Education

Last week, Higher Ed Watch questioned why Education Secretary Margaret Spellings had granted the accrediting arm of the American Bar Association (ABA) continued recognition as the sole Education Department-approved law school accreditor. We had hoped that she would take tougher action against an entity that has bucked compliance with federal standards for over a decade.

Senate Passes Bill to Cut Lender Subsidies

Congress is inching closer to slashing overly generous subsidies the government provides student loan banks and increasing need-based student aid by a concomitant amount.

In 1961, 13 three- and four-year-olds from poor black families began attending a preschool class at Perry Elementary School in Ypsilanti, Michigan. They were there as much to learn as to teach. A team of researchers followed not only their time at the preschool, but their trajectory over the next four decades, and the findings were startling:

Crocodile tears are streaming down K Street and up Capitol Hill from bankers crying about the student loan subsidy rates Congress is poised to cut.

But think tanks, the Congressional Budget Office and lawmakers such as Rep. Tom Petri (R-Wis.) say lenders' complaints are a diversion to keep Congress from truly cutting into the profits of the $85 billion student-lending industry.

After walking a tightrope for more than a decade, the only entity in the nation that accredits law schools, an arm of the American Bar Association (ABA), has avoided a fall once againthanks in part to the fortuitous timing of an unrelated accreditation issue between Congress and the Education Department.

Financing a college education isn't easy for anybody these days, but it's an especially Herculean task if you're a working-class student living paycheck to paycheck. The obstacles to attending college are high, and the more you have to work to support yourself and your family, the less help you can expect to receive from the government in paying for college.

Congress is considering a plan that would require banks and other lenders to compete for the right to make federally guaranteed student loans.

The proposal, which has bipartisan support, would set up government-run "auctions" in which lenders would bid on loans based on the size of the government subsidy they would be willing to accept. Those lenders that agreed to the lowest subsidy rate would "win," earning the right to lend to students in a particular state, region, or subset of institutions for a set number of years.

House Passes Bill to Cut Lender Subsidies and Help Students

House Democrats pushed through legislation yesterday that would boost government-subsidized student loans and other college financial aid by $18 billion over the next five years, despite strong opposition from Republican lawmakers and a White House veto threat.