Affordability

Creating a Progressive 529 Plan

Michael Dannenberg — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 00:20:00 -0400

Barack Obama wants to give families a refundable $4,000 tax credit for college if their children complete a required amount of community service. It's a fine, conventional Democratic idea. It could be a lot more powerful, though, if Obama coupled it with an old Republican favorite -- depositing his $4,000 credit into private accounts like the so-called 529 plans that so many upper-income families use to save for college.

There are already 12 higher education-related tax credits and deductions on the books, including the Clinton administration's HOPE and Lifetime Learning tax credits. To varying degrees they make college more affordable for those with taxable income who get over the hump of initially enrolling in school.

But the current education tax benefits are a mess of different eligibility standards, confusing forms, delayed delivery, and regressive rewards. One in four eligible families claims the wrong amount, according to the Government Accountability Office. And financial aid specialists agree none of them do a good job at promoting college access for those who otherwise wouldn't go.

The real "post-partisan" college affordability and college access policy is to simplify our higher education tax benefits and deposit those proposed $4,000 credits into a 529 college fund created in each individual child's name. Named after the relevant section of the tax code, 529 plans are tax-favored investment or savings accounts run by brokerage firms under contracts with the state.

A progressive 529 savings program could start with low-income eighth graders, if not younger students. That way, children would get the benefit of tax-deferred growth, college aspirations would go up, and progressive 529 college funds would act as a magnet for additional contributions from employers, religious groups, philanthropy, and others. Children who don't go straight to college would be able to tap their accounts later or pass it on to a dependent.

Under this proposal, as opposed to the current HOPE and Lifetime Learning credits, funds would be available to community-college and part-time students. Cash would be available immediately when college bills are due, and could be used to offset room, board, and textbook costs as well as tuition. Families wouldn't even have to file a tax return. And by folding in the existing HOPE and Lifetime credits, the plan's costs are minimized beneath what Obama has proposed.

There's precedent for progressive 529s. Eleven state 529 plans, including those in swing states like Colorado and Michigan, already have initial deposit, matching, and other features to encourage low-income families to take part.

Moreover, withdrawals are easily conditioned on good behavior, including proof of community service as per Obama's original plan. That's a good condition. Children who serve or work about 10 hours a week to pay for college take their studies more seriously, manage their time more effectively, and learn two important values: First, in this life, you don't get something for nothing; and second, each of us has a responsibility to others.

Washington could go further and condition its contributions to a state 529 plan on states maintaining their own spending on higher ed, in order to keep them from using the plans as an excuse to raise tuition. The federal government requires that states keep up their part to get K-12, transportation, and Medicaid funds - and Washington should do the same with higher education funding.

A bear market might seem a strange time to promote private accounts. But not only is the stock market strong over the long term, account funds can be invested in solid government bonds as a default. If a state wants to allow parents to invest in more aggressive securities, it can.

The key is for Democrats and Republicans to establish a universal platform for college savings, to encourage all students to take their studies seriously, and to break the political paradigm of government entitlement versus private responsibility. We can have both. And if every child has a college fund, we'll all win.

Michael Dannenberg, the founder of the New America Foundation's Education Policy Program and former editor of Higher Ed Watch, wrote this column for The Boston Globe. Dannenberg is now a senior fellow with New America.

A Few of Our Favorite Things (From Final Higher Ed Bill)

Ed Policy — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:27:00 -0400

By Ben Miller, Stephen Burd, and Sara Mead

A decade after its last reauthorization and five years since an updated version was due, a new version of the Higher Education Act is finally ready for Congressional passage. With both chambers set to vote on the bill this week, Higher Ed Watch will take a closer look at various parts of the legislation over the next two days. Today, we praise lawmakers for doing the following:

Putting Teeth Into Loan Auctions

Last year, Congress created a groundbreaking pilot auction program that uses market forces to set student loan subsidy rates for lenders making federal PLUS loans to parents and graduate students. With about a year left to enact the pilot project, lawmakers have added penalties for lenders who win an auction and then back out. The bill allows the Education Secretary to punish lenders that violate the terms of the auction agreement by one of the following methods: fining the lender for any additional costs needed to find and subsidize a replacement PLUS loan lender; banning the offending lender from future auctions; or, kicking them out of the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program entirely. We particularly like the fact that the Secretary can retrieve the fine by reducing subsidies paid to the lenders on other FFEL loans or having another federal agency garnish other subsidies the lender might receive. While we have some complaints about the language (it doesn't, for example, address the PLUS loan auction bidding cap, which needs to be more flexible to encourage robust bidding in a range of financial market conditions), overall, we believe that this provision is an important step forward in getting this pilot program off the ground.

Adding Key Protections for Private Loan Borrowers

The reauthorization legislation takes a stab at addressing concerns that students borrowing high-cost private loans frequently don’t understand the terms and conditions of these loans before taking them out. Under the bill, lenders would be required to provide clearer information about the interest rates and fees they charge and to inform potential applicants about the availability of cheaper, safer federal loans. Borrowers would have up to 30 days, after a private loan offer is made, to decide whether or not they want to take out the loan, and another three days, after the loan is consummated, to cancel it. In addition, the measure would ban lenders from branding private loan products with a college’s name or logo in a way that implies the school has endorsed the loan. The measure would also bar lenders from penalizing borrowers who pay off their private loans early. These are all good provisions. The bill, however, does not goes far enough in addressing the fact that large numbers of students take out private loans without exhausting their federal student loan eligibility first. We also are extremely disappointed that the measure doesn’t do anything to help financially-distressed borrowers carrying unmanageable levels of private loan debt. Still, this legislation makes a good-faith effort to confront this problem. And that’s a start.

Banning Opportunity Loan Deals

The legislation would forbid colleges from entering into sweetheart deals with lenders in which loan companies agree to waive or loosen credit requirements on private student loans in exchange for becoming the school's exclusive federal student loan provider. These types of harmful "opportunity loan" arrangements give lenders a major incentive to provide subprime private loans to high-risk borrowers. The damage has been particularly grave at some of the most scandal-ridden chains of for-profit colleges, where disadvantaged students with poor credit ratings have been stuck with loans with interest rates and fees exceeding 20 percent. Now many of these borrowers are in default and wishing they had never pursued a post-secondary education in the first place. While this legislation won't do anything for those borrowers, it will hopefully prevent students from being victimized by such predatory lending practices in the future.

Maintaining a Watchful Eye on College Costs

The legislation has two tactics for targeting the rising cost of college: penalizing states that don't live up to their end of the bargain and shaming colleges that raise their prices too high. The bill holds states accountable through a "maintenance of effort" (MOE) provision, which withholds funds from states that fail to maintain their levels of spending on higher education. States in violation of MOE would be ineligible for College Access Challenge Grants, a new $66 million program included in the College Cost Reduction and Access Act that is only funded through fiscal year 2009. With falling state support a major driver of massive tuition hikes and questionable revenue deals, the MOE provision, albeit an extremely weak one, should provide at least a small incentive for states to avoid slashing higher education funding.

The bill also tackles college costs by requiring the Education Department to publish an annual list of the top 5 percent of colleges with the highest tuition and fees and net price, along with those with the largest percentage change in tuition and fees and net price over the preceding three years. Lists would be disaggregated by type of institution, though not by region. Colleges with the highest percentage increases would have to provide the Education Secretary with a report explaining factors behind those price increases, and steps they plan to take to limit them in the future . These lists would provide students with an idea of which schools are likely to hike tuition, but also make colleges think twice before jacking up their prices. The provision is more thoughtful than previous efforts because it would not penalize state colleges that don't have any control over setting their tuition rates.

Curbing Textbook Prices

At an average annual cost of $900, textbooks are a major expense for students who are already struggling to keep up with ever-rising college prices. This legislation aims to drive down textbook prices by helping colleges and students make better-informed decisions. The bill would require publishers to disclose any major revisions in new editions of textbooks to individuals making purchasing decisions. This should help colleges decide whether it makes sense to order the latest editions, which are more expensive and less likely to be available used. Publishers would also be required to sell supplementary materials and textbooks separately. Separating out bundled materials should decrease student costs by allowing individuals to purchase a book without having to also pay for expensive companion items. The bill also requires colleges to tell students the name and cost of textbooks used in a given course by posting such information on online course schedules. Providing this information before classes start gives students time to look for copies of the books online, where they can often be purchased for less. We are hopeful that these changes will bring some relief to students.

Making Teacher Preparation Programs More Accountable

When Congress passed the Higher Education Amendments Act of 1998, it took unprecedented steps to improve the quality of teacher preparation programs operated by institutions of higher education. This included providing funding for teacher quality enhancement and requiring teacher preparation programs to report annual pass rates for their students on state teacher licensure exams. Unfortunately, the law's accountability provisions, as implemented, contain an enormous loophole that allows many institutions of higher education to report pass rates of 100 percent by only counting students who have already passed the tests as "program completers." The proposed legislation takes steps to close that loophole, by requiring teacher preparation programs to report on "the percentage of students who have completed 100 percent of the nonclinical coursework and taken the assessment who passed such assessment," and "the percentage of all students who passed such assessment." The legislation would also require teacher preparation programs to report on the average scale score their students obtain on teacher licensure exams. Because teacher licensure exams are not especially rigorous, these are modest steps to improve accountability for teacher preparation programs, but they are steps in the right direction. As the only federal policy that seeks to measure the educational outcomes of higher education programs, it provides a potential foot in the door for broader accountability in the future.

Preventing Rip-Offs by the Department of Education

The legislation would require the U.S. Department of Justice to review any settlements made by the Education Secretary that exceed $1 million. This provision, which was first introduced as an amendment to the House of Representatives version of the legislation by Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wisc.), is meant to help prevent the kind of abuse of taxpayer funds that occurred last year when Education Secretary Margaret Spellings allowed the loan company Nelnet to keep $278 million in subsidy payments that it had illegally billed the agency as part of the 9.5 percent student loan scam. Such a provision would also have been helpful back in 2004 when the Education Department gave the University of Phoenix a slap on the wrist, even though it found the for-profit higher education giant guilty of violating a law prohibiting colleges from giving "any commission, bonus, or other incentive payment based directly or indirectly on success in securing enrollments." We applaud Congress for trying to inject some accountability back into the Education Department.

So what did Congress get wrong with the bill? Tune in tomorrow to find out.

Guest Post: Six Principles for Financial Aid Reform

Ed Policy — Tue, 13 May 2008 14:00:00 -0400

By Art Hauptman

There is widespread agreement among financial aid analysts and practitioners that our country's student aid system is not working as effectively as it could be. Many believe that the solution to this problem is to have the federal government substantially increase the amount of money it spends on the existing student aid programs.

I disagree. The federal government currently spends roughly $40 billion for grants, college work study, loan subsidies, and tax breaks for college -- more than enough to achieve the programs' goals if they were operating effectively and efficiently. As I argued last week, the current structure of student financial support in this country needs to be changed in fundamental ways.

Federal aid programs and tax benefits should be molded into a more comprehensive and comprehensible whole. This would entail some program consolidation and a much better coordination of federal programs and policies with each other. The federal government should also strengthen the incentives it provides states, colleges, and the private sector so that these entities complement, rather than complicate, its public policy goals. Such a system should adhere to the following six principles:

It should be much simpler for students and their families to apply for aid and for college officials to administer it. The current application process serves as a huge barrier to access for many students and families, especially those most at-risk.

A modest amount of self help in the form of loans or work should be required of all students, although institutions should be encouraged to cover some or all of this self-help component for students from the most impoverished circumstances.

The largest proportion of assistance should be targeted on the most at-risk students. This greater commitment to targeting of benefits should include federal and state policies, institutional practices, and private sector initiatives.

Tuition tax breaks should be the primary form of non-repayable aid for middle class students and lifelong learners who are already in the work force. Tax benefits are much better suited for these two groups of students than cramming them into the already strained traditional student aid programs.

The federal student loan programs should be restructured to reduce the adverse effects of growing debt burdens and to stem instances of program abuse. The policy focus should shift from the traditional emphasis on when the loan is made to more attention being placed on helping borrowers when they enter repayment.

Greater reliance should be placed on non-financial aid activities to improve the preparation and increase the aspirations of students most at-risk. Student aid is clearly not enough when it comes to the riskiest students; reaching them in various ways while they are in grade school or middle school is clearly key to greater success.

By taking the following three steps, policymakers can accomplish the kind of reform that is needed without spending any additional money:

Federal student aid programs and tuition tax benefits should be integrated in a systematic way. Many student aid advocates have suggested doing away with the current range of tuition tax benefits and using the savings to increase spending on need-based financial aid. Others have suggested making the tax credits refundable. A better approach is to recognize the need for tax benefits -- both to offset current tuition expenses and stimulate more college savings -- and integrate the tax system with federal student aid programs: before, during, and after college.

The federal government should be more aggressive in seeking to increase the access and success of the students from the lowest income families. Federal policy makers have tended to rely on expanding Pell Grants as the means for helping low-income students. But it is increasingly obvious that other policies are needed to achieve this goal, including more early intervention through GEAR UP and related efforts, and providing incentives for institutions to require less borrowing from these students. It would also be worthwhile to consider establishing college savings accounts for poor but promising students to raise their aspirations.

A student-centered seamless federal student loan structure should be created. Federal student loan policies and practices have been central to postsecondary policy debates for the past several decades, with the primary focus over the past 15 years on whether loans should be financed directly by the federal government or privately financed. But the ‘direct loan' debate has obscured a number of other critical issues related to the provision of student loans, including the complexity of the system and whether federal policies contribute to rapidly mounting student debt burdens. We should consider how the federal student loan structure can be streamlined so that all loans have the same terms and conditions and real relief is provided to borrowers in trouble when they reach repayment.

These three sets of reforms could be paid for largely through changes in the student loan programs that would: restrict the in-school interest payments that the government makes on behalf of students in the subsidized Stafford Loan program to Pell Grant recipients; increase the share of federal student loans provided through the Direct Loan Program; and use auction mechanisms to determine a market rate of return on federally guaranteed loans and thereby drive down federal payments to lenders. In addition, improving coordination between the Pell Grant and tax credit programs would create some savings by making students from middle-income families ineligible for Pell Grants. This change would justify increasing tuition tax benefits for middle-class students and their families through the consolidation of existing tuition tax breaks into a new single expanded tuition tax credit.

Future posts will consider how adopting these reforms could lead to a reinvigorated system of student financial support in this country.

Art Hauptman is an independent consultant on higher education finance issues. His guest blog column will continue to appear each Tuesday in the month of May. The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the New America Foundation.

Guest Post: A System of Student Financial Support

Ed Policy — Tue, 06 May 2008 16:22:00 -0400

By Art Hauptman

Current arrangements for providing financial support to college students and their families in this country are not meeting many of the objectives for which they were intended. The Spellings Commission summed it up well in its final report: "The entire financial aid system - including federal, state, institutional, and private programs - is confusing, complex, inefficient, duplicative, and frequently does not direct aid to students who truly need it." As a result, the Commission and a number of other groups with wide ranging political agendas have recommended that "the entire student financial system be restructured". But what would that entail?

Since first established in the 1960s, the federal student aid programs of grants, loans, and work-study - in concert with state, institutional, and private efforts - have provided access to a postsecondary education for millions of Americans who otherwise might not have had enough funds to attend. More recently, federal tax offsets against current tuition expenses and tax-preferred incentives for college savings serve as an important source of financial relief for hard-pressed taxpayers from a range of incomes who worry that they will be unable to pay the constantly mounting bill for tuition and other expenses.

But there is good reason to believe that the financing system also has been a factor in some of the most nagging difficulties associated with American postsecondary education:

The growing number of students who require remedial coursework because they are not fully prepared to do college level work when they enroll

The fact that degree completion rates in the United States are below average among industrialized countries

Tuitions and other charges at both public and private colleges increasing at twice the rate of inflation for a quarter century, raising concerns about college affordability.

Student aid and tuition tax policies are certainly not solely or even primarily to blame for these concerns and trends. Many other factors are much more important in explaining the lack of student readiness, low completion rates, and mounting tuition bills. But the student aid system is not blameless.

The basic underlying problem is that the current system of providing financial support to college students and their families is not a system at all. Rather it is a loose conglomeration of policies and practices at the federal, state, institutional, and private levels that often conflict with each other, with the result that efforts by one governmental unit or group often cancel out efforts by others.

Moreover, federal policies are often in conflict with each other - student aid programs intended to promote greater access may be detracting from better student readiness and success as measured by degree completion. Increasing reliance on tax policies to help families pay for college is often at odds with the more access-oriented policies contained in the traditional federal and state student aid programs. As a result of poor design and lack of policy coordination, there are many problems with the current structure of providing financial support to college students and their families, including:

The system of applying for aid and administering it is far too complex which in itself becomes a large barrier to greater access.

Aid often is not well targeted to students from the lowest income families making it that much harder to achieve the goal of providing greater equity of access.

Student debt burdens are growing rapidly and there is far too little relief for the growing number of borrowers who are having trouble making their payments.

The existing financing structure places too much emphasis on getting students into college and there is not nearly enough focus on whether students are prepared to do the work or whether they will complete their educational program.

There is reason to suspect that the growing availability of aid, particularly loans, have been a factor in tuition and other charges growing at twice the rate of inflation for the past quarter century, suggesting a price effect of student aid.

The provision of government aid may encourage institutions that package aid to move their discounts up the income scale, suggesting that some forms of student aid, particularly government grants, may have an adverse substitution effect.

These and very real problems that indicate the current structure of student financial support needs to be changed in fundamental ways.

A subsequent post or two, if Higher Ed Watch doesn't tire of me, will describe a set of principles that should guide future reforms with specific suggestions for moving forward on this agenda. Big changes are needed to make current levels of government support work better for students and their families. Patchwork won't do.

Art Hauptman is an independent consultant on higher education finance issues. The views expressed herein are his own and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the New America Foundation.

COVERAGE: Myths About the Individual Mandate: Affordability

Paul Testa — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 15:00:00 -0400

Myth: An individual mandate would force families to forgo other necessities in order to buy health insurance.

Fact: All existing mandate-centered reform plans include subsidies for low-income people to ensure affordability, and insurance reforms to make health insurance markets work for all Americans.

To date, no policymaker has proposed instituting an individual mandate without addressing affordability, standards and market reforms that protect consumers.
Reform plans that include an individual mandate—such as the Healthy Americans Act sponsored by Senators Wyden, Bennett, and a dozen other cosponsors and that of Representatives Langevin and Shays—also include subsidies that reach as high as 400% of the Federal Poverty Level or $84,000 for a family of four.
John Holahan and Linda Blumberg of the Urban Institute recently noted that under a mandate with generous subsidies "low-income individuals spend less as a percentage of income than higher income individuals."
In a post on the Health Affairs Blog, Patricia Lynch explained why such desirable and popular insurance market reforms as guaranteed issue (not being able to deny people health insurance) would not be possible without an individual mandate to bring everyone into the system.

Check back tomorrow when we'll examine common myths about enforcing mandates. For more in depth discussion, read New America's recent issue brief.

A False Alarm

Ed Policy — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 00:00:00 -0500

Over the last several months, the student loan industry and its allies on Capitol Hill have led a campaign to persuade the news media and policymakers that Congress went too far last year when it cut taxpayer subsidies to lenders that participate in the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program. The lenders and their friends argue that the subsidy cuts and tightening credit markets now are leaving students in jeopardy of losing access to federally guaranteed student loans. Don't believe it.

[slideshow] During debate last week on legislation to renew the Higher Education Act, for example, Congressman Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-CA), a friend of Sallie Mae and the student loan industry, sounded an alarm. “The impact of these cuts have yet to be fully realized, but already borrower benefits have been curtailed, lenders have left the program, and workers have lost their jobs,” he said. “The consequences of program cuts are being exacerbated by a crunch in our financial markets that has produced a loss of liquidity, an increase in financing costs, and uncertainty about the future viability of the federal loan program.”

McKeon didn't mention that JP Morgan Chase bank, for example, is making so much on federal and private student loans even after Congressional action to redirect excess taxpayer subsidies from banks to increased financial aid for students that Chase is voluntarily cutting interest rates and fees on federally-backed student loans and private student loans. He also didn't mention that any curtailed benefits charitably supplied by banks in the past have been redirected by Congress into massively larger Pell Grants and reduced undergraduate Stafford loan interest rates. And he didn't mention, that there is zero risk of federal student loans not being available to any student at any accreditated institution of higher education.

But McKeon we understand. He's got a political job to do. Respected media outlets like The Wall Street Journal that fall for this scare tactic we can't excuse. In a news article last week, The Wall Street Journal speculated that students with less-than-stellar credit “will likely have a harder time getting a government backed federal loan, as lenders tighten their standards and pare back their offerings in response to the credit crunch and recent legislation.”

The fact such a distinguished newspaper as The Wall Street Journal would perpetuate such patently false claims about federal student loans caught our attention and convinced us we need to address head on the lenders’ arguments.

(1) Are Students with Poor Credit in Danger of Losing Access to Federal Loans?

Absolutely Not. Federal Stafford student loans are universally available to students, no matter what their credit scores. In fact, banks are forbidden from denying federal loans to students because of their credit records. Some lenders, like Sallie Mae, have said that they plan to stop offering subprime private, non-federal college loans to students at trade schools. But as we’ve said before, this is actually good news, as disadvantaged students with poor credit ratings should never have been stuck with high-cost private student loans to begin with.

(2) But Haven’t Some Lenders Announced That They Will Stop Offering Federal Loans?

Yes, but only a few and so what? About a half-dozen of the thousands of lenders that participate in the FFEL program have said that they will stop offering federal loans, or limit their participation in the program. The College Loan Corporation, which began as a marketer of consolidation loans, is the biggest lender to drop out so far.

Frankly we don’t find this news to be surprising or alarming. For years, the government, with its overly generous subsidies to lenders, propped up loan companies that did not operate as efficiently as they could have. In the end, this is a business, and lenders should compete to see which companies can deliver government-backed loans at the cheapest cost to taxpayers.

(3) Is it True that Students Don't Have Any Alternative but to Borrow Federal Loans from Commercial Lenders?

No, there is an alternative. Students can obtain federal loans directly from the government through the Direct Loan Program. More than 1,000 colleges currently participate in direct lending, and the program now accounts for about 20 percent of the total student loan volume.

A major advantage of direct lending is that the government does not disciminate between and among borrowers. So if lenders begin to redline -- refusing to provide loans to students at community colleges or trade schools, for example -- colleges can always switch to direct lending to ensure that federal loans remain available to their students.

Another big advantage of direct lending is that the government funds the loans directly from the federal Treasury. As a result, it doesn't sell loans to investors through the securitization market, which is extremely shaky right now, to finance its loans, as do some commercial lenders.

Conclusion

To be perfectly clear, the sky is not falling on federal student loan availability -- no matter what the loan industry and its supporters on Capitol Hill claim. Don't be fooled by attempts to conflate the private student loan and federally-guaranteed student loan marketplace, even if false claims appear as fact in The Wall Street Journal.

In its frenzy to report on the subprime mortgage crisis' impact, old media is getting the student loan issue wrong and alarming parents. Hopefully, other news outlets won't be so easily fooled. Federal student loans are universally available. They will continue to be. And as of this moment, private student loans are widely available well. But the latter could change.

Baby Carrots and Twigs

Ed Policy — Thu, 15 Nov 2007 00:00:00 -0500

Yesterday, a key Congressional education committee took a groundbreaking albeit modest step on a top flight concern of parents and students - ever escalating college tuition.

For years, the federal government's main role in higher education finance has been to…

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.

Confusing Market Means and Ends in Higher Education

Ed Policy — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 01:00:00 -0400

Responding to our coverage of last week's higher education reconciliation bill, Cato's Neal McCluskey asks, "How can you love an auction because it supposedly uses market forces, while simultaneously supporting the gargantuan market distortion that is the overall federal student aid system?"

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.

Buried Treasure in the U.S. News Rankings

Ed Policy — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 01:00:00 -0400

The U.S. News & World Report's annual ranking of colleges and universities, "America's Best Colleges 2008," was published last week with typical fanfare. High school students and their parents likely flipped immediately to the "top schools" ranking, where they found-gasp!-that Princeton University earned the top spot…

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.

Tuition Junction: What's Your Function?

Ed Policy — Wed, 13 Dec 2006 00:00:00 -0500

The New York Times has Higher Ed Watch reconsidering our thinking on why college tuition is going up. Our hypothesis had been that skyrocketing tuition is driven by the combination of: (1) declining state support for higher education, and (2) an "arms race"…

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.

Affordability

Creating a Progressive 529 Plan

A Few of Our Favorite Things (From Final Higher Ed Bill)

Putting Teeth Into Loan Auctions

Adding Key Protections for Private Loan Borrowers

Banning Opportunity Loan Deals

Maintaining a Watchful Eye on College Costs

Curbing Textbook Prices

Making Teacher Preparation Programs More Accountable

Preventing Rip-Offs by the Department of Education

Guest Post: Six Principles for Financial Aid Reform

Guest Post: A System of Student Financial Support

COVERAGE: Myths About the Individual Mandate: Affordability

Myth: An individual mandate would force families to forgo other necessities in order to buy health insurance.

A False Alarm

Baby Carrots and Twigs

Confusing Market Means and Ends in Higher Education

Buried Treasure in the U.S. News Rankings

Tuition Junction: What's Your Function?