Majority Republicans on the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce unveiled their draft legislation today to reauthorize the Higher Education Act—the most important piece of legislation affecting American higher education. The Promoting Real Opportunity, Success, and Prosperity through Education Reform (PROSPER) Act checks in at a hefty 542 pages and touches many important… Read more »
Higher Education
Amherst To Take In Puerto Rican Students Displaced By Maria
Amherst College announced it is planning to admit Puerto Rican students displaced by Hurricane Maria seven weeks after the story devastated the island.
Are Hazing, Sexual Assault, Drinking and Unabashed Racism Inevitable on Campus?
NEW YORK – A few days after headlines exploded about yet another university president suspending Greek life activities after yet another hazing death, a group of college presidents sat around a dinner table expressing concern about bad behavior at fraternities. But somehow, they couldn’t help singing their praises as well. Fraternities foster a sense of… Read more »
Federal Data Shows 3.9 Million Students Dropped out of College with Debt in 2015 and 2016
For-profit sector produced a disproportionate share of indebted dropouts
Nearly 2/3rds of Public Universities Have Become Less Accessible Since 1990s
Mobility Report Cards Data Show These Institutions are Increasingly Recruiting Affluent Students
Wealthy Students are Pushing Out Low-Income Students at Top Public Universities
Financial aid policies may be speeding up the trend
Downloadable Dataset of Pell Recipient Graduation Rates
Earlier this week, my blog post summarizing new data on Pell Grant recipients’ graduation rates at four-year colleges was released through the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center Chalkboard blog. I have since received several questions about the data and requests for detailed data for specific colleges, showing the interest within the higher education community for better… Read more »
New Data on Long-Term Student Loan Default Rates
In recent years, more data have come out on how well students are able to manage repaying their loans beyond the three-year window currently used for federal accountability purposes (via cohort default rates). A great 2015 paper by Adam Looney and Constantine Yannelis used tax records merged with data from the National Student Loan Data… Read more »
Harvard Faculty Reconsiders Single-Gender Club Ban
Harvard faculty met Tuesday afternoon to reconsider a proposed ban on fraternities, sororities and other single-gender social clubs. After recommending the College prohibit students from joining the groups, they may be backtracking after receiving flack from former students.
Examining Trends in Student Loan Repayment Rates
It’s been a good week for higher education data nerds. The Department of Education released updated student loan cohort default rates on Wednesday afternoon (see my summary here), followed by an update to the massive College Scorecard dataset on Thursday morning. This is the third update to the Scorecard, with this year’s update also featuring… Read more »
Special Report
Successes of Philanthropy
