The College Cost BCS, in its second year, aims to bring attention to college affordability through football’s coveted college bowl games. What if these teams didn’t play ball and instead, faced off on how well they keep education affordable? Admittedly, the teams here are not a representative sample of higher education in America (nor are they the best in college sports, ahem). They do, howeverContinue Reading »

The College Cost BCS, in its second year, aims to bring attention to college affordability through football’s coveted college bowl games. What if these teams didn’t play ball and instead, faced off on how well they keep education affordable? Admittedly, the teams here are not a representative sample of higher education in America (nor are they the best in college sports, ahem). They do, howeverContinue Reading »

The College Cost BCS, in its second year, aims to bring attention to college affordability through football’s coveted college bowl games. What if these teams didn’t play ball and instead, faced off on how well they keep education affordable? Admittedly, the teams here are not a representative sample of higher education in America (nor are they the best in college sports, ahem). They do, howeverContinue Reading »

The College Cost BCS, in its second year, aims to bring attention to college affordability through football’s coveted college bowl games. What if these teams didn’t play ball and instead, faced off on how well they keep education affordable? Admittedly, the teams here are not a representative sample of higher education in America (nor are they the best in college sports, ahem). They do, howeverContinue Reading »

The College Cost BCS, in its second year, aims to bring attention to college affordability through football’s coveted college bowl games. What if these teams didn’t play ball and instead, faced off on how well they keep education affordable? Admittedly, the teams here are not a representative sample of higher education in America (nor are they the best in college sports, ahem). They do, howeverContinue Reading »

I’m less-than-enthused about this year’s college Bowl Championship Series. (Admittedly, some of that stems from the fact that my beloved Buckeyes are ineligible this season despite their undefeated record). So reviving the College Cost BCS, now in its second year, brings a little excitement to an otherwise-predictable bowl season. We can guess that Stanford will run all over Wisconsin, LouisvilContinue Reading »

Rising student debt and high student dropout rates are major problems facing American higher education. Most colleges are judged on these issues by two federally-calculated numbers: six-year graduation rates and student loan default rates. Each number provides important information, but neither shows the complete picture. A college could, for example, achieve a stellar graduation rate by passinContinue Reading »

27%

The latest percent increase in the federal student loan default rate. According to Inside Higher Ed, the U.S. Department of Education announced that “8.9 percent of federal student loan borrowers who entered repayment between October 1, 2008, and September 30, 2009, had defaulted by September 30, 2010, up from 7.0 percent the year before.” (Inside Higher Ed)

4 – Continue Reading »

Early last year, my colleague Robin Smiles and I published a report called Lowering Student Loan Default Rates. The report looked at the steps a consortium of six historically black colleges in Texas took a decade ago to reduce their student loan default rates. In the wake of the new three-year cohort default rates released by the Department of Education last week, it may be time for these, andContinue Reading »

We at Education Sector aren’t the only ones who think that there is a lot that the higher education community can learn from HBCU’s about promoting student success.  In his speech last Thursday at the HBCU Symposium at North Carolina Central University, Arne Duncan seconded that conclusion: “Yet for all of the longstanding issues that HBCUs face, I am convinced that HBCUs haveContinue Reading »