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June 12, 2025

Lingering Absence in Public Schools: Tracking Post-Pandemic Chronic Absenteeism into 2024

Key Points Introduction It has been over five years since the US shut down for COVID, and in many ways, the country has moved past the pandemic. For US schools, however, the pandemic’s toll has not passed so quickly. Student aca­demic achievement remains depressed, and chronic absenteeism continues to hover substantially above the pre-pandemic baseline….

May 22, 2025

Course Correction: Rebuilding The Federal Student Loan System After Biden’s Mismanagement

Key Points Introduction Thirty-five million federal student loan borrowers went back into repayment in October 2024 after the government had suspended their student loan payments, in effect, for four and a half years. Already, delinquencies have shot up, and a wave of loan defaults looms. Borrowers will feel the pain—but so will the federal budget…

May 14, 2025

Graduation in the Time of COVID: The Weakened Relationship with Chronic Absenteeism

Key Points Read the full PDF. Read a brief with the research highlights. Executive Summary The COVID-19 pandemic and schools’ responses to it resulted in learning loss that reversed two decades of progress on student achievement and drove chronic absenteeism to unprecedented heights. Yet graduation rates did not fall over the same period— instead, they…

March 13, 2025

Trends in Net College Tuition and Financial Aid, 1990–2020

Key Points  Introduction College costs are out of control—or so the narrative goes. In recent years, a counternarrative has emerged that argues, correctly, that the meteoric rise in the sticker price of college is misleading. Net college tuition, or tuition after financial aid is applied, has risen far less quickly than sticker price tuition and…

March 10, 2025

Many Children Left Behind: The 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress Results Indicate a Five-Alarm Fire

Key Points  Introduction By now, the awful results from the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)1 have been publicized, chewed over, and digested—and they are already moving into the rearview mirror as states, school districts, and teachers fall back into the comfortable routine of doing the same thing over and over again.  But continuing that…

February 24, 2025

A Conservative Vision for Higher Education Reform

Key Points Introduction The year 2019 marked a dramatic turning point in the national discourse on higher education policy. On April 22, 2019, Senator Elizabeth Warren, vying for the Democratic nomination for president, announced that as president she’d cancel up to $50,000 of student debt for 42 million Americans.1 She started a chain reaction, with each…

January 29, 2025

How State Governments Can Fight Degree Inflation

Key Points Executive Summary State governments have significantly exacerbated the phenomenon of degree inflation, where jobs increasingly require college degrees that were not previously necessary. State hiring practices and stringent occupational licensing laws perpetuate this trend. These policies restrict access to various professions, create labor shortages, and reduce the return to a college education for…

January 24, 2025

Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends

Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary Although national test scores provide clear evidence on student achievement across time, they do not illuminate what is driving gains or losses. Nonetheless, careful examination of test scores can corroborate some explanations for changes in student achievement and discount others. This report examines recent trends in US student…

January 24, 2025

Testing Theories of Why: Four Keys to Interpreting US Student Achievement Trends

Key Points Read the PDF. Executive Summary Although national test scores provide clear evidence on student achievement across time, they do not illuminate what is driving gains or losses. Nonetheless, careful examination of test scores can corroborate some explanations for changes in student achievement and discount others. This report examines recent trends in US student…

December 17, 2024

States Should Drop Accreditation Requirements for New Colleges

Key Points  Read the full pdf. Introduction Accreditation is a major barrier to higher education reform. In a bid to reduce the agencies’ power over state universities, Florida and North Carolina have passed laws requiring public colleges to periodically change accreditors.1 Florida Governor Ron DeSantis spoke for many policy-savvy conservative leaders when he declared that you…