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February 6, 2025

High Costs, Uneven Value: Repairing The Federal Role in Postsecondary Education

The higher education system suffers from many problems, including excessive costs, low completion rates, uneven financial value for students, and high rates of student loan nonpayment. Federal government policies unintentionally…

January 23, 2025

Four College Enrollment Trends to Watch

The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) published its biannual report on college enrollment trends this morning, providing a comprehensive look at how student numbers totaled up in fall 2024. NSC’s preliminary figures, released…

December 3, 2024

How States Can Shake Up the Stagnant Higher Education Market

Artificial barriers to entry have been a feature of markets for millennia, from medieval guilds to modern occupational licenses. Though often defended on the basis of consumer protection, barriers which…

November 20, 2024

End Federal Loans for Graduate School

President-elect Donald Trump and his top advisors have announced plans to create a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a commission tasked with slashing wasteful spending throughout the federal budget. One place they…

November 20, 2024

Eliminate Federal Lending to Graduate and Professional Students; Revenue to Fund Block Grants to States

Graduate student lending is out of control. Students are effectively borrowing without limit to pay for graduate and professional schools, many of which offer little or no return on their…

November 13, 2024

How Trump Might Fulfill His Higher-Education Campaign Promises

Donald Trump has won a decisive election victory and will take office next year as the 47th president of the United States. As of this writing, his party will hold…

November 1, 2024

Latest Student Loan Cancellation Proposal Could Be Biggest Yet

The Biden administration unveiled its fourth major student loan cancellation scheme last week. While the administration’s past three cancellation plans have suffered defeats in the courts, officials apparently hope that things will…

October 23, 2024

The College Enrollment Plunge Is the Biden Administration’s Disaster

The number of first-year students on America’s college campuses dropped five percent this fall, according to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s new enrollment estimates. The drop—which reverses last year’s four…

October 11, 2024

Let’s Open the Black Box of Selective College Admissions

The aftermath of the 2023 Supreme Court ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard (SFFA) has put a spotlight on the capriciousness of admissions practices at selective colleges. In SFFA, the Supreme…

October 10, 2024

Do Liberal Arts Colleges Pay Off? What the Data Say

Going to a liberal arts college is usually an expensive way to get a bachelor’s degree. With students more mindful of high tuition, many liberal arts colleges are seeing enrollment drop—and…