Reforming student aid. A lengthy policy brief released today outlines more than 30 recommendations for reforming the federal student financial aid system, including the elimination of tuition tax breaks—something Education Sector talked about last year. (New America Foundation)

Next to the hall pass. A two-year battle over bathroom vandalism at this Pennsylvania high school now means allContinue Reading »

The past four years have been busy ones for the Department of Education as it’s broadened its reach into higher education. But with all that activity, what have we learned, where are the gaps, and what should the administration’s agenda be for its second term?  No doubt, the administration has and will receive many suggestions (most uninvited), so I will keep it simple and focus on three areas—Continue Reading »

In the years since the Clinton administration first championed the Hope and Lifetime Learning Tax Credits, every successive Democratic presidential nominee has pushed his own tuition tax cut plan on the campaign – each more generous than the last.

What accounts for the Democrats’ love affair with tuition tax breaks? Is it because they believe that this is best possible public policy? ThaContinue Reading »

In his State of the Union address in January, President Obama called on Congress to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit (AOTC) permanent, saying that his proposal would save “millions of middle-class families thousands of dollars” off of the cost of sending their kids to college. What he didn’t say was that the primary beneficiaries of his tuition tax credit program are actually much farthContinue Reading »

President Obama proposed today to permanently extend the American Opportunity Tax Credit, a partially refundable $2,500 tax credit that families with incomes up to $180,000 can claim to help offset the costs of higher education. But as I wrote in the “Student Aid Perspectives” column that ran this morning on the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrator’s website, providing fiContinue Reading »

As I wrote last week, President Obama is facing a major uphill battle in persuading Congress to overhaul the inequitable funding formula that the government uses to allocate funds through the federal campus based student aid programs. Lobbyists representing the country’s wealthiest and most prestigious colleges and universities have successfully beaten back all prior efforts to do so, and are gContinue Reading »

With his call to revamp campus-based student aid, President Obama has joined what has been an on-again, off-again 30-year battle over the programs’ funding structure. He is the third president in a row (and at least the fourth overall) to call for overhauling the highly-inequitable funding formula that the government uses to allocate the campus-based aid programs. Lobbyists representing the couContinue Reading »

The higher education plan that President Obama unveiled last week should be applauded not only because it would hold colleges accountable for their “affordability and value” but also because it would overhaul the highly-inequitable funding formula that the government uses to allocate campus-based student aid funds.

The campus-based programs – Federal Work Study, Perkins Loans, and SuppleContinue Reading »

In his State of the Union Speech last night, President Obama proposed reducing the interest rate on federally subsidized student loans in the 2013 fiscal year, expanding the Federal Work Study program, making the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent, and pressuring colleges to curb tuition growth.

But he made no mention of Pell Grants.

In pointing out this omission, we’re notContinue Reading »