Since taking office, the Biden administration has sought to advance a complex and ambitious higher education regulatory agenda. The U.S. Department of Education held two separate rounds of negotiated rulemaking in 2021-22 to rewrite rules governing student loan relief programs and institutional accountability. This fall, the agency announced plans…

This guidance is intended to assist State educational agencies (SEAs), local educational agencies (LEAs), and schools in understanding, implementing, and expanding preschool programs supported with funds under Title I, Part A (Title I) of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA). This non-regulatory guidance has been revised to…

The Federal Pell Grant program, authorized by Title IV-A-1 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, (HEA; P.L. 89-329), as amended, is the single largest source of federal grant aid supporting undergraduate students. The program provided approximately $26 billion in aid to approximately 6.1 million undergraduate students in FY2021. Pell Grants are…

The Race to the Top (RTTT) program incentivized states to use innovation for systemwide improvement of student outcomes, but little is known about how RTTT-funded innovation was sustained after the RTTT program ended. This mixed-methods study examined state and district approaches to sustaining an international innovation called "lesson…

Teacher-focused accountability started to ramp up in the United States in 2007-2010 as the focus of accountability shifted from schools to individual teachers. Since that time, there has been a remarkable amount of change to the way that teachers are evaluated, and music teachers have been placed squarely under the microscope of accountability. In…

This hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions examines how three states--Nebraska, South Carolina, and Delaware--are taking advantage of the opportunities within the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). Under ESSA, in order to receive over $18 billion in annual Federal funding, states have the opportunity to design their…

Educational reforms have occurred throughout the history of public education. In 2009, the federal Race to the Top initiative was born and included many educational reform models. To have these reform models gain traction at the state level, a call was made by the U.S. Department of Education (Race to the Top Program Executive Summary, 2009) for…

How can the Truman Commission report be read 75 years after its release? Why should anybody care about it? What is this thing, anyway? The most compelling way to read "Higher Education for American Democracy" is as a visionary and progressive statement of the public purposes of American higher education. In so many ways, the report reads…

Educational equity has been a long-standing goal among legislators since the passing of the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 (McLaughlin, 1975). While initially the focus was examining the disparity in resources available to schools in different geographical areas, as accountability measures were enacted, the achievement gap between…

Louisiana is currently the only state in the United States that requires foreign language (FL) study for some, but not all of their high school students, and these requirements are undergoing seismic changes. Considering that "geographic," "economic," and "integration" factors contribute to whether a school can…

This report provides descriptions of key elements of the Pell Grant program and information on recipient demographics, award levels, award value, program costs, and program funding prior to the effective date of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) Simplification Act (FSA). For information on key changes authorized by the FSA that…

In response to the global pressure that has led to an increased emphasis on international comparisons of student achievement since the 1980s, multiple federal reforms aimed at producing greater consistency in curricula have been initiated in the United States. The purpose of this study was to examine the feasibility of a national curriculum and…

In 2010, Congress reauthorized the Post-9/11 GI Bill by changing reimbursement rates from by-state maximums to a nationwide limit. This policy created exogenous variation in financial aid for veterans at private universities. We detect changes in tuition only for for-profit colleges, where we estimate a 1 percent pass-through rate. This response…

Accreditation is a major barrier to higher education reform. Constitutional or not, accreditors are an administrative anomaly: private nonprofit agencies that nonetheless possess life-and-death power over higher education. To maintain federal funding, universities must satisfy the administrative requirements and whims of these unelected entities.…

The collapse of good labor market opportunities for workers without a college degree is the elephant in the room in higher education policy discussions today. A high school diploma no longer provides a guarantee of financial security, let alone opens the door to the middle class. In response, some lawmakers and advocates have introduced a host of…