Recent efforts to deal with college affordability, including measures now before Congress, raise many questions: Why does college cost so much? How can students ever be expected to pay back their loan debt? Why does the middle class always get squeezed? America's historical commitment to the education of its citizens is perhaps the most important…

The use of private loans to finance college education has significantly increased in the last decade. Insufficient public financial aid support, a complex federal aid application process, aggressive marketing by private lenders, and an unwillingness by some parents to borrow under the federal PLUS program are leading students to take out what can…

Among countless petitioners to the incoming president, higher-education leaders have sent Barack Obama position statements and requests for action that extol the strengths and accomplishments of this nation's higher-education enterprise but also warn of its increasingly dire financial situation. They have asked that a share of an impending…

The House of Representatives will likely vote this week on a proposal to halve the 6.8 percent interest rate on subsidized student loans as part of the new congressional majority's 100-Hour agenda. This document presents six problems with halving student loan interest rates and argues that, rather than providing billions in new federal subsidies,…

In several high-profile speeches this year, President Barack Obama has set an ambitious educational goal: By 2020, the United States will have the highest proportion of adults with a college degree in the world. The emphasis on education in both his proposed budget for fiscal 2010 and in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009…

Researchers have paid scant attention to the opportunities and the barriers associated with across-state study of college-transition policies, although the American states comprise a social system especially well suited for comparative analysis. What sorts of questions should researchers ask about college-transition policies and programs? How…

The troubled student-loan market is a hot topic among legislators, policy makers, and the public. Two recurring issues are how to ensure that enough funds are available to students and how to ensure that lenders are fully repaid. Yet despite all the talk about loans, little has been proposed to help college students and their families with the…

Since the 1940s, public officials at the local, state and federal levels have used student loan forgiveness programs to attract individuals to critically needed occupations and underserved communities. In exchange for a work commitment, the loan program forgives (or repays) an amount of the employee's student loan. Traditionally, these programs…

In 1997 Congress crafted an ambitious set of higher-education tax incentives that the House of Representatives and Senate are now revisiting. Millions of students each year receive the Hope tax credit and the Lifetime Learning tax credit. They are now firmly planted in the college-finance landscape. But according to the author, higher-education…

In this brief essay, the author reacts to a recent bill from the House Education and Workforce Committee by praising its identification of wasteful spending on higher education programs while expressing unhappiness with its creation of new entitlements and subsidies. In the author's opinion, the savings produced by the spending cut should instead…

In this article, Bridget Terry Long and Erin Riley argue that in recent years, U.S. financial aid policy has shifted its emphasis from expanding college access for low-income students toward defraying the costs for middle- and upper-income families. They explain how loans, merit-based aid, and education tax breaks are increasingly replacing…

Fixed-tuition plans, which vary in specifics from institution to institution, rely on a common principle: Students pay the same annual tuition costs over a pre-determined length of time, ostensibly the time required to earn an undergraduate degree. Students, parents, and policymakers are demonstrating growing interest in such plans. At face value,…

Rising tuition has led many states to offer college prepaid tuition plans. These plans are consistent with the trend in higher education policy toward meeting the needs of wealthier households. The paper argues that the public interest in these plans is hard to find; moreover, median voter theory suggests that prepaid tuition plans may have the…

New federal spending on student aid is unlikely to improve college access. The increase in access in higher education in America largely came before massive federal involvement in student financial aid programs. Evidence suggests that federal subsidies for student aid may be counterproductive. Modest provision of financial assistance serves to…

In its first hundred days, the Obama administration demonstrated a strong commitment to expanding access to higher education. The economic stimulus package, known as the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), increased funding for the Pell Grant program and over the next two years, the maximum award will grow to $5,550 in 2010-2011--the…