately, the best replacement, income contingent lending, is getting less attention than two others: “skin in the game” and equity based financing.

For those not up to speed on these various concepts:

Income contingent loans (ICL) tie payments to the Continue Reading »

“Nay” on value-added evals. A Chicago Public Schools-backed report, released today, shows that many of the 2,300 teachers surveyed don’t want student achievement included in their evaluations. The report comes just as school officials begin negotiations over teacher evals. (Chicago Tribune)

Ruffling feathers. An education professor wants more teachers to foster constructive dContinue Reading »

Occupy student loans. The Occupy protesters argue for many things, but one message seems to be louder than others: They’re swimming in student loan debt. There’s an easy way to alleviate this burden and virtually eliminate all student loan defaults, according to an Education Sector report that borrows an income-contingent loan approach used in other countries. (Inside Higher Ed)

These grContinue Reading »

Recently, my colleague Anne and I wrote about our personal experiences with student loan repayment in order to underscore how confusing loan repayment is to navigate, even for a well-informed consumer. I thought I had the whole process figured out, but within a couple days of my post, I found myself running into more roadblocks. Interestingly enough, much of the difficulties I encountered in coContinue Reading »

Image: Daniel Goodman / Business Insider

Two weeks ago, my colleague Rachel described the “baffling, scary, frustrating, and stressful” process of figuring out how to repay her student loans. Like her, I took out loans to pay for my graduate education. Unlike her, I had never taken out a loan and knew absolutely nothing about the student loan program. But I fillContinue Reading »

Addressing college readiness. Texas educators on a state board criticize the high school curriculum for social studies, calling it “a widespread pattern of neglect of college readiness skills.” The Social Studies Faculty Collaborative says that the curriculum lacks room for critical thinking and only requires students to remember laundry lists of names and dates. Problem is, the collaborative iContinue Reading »