We are concerned that given Ms. DeVos’ track record to privatize public education and her lack of a clear position concerning the affordability crisis in higher education, the committee cannot properly assess whether Ms. DeVos is fit to run the U.S. Department of Education.
Today, with health coverage for maternity care threatened, child care costs outstripping the price of college tuition, and nearly a quarter of new mothers forced to return to work two weeks or less after giving birth, we are making it extraordinarily difficult for anyone but the ve
“It doesn’t do anything to address the root problems of college affordability and of rising student debt,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. Those include state disinvestment in higher education, a trend that the federal government could help reverse, according to Huelsman, by using federal money to encourage states to up their investment in their public colleges. [...]
Employers’ growing interest in helping workers pay back their student loans “reflects that many, if not most, workers entering the workforce have to contend with their student loans,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank. [...]
In a recent study, I compared the damage from shoplifting with that from just one form of wage theft, the failure to pay workers the legal hourly minimum.
“It’s clear that the exact cohort that they were tracking has gone through a fairly tumultuous young adulthood,” said Mark Huelsman, a senior policy analyst at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
But a national debt of more than $14 trillion makes us vulnerable because our economy is the wellspring of our military might, as well as the happiness and self-confidence of a fully employed people.
The public is overwhelmed by budget deficits, shrinking public supports, and the inability of its government to compromise. In this climate, so-called minority issues seem like a distraction. But black and Latino men between the ages of 16 and 24 are profoundly more likely to be poor than whites, more likely to be unemployed or the victims of violent crime, and less likely to graduate from high school.
Today the average college grad leaves school with just over $24,000 in debt, an amount that eats up $276 every month if you stretch the payments out over ten years and it’s a government loan with a 6.8 percent interest rate. Of course, one out of five students also carries more costly private loans, where interest rates are in the double digits and fees add to the balance. This debt-for-diploma system is what counts as opportunity in America today.
Their employment prospects are dim, their debt is high, their lives are on hold and a stunning number are living with their parents, even into their 30s.
The jobs crisis and rising healthcare costs have left millions of young Americans without healthcare coverage but the health reform law is turning things around, according to a new report from the liberal groups Demos and Young Invincibles.