Cleveland Plain Dealer

25% of the uninsured are eligible for existing coverage | The Plain Dealer

Cecille Isidro — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:35:00 -0400

But Len Nichols, a health-care economist at the New America Foundation, a centrist think tank, says that a mother with two children, earning three times the ... and more »

Len Nichols in the Cleveland Plain Dealer | 'Health-Care Reform Effort Gains Steam'

Cecille Isidro — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 10:34:00 -0500

"Rising health-care costs are undermining the ability of U.S. firms to compete and threatening good American jobs," said Len Nichols, director of the Health Policy Program at the New America Foundation. "Therefore, we must reform our health system not in spite of our current economic crisis, but rather precisely because of the impact health care has on American workers and businesses." LINK

Lindsey Luebchow in Cleveland Plain Dealer | DC Group Ranks NCAA Teams by Players' Graduation Rates

Communications — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 00:28:00 -0400

Cleveland Plain Dealer | Washington Group Ranks NCAA Teams by Players' Graduation Rates

Forget wins and losses. Disregard the strength of schedule. Pay no attention to margins of victory.

Call it March madness, but what if the teams in this year's NCAA men's basketball tournament were ranked by diplomas rather than dunks?

That's a rite the Washington, D.C.-based New America Foundation celebrates each spring. Earlier this week, the nonprofit public policy institute released its own tournament bracket that has to do more with mastering Joyce than making jump shots.

The foundation, an advocate for greater equity in school funding and college financial aid, uses the big-time tournament to underscore a big-time problem: A majority of players leave college with neither a professional career nor a four-year degree. In all, 55 percent of Division I players do not graduate. About 1 percent of them make it to the NBA.

"Amid the flashy, commercialized spectacle that is March Madness, few think about the players who aren't going to be able to go pro in anything, basketball or otherwise," said policy analyst Lindsey Luebchow, who created the bracket. . .

To view the New America Foundation's Academic Sweet 16 bracket, go to Higher Ed… more

Michael Dannenberg on Student Loan Subsidies in Cleveland Plain Dealer

Communications — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 22:29:00 -0500

What do Ted Kennedy and President Bush have in common? Both are making the multibillion-dollar student loan industry incredibly nervous. Both want to slice the taxpayer subsidies the industry enjoys - subsidies that make student loans "the second most profitable business for banks, after credit cards," says Kennedy. Both say students will benefit. While Kennedy and Bush come at it from different angles, their simultaneous attacks on the student loan industry are extraordinary, say experts in student lending, some of whom are displeased, others ecstatic at the prospect of a shakeup... From a political perspective, these are some of the biggest changes contemplated since Democrats retook Congress. Democrats tried to shake up the loan business for years but were thwarted by the Republican majority, which received most of the political donations given by large lenders...

"It's a different game today," said Michael Dannenberg, director of education policy at a Washington think tank, the New America Foundation, and a former education adviser to Kennedy, who chairs the Senate education committee. "Not just because there's a Democratically controlled Congress, but because they've been triangulated by the president..."

For the complete… more