Virginia’s investment in higher education has decreased considerably over the past two decades, and its financial aid programs, though still some of the country’s most expansive, fail to reach many students with financial need.
New Jersey’s investment in higher education has decreased considerably over the past two decades, and its financial aid programs, though still some of the country’s most expansive, fail to reach many students with financial need.
In response to yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling, which upheld a Michigan state law banning the consideration of race or ethnicity as a factor among state college admissions, Demos President Heather McGhee issued the following statement:
The country should be recommitting to diversity and inclusion, not retreating.
Weighing in at more than $1 trillion, student loan debt is now larger than total credit card debt. Morning Editionrecently asked young adults about their biggest concerns, and more than two-thirds of respondents mentioned college debt. Many say they have put off marriage or buying a home because of the financial burden they took on as students. [...]
As the nation’s trillion-dollar student debt continues to rise, a new analysis of public higher education’s funding finds dwindling state support is the key factor driving rising tuition costs and deepening student debt. According to Demos, a public policy organization advocating economic opportunity and inclusive democracy, over the last two decades state support for higher education funding shifted to a new paradigm.
Biola Jeje, 22, graduated Brooklyn College last May with a degree in political science and a mission: Force lawmakers to address the $1.2 trillion student debt crisis. [...]
Jeje left college with $9,500 in student loans, less than half the $29,400 national average for four-year college graduates. She and her fellow activists are mobilizing support to march on Albany, New York state’s capital, to deliver a message to legislators. [...]
A coalition of progressive groups on Thursday formally began a new campaign aimed at curbing rising student debt and reducing the price of college.
The group of think tanks, student organizations, consumer advocates, and unions is targeting the country’s “increasingly dysfunctional system of higher education,” said Anne Johnson, executive director of Generation Progress, the youth division of the Center for American Progress, which is an organizer of the campaign. [...]
NEW YORK, NY—Today, national public policy organization Demos released a new report detailing the impact of state disinvestment in higher education since the beginning of the Great Recession. The report release coincides with the launch of Higher Ed, Not Debt, a campaign with over 60 organizations dedicated to supporting borrowers, addressing unfair lending practices, and reining in soaring costs in higher education.
For higher education and student debt, this year’s budget mostly includes proposals we’ve seen from the Obama administration in previous budgets, speeches, or elsewhere.
This week, the Federal Reserve Bank of New York offered continuing evidence of the student debt crisis. Outstanding student debt again topped $1 trillion in the fourth quarter of 2013, making it the second-largest pool of debt in the nation behind mortgages. This has tripled in just a decade, as higher-education prices increased faster than medical costs, up 500 percent since 1985.
In the last four parts of this series, I have discussed the problems of our current student loan system, the potential for an income-based repayment system, and the difficulties of a graduate tax. This leaves us with another proposal: universal free undergraduate public higher education. [...]
Quite like Hollywood's, the glitterati of the university depends on a semi-translucent support crew. There are papers to grade, lab-rats' necks to snap, low-level requisite classes to teach, exams to proctor, online discussions to moderate, etc. As U.S. college enrollment has nearly tripled between 1970 and 2010, this arduous and quasi-intellectual scut work has accumulated quicker than ever.
If a bad job market wasn’t damaging enough, the cost of paying off student loans does much more harm to the long-term prospects of young people than is commonly realized.
