Rising college tuition has been a “crisis” for much of the 15 years I have covered higher education as a journalist. But that crisis has now reached a fever pitch with President Obama dedicating parts of the last two State of the Union addresses to the issue, pricey private colleges cutting their tuition or putting in place other creative pricing models, and nearly every institution talking aboContinue 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 »

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 »

Fulfilling a requirement of the 2008 Higher Education Opportunity Act, the U.S Department of Education released today lists of the colleges with the highest and lowest tuition prices and also colleges that saw the highest percentage increases in tuition in the past year.

This ‘shame’ list is intended to pressure colleges to moderate the rapid increases in tuition that have beContinue Reading »

On Tuesday I walked up L Street to the Cato Institute for a debate about spiraling tuition and the role of the federal government in higher education. As you might imagine, I was on the “there should be one!” side of the argument whereas Neal McCluskey from Cato took the “everything will be fine if we just let the free market do its thing” position.  Take a look!Continue Reading »

It’s hard to make everyone happy on federal financial aid. Postsecondary institutions and state legislators decry the declining value of the Pell Grant over time. They’re right; it does buy less than it used to. But, federal legislators argue the Pell, the primary vehicle for student aid for low-income students, has been regularly increased and it is tuition increases that have causContinue Reading »