The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board returned over the weekend with another doozey of an article about the proposed plan to end the bank-based Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) Program and replace it entirely with the government-based Direct Loan Program.
Just like its last foray into federal student loan policy, the Sept. 12 editorial distorts facts, [...]
All Posts Tagged: 'Wall Street Journal'
Wall Street Journal Continues Quest to Write Bad Editorials About Student Loans
On What Planet Does the WSJ Editorial Board Spend Most of Its Time?
The Wall Street Journal has a head-scratching editorial today that tries to connect having the government make all federal student loans with the ongoing health care debate. A greatest hits of convoluted and poorly presented conservative talking points, this editorial makes last week’s Forbes piece look subtle, nuanced, and rational.
Here’s a close look at what [...]
Golden Parachutes
The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article recently about pension spiking, a practice where workers use the calculation of their pension benefits to their advantage:
Pete Nowicki had been making $186,000 shortly before he retired in January as chief for a fire department shared by the municipalities of Orinda and Moraga in Northern California. Three [...]
A Quick History Lesson
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal’s editorial board, would-be commerce secretary Senator Judd Gregg evokes a revisionist history of the FFEL (private lenders) vs Direct Loans (government as lender) debate as evidence of Democrats’ intentions to move to a single-payer, government-based health care system. I can’t comment on Democrats’ future plans for health [...]
Ayers Ad Infinitum
At the Wall Street Journal, Sol Stern contends that the real Bill Ayers scandal lies not with his unrepentant domestic terrorism but rather his Marxist school reform ideas. And on some level, that’s logical: the Annenberg challenge was an education effort, after all, not a commission to overthrow the United States government. But on pretty [...]
School Buses
Today’s Wall Street Journal looks at school buses as engines (pun intended) of desegregation. The article’s a little unsatisfactory along the lines of “rising gas prices are hurting school choice efforts” when really we all know school choice efforts are hurt by… school choice efforts. What’s wrong with school bus systems is that the routes [...]
Massive Endowments
The annual college endowment report from the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO) was released yesterday. Overall, it was a great year for higher education, with average earnings of 17.2 %. The richest institutions (over $1 billion in assets) did even better, earning 21.3%. One consequence of the growth is that institutions [...]
If you’re not the lead dog…
The Chronicle of Higher Education reports($) this morning that the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA), the trade organization for financial aid officers, will ban lenders from sponsoring events at their national conference. This news comes only two weeks after a Wall Street Journal report($) on close financial ties between lenders and NASFAA.
This [...]
I Was Right
Okay, I promise I’ll only use that post title like, once a year (or less, if I turn out not to be right about things). But in this case, I am forced to succumb to the temptations of self-aggrandizement. On Tuesday, I wrote this post about a middle-income California couple who quit their jobs and [...]
Bogus Education Trend Stories, Part MCMXLVII
One of the basic tensions in journalism comes between what’s news and what’s a good story. The best journalism combines the two, using the power of narrative to communicate vital, relevant information about the state of the world. Sometimes, however, journalists find good stories that aren’t really news. Unfortunately, they frequently try to make news [...]
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.