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January 29, 2025
How State Governments Can Fight Degree Inflation
Key Points State governments contribute to degree inflation—the addition of college degree requirements to jobs that did not previously have them—through their own hiring practices, and through occupational licensing laws….
January 21, 2025
How Trump Can Permanently Fix the Student Loan Program
Even before he took office, President Donald Trump was already securing major policy wins. Trump’s election induced the Biden administration to withdraw two pending regulations that would have canceled over $250 billion in federal student…
January 6, 2025
Congress Can Block Student Loan Cancellation—Forever
Over the holiday season, the Biden administration withdrew two pending regulations to unilaterally cancel hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of student loans. Officials evidently judged that the administration would not have time to…
December 18, 2024
Employers Should Drop Hiring Preferences for “Elite 34” Colleges
How do you know if someone went to Harvard? They’ll tell you. If a recent Wall Street Journal story is any indication, though, that classic joke may soon be outdated. According to the…
December 17, 2024
States Should Drop Accreditation Requirements for New Colleges
Key Points Most states require private degree-granting universities to gain recognition from an accrediting agency to operate. Accreditation is a significant barrier to entry in higher education. Accreditors force colleges…
December 11, 2024
Some College Graduates Are Taking Lower-Paying Jobs
The promise of higher education is to equip students with new ideas and skills that will help them land higher-paying jobs. For many students, this dream comes true—but that is…
December 2, 2024
Reforming State Authorization of Colleges to Boost Competition and Lower Tuition
Key Points The higher education market is stagnant. The vast majority of students attend colleges that are more than 50 years old, and rising demand for college has not seen…
October 25, 2024
How Workforce Education Can Boost Earnings and Fill Jobs
Republicans and Democrats alike agree about the importance of workforce training. They’re right: Despite a recent labor-market cooling, there are still 7.7 million unfilled jobs in the United States. Unfortunately, America’s workforce-education…
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…
June 18, 2024
A Unified Theory of Education
…can too readily unravel the informal ties among people that develop organically through private cooperation and community endeavors. None of this presumes malice or malfeasance; it’s just that government programs…