What’s up with working-class whites? It’s a question that’s been asked for decades, and has been raised again recently in the discussion surrounding an Alec MacGillis piece examining Matt Bevin’s recent election gubernatorial win in Kentucky, which could leave many in Kentucky without Medicaid.
The findings add to a growing body of evidence that in most cases, a college degree helps to boost employment and earning potential -- the underemployment rate of those with just a high school diploma is 12.9%, the analysis found. But for many Americans, a college degree is out of reach without taking on debt. That’s particularly true for African-Americans. More than half of young black households hold student debt, according to a recent analysis from Demos, a left-leaning think tank, and Brandeis University’s Institute on Assets and Social Policy.
The elections board said registration activity is back to levels from previous odd-numbered years. Part of the issue, the board said, was local social service agencies had been printing registration forms that were not coded as coming from these agencies. Issues related to DMV's online address updates also are being addressed, Strach said.
Mark Huelsman, a policy analyst for the liberal think tank Demos, which is pushing for debt-free college, said the state efforts are important because much of the rise of undergraduate student debt is a result of state budget cuts. And, he said, "We know big policy change in every arena requires good, smart and bold state policy, either to provide an example for the federal government or in partnership with the federal government."
Advocates of automatic voter registration won two legislative battles in Oregon and California this year, and lost another in New Jersey when GOP Governor Chris Christie vetoed automatic registration legislation last month.
Nia Mirza, an international student from Pakistan, organized a petition earlier this year demanding NYU lower the cost of attendance after the annual price tag of attending the school suddenly rose from $64,000 to $71,000.
“We’ve already had a lot of states use student debt relief as a carrot to entering certain professions,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. “Now that most professions have student debtors in them you’re going to see broad-based relief plans,” like New York’s, he said.
New York’s is it’s linked specifically to income, so anyone making a relatively low salary — whether it’s an artist working out of a loft space in Bushwick or a nonprofit researcher toiling away in midtown — qualifies.
The fourth quarter of the Obama presidency has been relatively active when it comes to higher education. Last year alone, the Administration announced a proposal to make two years of community college tuition-free, finalized and released a treasure trove of data on earnings and loan repayment data by college as a substitute for its once-vaunted plans for a College Ratings system, came out with a Student Aid Bill of Rights, and issued regulations intended to streamline the confusing set of student loan repayment options.
“Super PACs likely encouraged more candidates to get into the 2016 GOP presidential race,” said Jay Goodliffe, a political science professor at Brigham Young University. “Even if their polls were not initially good, or there were other setbacks, the super PAC could help keep them afloat.”
While that may not be the goal in Tennessee, there is evidence that tuition freezes do lead to other cuts in higher education. One only needs to look to Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker for evidence, says Mark Huelsman, senior policy analyst at Demos, a public policy think tank. “Scott Walker froze tuition for in-state students, but he decimated student support and faculty support,” says Huelsman.
The 2016 election is the first Presidential election that will occur since the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Partially because of the weakened VRA, 10 states passed harsh new voting restrictions that will be in full force for 2016, including seven new voter ID laws. New studies suggest that the motivation of these laws is suppressing non-white voters, and worryingly, that they will be successful at doing so.
European countries also differ substantively from the US in terms of the percentage of college attendees that their debt free models serve.
"Germany has a lower percentage of students go on to college than we have here in the US," Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at think tank Demos, told ATTN.
The vast riches of schools like Stanford and Harvard have created dilemmas about how their endowments should be directed. One slate of candidates for Harvard's board of overseers is calling for the school to spend some of its $37.6 billion endowment to cover tuition for all students. Lawmakers have also mulled requiring colleges with at least $1 billion in their endowments to spend at least one-quarter of the endowment's income on financial aid.
Political scientists who have studied voter registration have found generally that young and highly mobile people are the ones least likely to be registered. They tend to have lower incomes as well.
For example, in a 2015 report, ‘Why Voting Matters,’ a research associate at Demos, Sean McElwee, found that “white Americans, and particularly affluent white Americans” are much more likely to vote than “people of color, low-income people, and young people.”
The Bennett Hypothesis likely explains tuition increases at some colleges, particularly for-profit universities, which are trying to maximize revenue, and graduate programs for which students can take out federal loans up to the cost of the program, said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. But not every type of higher education institution responds to increases in aid in the same way, he said.
As a result of having limited savings or other assets to cover the cost of college, African American families borrow heavily to pay for it. Researchers at the liberal think tank Demos found 4 out of 5 black graduates take out loans to attend public colleges, compared with less than two-thirds of whites.
African American students who borrow come out with more debt than their peers, often facing dismal job prospects. College-educated blacks have twice the unemployment rate of their white counterparts.
While students could always use more information about their loans and the cost of college, focusing too heavily on financial literacy as a route to curbing student debt “overcomplicates the discussion,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. College graduates are struggling with debt in large part because it simply costs a lot more to go to college these days, a fact of life students can’t get around even if they’re armed with more information, he said.
The 2016 election is the first Presidential election that will occur since the Supreme Court struck down key provisions in the Voting Rights Act. Partially because of the weakened VRA, 10 states passed harsh new voting restrictions that will be in full force for 2016, including seven new voter ID laws. New studies suggest that the motivation of these laws is suppressing non-white voters, and worryingly, that they will be successful at doing so.
The advocates' letter threatens legal action if the state doesn’t cooperate.
Scott Novakowski, an attorney with Demos, said the groups hope to come to an understanding with the state and map out short-term and long-term solutions for the problems.
Nevada still is mired in a lawsuit filed in 2012 by some of the same groups concerning a different part of the law, which requires public assistance agencies to register people to vote.