Robert Kelchen

It’s definitely springtime in most of the United States—the time of year in which the U.S. Department of Education initially said their draft college ratings under the Postsecondary Institution Ratings System (PIRS) would be released. Department of Education staffers have since stated that the timeline may be more toward midyear, but many observers wouldn’t be […]

This week, Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) introduced the Simplifying Financial Aid for Students Act of 2014, with the goal of streamlining the federal financial aid application process for students from lower- to middle-income families. This legislation has two main parts, which I’ll examine separately in this blog post. The first part is to allow for […]

When I was finishing my dissertation at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and going on the academic job market, I got a lot of great advice from my dissertation committee, other academics, and friends from around the country about how to survive the first year. The typical advice was to work really hard, be nice to […]

May 1 is known as National College Decision Day, as it is often the deadline for students to make deposits to attend the college of their choice. Both local and national media love to highlight students who attend selective institutions, making it seem like May 1 applies to many students who are holding offers from […]

The old adage about there being no such thing as a free lunch may hold true regarding a turkey sandwich on rye bread, but free lunches can happen in the world of higher education. An example of this is the growing number of “last-dollar” scholarships, in which private entities or state/local governments agree to cover […]

College athletics, particularly the big-revenue sports of NCAA Division I football and basketball, have been in the news lately for less-than-athletic reasons. The recent push by the Northwestern football team to unionize has led to further discussion of whether college athletes* should be compensated beyond their athletic scholarships. And the University of Connecticut’s national championship […]

Much of the debate about improving federal higher education data quality has focused on whether a student unit record dataset is necessary in order to give students, their families, and policymakers the information they need in order to make better decisions. Last month’s release of College Blackout: How the Higher Education Lobby Fought to Keep […]

Despite the large amount of money spent on higher education, prospective students, their families, and the public have historically known very little about the earnings of students who attend college. This has started to change in recent years, as a few states (such as Virginia) began to publish earnings data for their graduates who stayed […]

The recent case of 18-year-old Rachel Canning, a New Jersey teenager who moved out of her parents’ house and sued to force them to pay for private high school and future college tuition, has gained national attention. Although a Morris County judge denied Ms. Canning’s emergency request for $600 per week in emergency support, the […]

The Fiscal Year 2015 $3.9 trillion budget document from the Obama Administration includes a request of $68.6 billion in discretionary funds for the Department of Education, up $1.3 billion from 2014 funding. This excludes a great deal of mandatory spending on entitlements, including student loan costs/subsidies, some Pell Grant funding, and some other types of […]