Nearly 43 million college student borrowers across the United States owe more than $1.56 trillion in outstanding federal student loans. The number of student borrowers in the country has increased by 1.3 million, or 3.1 percent, over the past five years, while the amount of outstanding student debt in the country has increased by a whopping $…

New York State's system of public elementary and secondary schools is in steep decline, but it is salvageable. The roots of its problems pre-date the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, but the system's response to that challenge accelerated discontent with the schools and harmed students. The damage of those years will not be undone if…

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of universities and other institutions in successful entrepreneurship. Insights are obtained following a literature review approach. Case studies from the United States (New York startup), Spain (Mondragon), and Germany provide strong evidence that universities are very instrumental in the creation,…

Despite some cuts to the nation's oldest Federal College Access Programs, known as the TRIO programs (e.g., Upward Bound), new education policies have emphasized college and career readiness. In 2010, Congress approved the College Access Challenge Grant Program, which aims to increase the number of low-income students who are ready for college.…

The basic currency of higher education--the credit hour--represents the root of many problems plaguing America's higher education system: the practice of measuring time rather than learning. "Cracking the Credit Hour" traces the history of this time-based unit, from the days of Andrew Carnegie to recent federal efforts to define a credit…

The investigation of New York State's attorney general, Andrew M. Cuomo, into the questionable practices of lenders in federal student-loan programs has helped raise public awareness of one of the greatest scams in our government: The Federal Family Education Loan program, otherwise known as the guaranteed-student-loan program, is unnecessarily…

Academic research institutions have long been important economic anchors for New York City. They provide thousands of jobs and serve as a magnet for talented students and faculty, who inject hundreds of millions of dollars into the local economy through federal research grants. Yet, even though New York's concentration of top-fight scientific…

This fourth edition of the "ES Review" brings together, in one setting, some of the best work from 2009-10. It features: (1) Teacher Quality (Teachers at Work: Improving Teacher Quality Through School Design (Elena Silva); Understanding Teachers Contracts (Andrew J. Rotherham); How Teachers Unions Lost the Media (Richard Whitmire and…

This article discusses how federal and state governments can improve student access to private and public higher education institutions. Florida helps to achieve that with a common course-numbering system across community and four-year colleges, which permits students to easily transfer credits. Both the Senate and the House of Delegates in…

The Hispanic Center of Excellence, which is located on the campus of the Albert Einstein Medical Center in the Bronx, is just one of the few federally funded programs in the country charged with producing new Hispanic physicians. Recently, the Office of Management and Budget, a federal department that assists President Bush in overseeing the…

"Straight A's: Public Education Policy and Progress" is a biweekly newsletter that focuses on education news and events both in Washington, DC and around the country. The following articles are included in this issue: (1) Alliance Releases Teacher Paper: Tapping the Potential: Retaining and Developing High-Quality New Teachers; (2) A…