Access

'Sub Sub Sub Subprime' Borrowers 100 Million Strong Worldwide and Growing

Jamie Zimmerman — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 12:00:00 -0400

It's all we hear about these days: The U.S. subprime mortgage bubble -- created by poor and at times predatory lending practices and lax banking regulation and creative investment products -- has burst. Of the approximately 7.7 million subprime loans outstanding, over 2 million are at risk of foreclosure and 600,000 borrowers are expected to lose their homes this year. The majority of us are left in shock as we watch the devastation unfold, the bubbles aftermath wreaking havoc on the U.S. (and increasingly global) economy, ensuing fears of recession and economic pain to come, and leaving politicians, economists, and regulators all scrambling to pick up the pieces.
However, in the meantime, the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner on Tuesday proudly hailed microfinance -- the innovation of providing small loans to poor, traditionally financial excluded individuals, mainly women -- as "sub sub sub subprime" lending. That means that globally, more than 3300 microfinance institutions provide such "super-subprime" loans to over 100 million clients and growing. Just to be clear: I'm a huge fan of microfinance. However, I'm left perplexed by this dichotomy: How can a lending practice that is almost singlehandedly dragging the whole of the U.S. economy in to a hole simultaneously and sustainably end third world poverty?

Well according to Yunus, the answer is simple - the U.S. subprime crisis was fueled by "sloppy business practices" and complex product, which simply don't exist in the microfinance industry. Finding ways to extend access to credit and financial services to those with less than stellar or no credit or financial history, if done properly, can provide asset-building opportunities to those traditionally excluded and economically disadvantaged. In that sense (and this may come as a shock to those who only know of subprime as it related to the current crisis), subprime lending is not inherently a bad thing.

However, when discussing this issue last night at a CGAP cocktail reception, the answer seemed to be about as complicated as a 5/1 balloon ARM disclosure. Expert discussants, considering the similarities and differences between these sub-prime markets, concluded that microfinance products and services are indeed different from the complex mortgages and bundled securities of the U.S. mortgage market. However, they all cautioned the microfinance industry to take a close look at how certain similarities - the perverse incentives for quantity over quality; the potential of similar "irrational exuberance" of both clients and lenders; the growing influx of new players, products and dis-intermediated capital that could lead to predatory products and practices; similarly, competition among providers that could lead to "race to the bottom" practices and products; the risk of information asymmetries and moral hazard created by increase in disintermediation (which creates distance between borrowers and lenders), and finally, the lack of regulation in many markets -- indeed mirrors characteristics of the sub-prime mortgage market in the United States.

So, my original question remains unanswered, but these new insights beg related, and perhaps more pertinent questions. In our haste to extend the power of micro-credit to the millions living in poverty around the world, how much, if at all, should we head the warnings derived from the subprime crisis? Can light-touch regulation and more concerted efforts enhance consumer awareness provide the balance between providing as much access as quickly as possible to as many as possible and quality of products and practices? Would putting such regulatory brakes on this exploding industry help us to avoid the possibility of a global sub-prime bubble or just deprive the needy of access to finance?

If some predictions are right, then the tightening of capital in the global financial markets -- essentially the effect of failing to address these issues U.S. until it was too late - may inadvertently apply those brakes before we get the chance to answer the question. But with others predicting the opposite (even more capital being diverted into more lucrative, global markets (i.e., microfinance investment)) then we may need to look at these issues more closely, ASAP.

PAYMENT: When the Uninsured Become Insured, Who Will Care For Them?

Joanne Kenen — Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:51:00 -0400

Dr. Benjamin Brewer, in his Wall Street Journal column (subscription, or read a summary in the Wall Street Journal health blog) wonders: who will take care of the 47 million uninsured in a system that already undervalues family medicine and primary care?

We would suggest that the uninsured are getting care – not enough care, too- late care, expensive emergency room care instead of more appropriate and cost-effective primary care. But Dr. Brewer’s central point is correct. Our system gives short shrift to primary care and is chockfull of incentives for fragmented specialization. In the health care system we envision for the future, primary care doctors (internists, family doctors, pediatricians, geriatricians, perhaps for some women OB/GYNs) would play an elevated role in coordinating patient care. And they would be paid for doing it well.

In the short run, though, there’s no doubt that Brewer is right in pointing out that the system undervalues primary care, both in money and status compared with specialists. The demand for family physicians is expected to surge by 2020, when the nation will need 140,000 family physicians, according to the American Academy of Family Physician's 2006 Physician Workforce Report. That's a 40% increase over the 100,000 family doctors at work in 2006, as Dr. Brewer notes.

But students aren’t flocking to primary care, which can have worse hours, less status and lower incomes than specialties. “Low payments to primary care doctors are discouraging those of us in practice and are dissuading new doctors from entering the field,” Brewer writes. For instance, only 65 more U.S. medical students chose family medicine for their residency this year than last year for a total of 1,172. (See a chart on the primary care trends here.) Compared with the bleak decline of the last 10 years, a two percent increase in family practice residents is cause for celebration among family doctors.

One last word -- we were disheartened that Dr. Brewer and several of the readers who commented on his column equate “universal insurance” with a single-payer government-run Medicare system. They aren’t synonyms. There are many ways to cover all Americans, and nearly all of the plans on the table in Washington these days use a mix of public sector and private market options. The presidential candidates are not advocating plunking an additional 47 million people in Medicare. Len Nichols, director of New America’s Health Policy Program, in a detailed post yesterday explained why simply expanding the 40-year old Medicare program is not the silver bullet for the complicated cost, quality and coverage challenges facing our system.

A Silver Lining from the Credit Crunch

Stephen Burd — Wed, 05 Mar 2008 03:27:00 -0500

The Los Angeles Times recently provided a disturbing example of how some for-profit trade schools like Corinthian Colleges have been pushing subprime, high-risk students to assume heavy levels of debt that they may never be able to repay. In an article on the credit crunch, the LA Times quoted a 20 year old student, with a 10 month old baby, who is taking classes at Everest College in West Los Angeles to become a medical assistant. To pay for an eight week course at the Corinthian-owned school, this student has had to take out an $8,000 private loan with an 8 percent interest rate. The student, and several friends with similar loans, told the newspaper "that they knew that repayment would be difficult on the $9 an hour or so they expected to earn if they got jobs." The course, they said, gave them "75% to 90% of what they need to get and keep a job."

[slideshow] The students say the loans were worth taking because they gave them an opportunity to attend the school. But they probably won't be so happy when they go into repayment, particularly if those jobs don't materialize. They may be even more disappointed when they discover that they could have gotten the same training for a fraction of the cost at the nearby Pasadena City Colleges, which according to the LA Times, "charges $628 annually in tuition and fees to in-state residents."

If there is a silver lining to the credit crunch, it is that for-profit colleges and loan companies, like Sallie Mae, are being forced to think twice before pushing high-risk borrowers to take on expensive private loan debt that they have little hope of ever paying back.

Of course, this is not the story that the mainstream press is telling. Instead, they are focusing on the sensational story that student loan funds are drying up. That story, which is creating a panic, is misleading at best.

Despite the hysteria, we have not heard of a single case in which a student has been unable to obtain a federally guaranteed student loan as a result of the credit crunch. As we have said repeatedly, students are in absolutely no danger of losing access to federal Stafford loans.

As of now, the borrowers who mainly appear to be in danger of losing access to high-cost private student loans are those with poor credit records attending for-profit trade schools of dubious quality. (Note: we're not saying all trade schools are of dubious quality, but many are.)

Even within the for-profit higher education sector, the impact of the credit crunch has been limited so far. In recent weeks, some trade-school chains, such as Capella University, Devry Inc., Strayer College, and the University of Phoenix, have gone out of their way to assure nervous investors that the credit crunch has had little to no impact on students attending their institutions. "We are really not seeing any impact on our business," Stephen Shank, Capella's chief executive officer, recently told The New York Times.

The companies that are feeling the pinch are those that have aggressively steered financially-needy students to take out high-interest private loans, such as Career Education Corporation, Corinthian Colleges, and ITT Educational Services Inc. According to company disclosures, private loans make up 30 percent of the revenue at ITT, 18 percent at Career Education, and 13 percent at Corinthian. Corinthian has revealed that 75 percent of its private loans go to subprime borrowers.

In contrast, private loans make up just about 4 percent of the revenue of Apollo Group, which is the parent corporation of the University of Phoenix, 3 percent at Strayer, and 1 percent at Capella. A recent report from Investor's Business Daily reveals that only one quarter of one percent of private loans at Strayer go to subprime borrowers.

Of course, some advocates for trade schools argue that cutting off private loans to subprime borrowers attending these institutions will lead to a severe access crisis. But their argument fails to recognize just how dangerous it is to rely on private loans as a college access tool. Because private loan providers price their loans based on students' credit scores, those with the greatest financial need are almost guaranteed to get loans with the highest interest rates, the highest up front fees, and worst conditions. These lenders have proved to be notoriously unwilling to help struggling borrowers find ways to make repayment easier. And the government has made it extremely difficult for borrowers in dire straits to discharge their private loans in bankruptcy.

Our colleague, Erin Dillon at Education Sector, wrote yesterday that pushing a high-interest private loan on "a student with a low chance of graduating or getting a job is more a recipe for life-long indebtedness and a destroyed credit history than it is an educational opportunity."

Erin is right. As a country, we are doing no favors to the most financially needy students by pushing them to take on such expensive debt to attend schools of dubious quality. Perhaps the credit crunch will force policy makers to realize that.

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Roundup: Week of February 11 - February 15

Ed Policy — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Michigan Non-Profit Lender Pulling Out of Private-Loan Market

Lawsuit takes aim at study-abroad "home – fees"

More Students Pass AP Exams, but Achievement Gaps are Widening

Michigan Non-Profit Lender Pulling Out of Private-Loan Market

Because of concerns about available capital, the Michigan Higher Education Student Loan Authority announced this week that it would temporarily stop issuing private student loans. Citing, "current and unprecedented capital-markets disruption," the non-profit lender said in a statement on its Web site that it would stop disbursing funds for its private Michigan Alternative Student Loan (or MI-Loan) program, which is used at more than 100 Michigan colleges. The announcement came a day after reports emerged that other companies were having trouble auctioning off their existing private student loans as asset-backed securities to obtain financing to make new loans. Some loan industry officials and their allies in Congress have seized upon the credit turmoil to suggest that Congress went too far last year when it cut taxpayer subsidies to lenders that participate in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. In fact, the problems have been almost entirely in the private student loan marketplace, and federal Stafford loans remain universally available to students.

Lawsuit takes aim at study-abroad "home – fees"

While study abroad programs have drawn attention in recent months for alleged conflicts of interest, one parent of a former student is charging that an increasingly common fee structure is "unlawful and deceptive. " James Brady, the father of a recent Wheaton College graduate filed a lawsuit last Friday against his daughter’s alma mater. In the suit, Brady challenges the Massachusetts school’s use of a "home-fee" tuition policy — in which it charges the full price of a semester at Wheaton even if the student is attending a cheaper Wheaton-sponsored study abroad program. Brady claims that this practice resulted in his daughter paying an extra $4,439 to Wheaton above the $17,000 price tag of her study-abroad program in South Africa. The use of blanket "home-fee" policies has proliferated over the past few years, as schools use the higher payments at least in part to help provide low-income students with institutional financial aid so they aren't closed off from participating in these programs.

More Students Pass AP Exams, but Achievement Gaps are Widening

More students are passing Advanced Placement exams, but participation and achievement gaps still persist between white and minority students, according to data released this week by the College Board. The number of students passing at least one AP test increased from 11.7 percent of all high school graduates in 2002 to more than 15 percent for the high school class of 2007. At the same time, minority students are signing up for the courses at a rate slower than their white peers. Black students represent about 14 percent of the high school population, yet comprised only 7.4 of those enrolled in AP courses. Hispanic students were better represented, making up 14 percent of AP enrollees versus 14.6 percent of all high school students. However, their participation in courses other than AP Spanish was just 7.5 percent. In terms of achievement, only about 3 percent of the students who received a passing score of 3 or higher on at least one exam were black. Comparatively, about 66 percent of those students were white.

Roundup: Week of January 28 - February 1

Ed Policy — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

PHEAA May Pay $15 Million For 9.5% Loan Payments

The Department of Education has asked the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (PHEAA), one of the country's largest nonprofit student loan providers, to repay as much as $15 million in federal payments it improperly obtained by exploiting a subsidy program that guaranteed loan providers a 9.5 percent rate of return on government-backed student loans. The request comes two months after an audit by the Department’s own Inspector General found that PHEAA had improperly obtained $34 million in subsidy payments. The Department rejected these findings and suggested the $15 million price tag but is ultimately letting PHEAA decide how much it has to repay. A PHEAA spokesman suggested to The New York Times that the lender may end up with "zero liability." PHEAA is the first party in the 9.5 scandal to be held financialy accountable for its actions. In 2006 another lender, Nelnet, was caught with $278 in improperly obtained Department funds. The Department asked for the money back, but then let Nelnet off without paying anything. In light of Nelnet’s free pass, Rep. George Miller, the California Democrat who is chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Education and Labor, called the PHEAA request "a step in the right direction."

25 HBCUs Send Letter to House Ed Committee in Favor of Default Rate Change

The presidents and chancellors of 25 historically black public colleges and universities sent a letter on Tuesday to the leaders of the House Education and Labor Committee supporting a provision in a bill reauthorizing the Higher Education Act that would extend the window the federal government uses for measuring student loan defaults from two to three years. By sending the letter, which was also signed by the American Association of State Colleges, the leaders of these colleges sought to undercut arguments being put forward by for-profit college lobbyists -- who are vigorously opposing the amendment -- that historically black colleges would suffer if the provision is enacted. "This amendment will provide more meaningful and accurate information that will help institutions, lenders, and the Department of Education help students avoid student loan default," the black-college leaders wrote. "Default is avoidable, and we know that student borrowers usually default because they are not aware of all the student loan repayment options afforded to them under the law." The House is expected to take up its version of the Higher Education Act legislation next week.

Sallie Mae Settles

Sallie Mae has reached an agreement with its onetime buyers, ending a months-long legal battle and injecting some needed credit into the embattled lender. As a result of the settlement, Sallie Mae dropped a lawsuit it had filed against a consortium of potential buyers — including Bank of America, JP Morgan Chase and the private equity firm J. C. Flowers & Co. — after they backed out of the proposed $25 billion buyout deal in October. As part of the agreement, the consortium will refinance about $30 billion of Sallie Mae’s debt. The settlement is good news for the financially-troubled lender, which posted a $1.6 billion loss for the fourth quarter last year and recently announced it will cut back on its "subprime" student loans.

Asian Americans, Not Whites, Gain When Affirmative Action Axed

Asian-Americans, not whites, gain the most when affirmative action is eliminated from college admissions processes, according to a forthcoming study (summarized in the Chronicle of Higher Education, subscription required). Using enrollment data from 1990 to 2005 at the University of Florida, the University of Texas at Austin and the University of California campuses at Berkeley, Los Angeles, and San Diego, the study found that enrollment of blacks fell by up to 50 percent after the schools eliminated race as a factor in admissions decisions. Asian-Americans, the same data shows, filled four out of every five spots previously held by black students. For example, at UC-Berkeley, enrollment of Asian-Americans rose from 37 percent in 1995, the year before a ban on affirmative action went into effect, to 47 percent in 2005. The study will be published next week in InterActions: UCLA Journal of Education and Information Studies.

Turning up the Heat on Endowments

Ben Miller — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

As the old adage goes, you reap what you sow. For many years colleges and university endowments, which receive very advantageous government tax breaks, have grown at extraordinary rates. Now, two high-powered senators are starting to ask questions about just what these wealthy institutions have been doing with their funds. While we applaud Congress’ efforts, we are afraid that too much of a focus by the Senators on tuition, rather than low-income student access, could lead to more improperly tilted financial aid policies — and an increasingly bifurcated educational system.

[slideshow]What prompted this latest attention to school wealth was the release of the 2007 Endowment Study by the National Association of College and University Business Officers. Going beyond the massive returns already disclosed by individual colleges, the study found that schools with endowments over $1 billion earned an incredible 21.3 percent rate of return for the 2007 fiscal year, only slightly more than the 19.3 percent return for colleges with endowments between $500 million and $1 billion. Even in aggregate, the 785 schools surveyed reported an average return of 17.2 percent.

Despite the massive gains, the study also found that spending from endowments did not keep pace — schools with endowments over $500 million had a spending rate of just 4.4 percent, while the sample as a whole averaged just 4.6 percent. Both numbers are beneath the previous year’s figure and fall well beneath the 5 percent spending rate standard required of other private tax-exempt foundations.Not to mention the 6 percent figure that used to be required of other private tax-exempt foundations prior to 1979.

The study’s findings did not take long to spur Congressional action. That same week, Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Chuck Grassley (R-IA), the Chair and Ranking member, respectively, of the Senate Finance Committee, sent a letter to the 136 colleges with endowments over $500 million. Among a litany of requests, the Senators asked the colleges to provide data on stated versus actual tuition rates, how endowment resources are used for financial aid, what kind of low-income recruitment efforts are taking place at the university, and how much of endowments are restricted. Most telling, though, was the Senators’ request on the endowment spending rate, which included the line, "If either the actual and/or targeted payout is below 5%, please explain how this meets the needs of the current student body."

As strong supporters of a 5 percent spending requirement, we at Higher Ed Watch are heartened by the Baucus/Grassley letter. We are also glad to see the Finance Committee pushing forward on the issue after bringing it up in September. That being said, we are concerned that the Senators may use the right means for the wrong ends.

In the press release accompanying their letter, Baucus and Grassley couch their requests in terms of rising tuition and how endowments need to be used to help ease the cost of college. This is certainly an important goal, but it suggest an imbalanced focus on affordability over access. Both are important.

Solely requiring endowment spending for the sake of spending opens the door to policies mimicking the recent aid expansions to well-off families by Harvard and Yale. As we noted two weeks ago, these policies benefit not only a small group of applicants, and generally not the neediest. Even more troubling is the fact that Yale’s plan, albeit flawed, appears to have satisfied Grassley. He called the upper-income aid expansion "an example for well-funded schools to do the same." A willingness to be sated by policies that use spending on wealthy students could set an unwelcome precedent. Instead, it would be better if other colleges with large-endowments followed older policies that eliminated contributions for families below a certain income.

The Senators, meanwhile, should note a recent study in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. Looking at Pell Grants, an imperfect but useful measure of low-income students, the study found that the number of Pell recipients actually dropped at many prestigious institutions from 2004 to 2006 — a disconcerting trend given their already low numbers. Stanford, for example, saw a decline in its percentage of students receiving Pell Grants from 14.2 percent to 12.6 percent, while Yale dropped from 10.5 percent to 9.4 percent. As Tom Mortenson, a scholar who conducted his own study of low-income access told the Hartford Courant, "Yale seems to think its mission is to create Presidents of the United States."

The best solution for Grassley and Baucus would be to shift their focus away from the generic catch-all phrase "tuition reduction," and instead emphasize the need for schools to take more pro-active, demonstrable measures to "prepare, recruit, enroll, and retain low-income students." This is a more clear-cut goal that builds and expands on existing aid policies that are targeted to the population most sensitive to the price of higher education. It also would discourage schools from simply opening up their coffers to the richest students.

Society forgoes revenue to give colleges the tax breaks that helped boost their endowments to massive sizes. It's time that those funds be put toward those students that will benefit from them the most.

On Down From the Ivory Towers

Ben Miller — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Recent announcements by Harvard and Yale universities to expand financial aid are good news for the small number of students helped, but do little to dispel the impression of an ivory tower still removed from regular people.

Here’s a primer for those who may have missed the flurry of media coverage on the Ivory aid plans. Harvard’s plan, announced in December, would spend $22 million to cap parental contributions at 10 percent of income for all students coming from families making between $120,000 and $180,000 a year. Yale’s new policy, released on Monday, is slightly more complex, using over $24 million to cap parental income contributions to less than 10 percent for families making $120,000 or less, while significantly reducing expected contributions of families making between $120,000 and $200,000. The Yale plan would result in reductions of one-half to one-third for affected families.

It's great that Harvard and Yale are making multi-million dollar commitments from their overflowing endowments. But don't miss the order of magnitude involved. Harvard's endowment grew by some $6 billion last year alone. To put that number into perspective, Congress just spent $6 billion to cut undergraduate federal student loan interest rates in half over the next five years -- nationwide. Harvard's $22 million commitment equals about 1/3rd of 1 percent of the growth in its endowment last year.

[slideshow] We repeatedly have urged the richest schools in the nation to put their hoarded wealth to better use — specifically, preparing, recruiting, providing financial support for, and retaining low-income students. Harvard and Yale’s new policies get part of the equation right. At least they're prying open the lock box and not spending it on athletic facilities. But here is where they fall short.

They aren't improving their outreach to needy students, and they're helping a lot of relatively upper income students. As Donald Heller of Penn State pointed out in The Chronicle of Higher Education, the Harvard policy (and by extension Yale’s) belie a suspect conception of who is "middle-class." Families making at least $120,000 annually represent all but the top 15 percent of U.S. households, while families with annual incomes of $180,000 or higher are all but the top 5 percent of U.S. households, according to census data. Despite this, about half of Harvard’s students come from families that are above the upper income limit. Not only are the new Harvard and Yale new aid policies doing litle for low-income students and benefiting more than just "middle-class" families, they are also showing the socioeconomic homogeneity of America’s most elite institutions of higher education.

Defenders of the Harvard and Yale policies are quick to point out that the astronomical growth in college costs means that even relatively affluent families have trouble paying for their children’s education. Addressing this issue through aid expansions, however, could have troubling effects on low-income students.

The Traditional Higher Ed Community's View

A number of folks in the traditional higher ed community are concerned about the ways that Harvard and Yale’s policies could work to squeeze out low-income students, both at those institutions and elsewhere across the country.

Argument one is that improved and less confusing aid offers are likely to create an influx of wealthier applicants to the top Ivies. At Harvard this means increased competition for a static amount of spots, an issue that Yale at least addressed with an announced plan to expand enrollment by 700 students. Receiving more applications means a greater strain on existing admissions resources. Asking already overbooked admissions officers to review more files could detract from pro-active recruitment efforts that are necessary to increase low-income applicants. Yale has partially addressed these concerns by sending current students out as ambassadors to schools with large numbers of low-income students, but these individuals will not be able to create the lasting relationships with guidance counselors that play a crucial role in locating and admitting students.

Argument two and more disconcerting is the prospect that the decision to expand aid so far up the income spectrum at Harvard and Yale will prompt other institutions to shift their aid policies toward the affluent, as opposed to growing their financial aid budgets. Making Harvard and Yale more affordable could pressure poorer rivals to offer more "merit aid" (at the expense of need-based aid) to avoid losing wealthier applicants. On a national level this could be detrimental for low-income students who are less willing to take on high levels of debt and whose decision to attend college is more likely to be affected by the available financial aid.

Our Take:

Harvard and Yale's policies are good for the small number of talented students that they help. We wish those two schools were contributing more than 1/3rd of 1 percent of the growth in their endowments to student assistance and that specifically they contributed more of their wealth to low-income (high school and college) student preparation, recruitment, support, and retention.

There may be some adverse consequences to the plans for low-income students who are not able to take advantage of Harvard and Yale's policies elsewhere. But the far bigger college affordability issue is not what Harvard and Yale are doing on financial aid for a small number of students or even what other institutions do in response. It's what the Governors are about to do to millions.

As the economy turns down, state budgets are apt to tighten. In turn and forced by state constitutions to balance their budgets, Governors are apt to cut state funding for higher education, as they have done historically in times of economic recession. In response to state budget cuts, public colleges and universities, which educate more than three out of four post-secondary students nationwide, are apt to raise tuition and lessen the proportionate growth in their need-based financial aid.

In other words, the combined effect of the new Ivy policies and a coming downturn in the economy means we're likely to see an increasingly bifurcated system of higher education nationally. College will become more affordable for the talented lucky few, while becoming less affordable for the masses attending public community colleges and state universities. Unless that is, actions are taken by Congress to prevent the phenomenon from occuring. More on that though in the weeks ahead.

(Photo used under a Creative Commons license from Flickr user omerka.)

Roundup: Week of January 7 - January 11

Ed Policy — Fri, 11 Jan 2008 00:00:00 -0500

New York Unveils Ambitious Plan to Boost Prestige of Public Colleges

New York needs to significantly increase spending on its state college systems and hire thousands of new professors if it hopes to compete with other prestigious public universities, according to a

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

Pell Grants Cut

Ed Policy — Tue, 18 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

In October and again in November, we warned that Congress might try to cut the Pell Grant program for low-income college students. We argued that after passing a new law in September that rightly whacked excess student loan bank subsidies to increase Pell Grant funding, Congress might later…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.

Roundup: Week of December 3 - December 7

Ed Policy — Fri, 07 Dec 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Dodd Bill Proposes to Make Private Loans Dischargeable in Bankruptcy

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT) announced last week that he plans to introduce legislation that would allow private student loan borrowers who have taken on unmanageable…

Note: This post pre-dates Higher Ed Watch's shift to a new publishing system. For the complete original post, including any comments, please click here.