In the News

Study: Student Borrowing May Lead to Academic Success in Community College

Loans may be one solution for helping students afford college and increase achievement, but grants that don't have to be repaid is another. The researchers are working on a new study that examines the academic effects of federal loans versus grant aid and agree that the effects of the federal Pell Grant may be stronger on academic performance, Marx said.

February 8, 2019 |

Inside Higher Ed

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Higher Education

How Can Philanthropy Advance Martin Luther King’s Goals? 13 Leaders Weigh In

Fighting Structural and Historic Racism

K. Sabeel Rahman
President

Racism has long driven pervasive political, economic, and social disparities in this country.

Those inequities arise not just from individualized and blatant forms of discrimination but also through historical, cumulative, structural policies that have combined to inhibit wealth, opportunity, well-being, and voice for communities of color.

January 18, 2019 |

The Chronicle of Philanthropy

States And Cities Have Already Shown Democrats’ Election Reforms Will Work

New York City’s system has enabled candidates ― especially those from less affluent neighborhoods ― to more consistently rely on small donors in their districts.

January 10, 2019 |

Huffington Post

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Campaign Finance Reform

Voters to Congress: Find ways to lower our student debt

The poll results indicate that politics may soon catch up to the reality borrowers are facing, said Mark Huelsman, the associate director of policy and research at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.

“It’s a sign of the increasing anxiety that voters and families are feeling about their own debt or their children going into to debt or them going into debt for their children,” he said.

January 7, 2019 |

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Higher Education

Russian interference and American racism: From the Cold War to the 2016 election

This month, Take Care and Project Democracy hosted a symposium, "Building an Inclusive Democracy: Towards an Action Agenda," the aims of which are strikingly in tune with the points I raise here. One of those posts in particular, “Defending Inclusion” by K.

December 23, 2018 |

How a new service could help boost your credit score

Experian Boost comes with downsides for consumers, according to Amy Traub, associate director of research at the public policy group, Demos. She said lenders will be able to use the data they glean from consumer bank accounts in ways the public may not understand.

"It also allows them to make marketing decisions: who to promote which products to, how to get us hooked on the products that are most profitable and lucrative for the lender, " said Traub.

December 21, 2018 |

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Economy & Opportunity

Are Cops 'Off the Hook'? How Police Reform Has Changed Under Trump

In his final hours as U.S. Attorney General last month, Jeff Sessions issued a memo limiting the Justice Department’s power to pursue and enforce federal consent decrees with local police departments. [...]

“This will allow the political leadership of DOJ to let abusive departments off the hook even when they haven’t instituted the reforms necessary to turn themselves around,” says Chiraag Bains, director of legal strategies at Demos and a former federal prosecutor with the Civil Rights Division under Obama's DOJ.

December 19, 2018 |

I Love Making My Mama Proud, But I Hate How Difficult America Makes It For Me To Succeed

As Mark Huelsman, a policy analyst at Demos, an advocacy group tweeted: "the average family inheritance to a white college grad can pay off the average undergrad debt balance and have enough left over for a 20 percent down [payment] on a $575,000 home." That’s assuming the inheritor has student debt to begin with.

December 14, 2018 |

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Higher Education

‘You don’t just get to say that you’re progressive’: The left moves to defend its brand

We’re sort of in this really bizarre window where, for a number of reasons, many of the leading … candidates are sort of tripping over themselves to claim a progressive mantle,” said K. Sabeel Rahman, president of the left-leaning think tank Demos. “And we have to make sure that that progressive mantle means something really progressive. And that means we should set the table, and we should set that table now.”

December 9, 2018 |

This Woman Got 8 Years In Prison For Illegal Voting. Texas Is Showing No Mercy.

Chiraag Bains, a former prosecutor and civil rights attorney at the U.S. Justice Department, said that because criminal codes are so complicated, prosecutors have an incredible amount of flexibility in deciding whether and how to bring a case. Prosecutors normally consider the culpability of the individual, the severity of the offense and what kind of penalty is necessary to deter future misconduct.

November 30, 2018 |

The Huffington Post

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Voting Rights & Voter Registration