Higher Ed Initiative

I recommend early focus on education finance matters. The administration needs to meet and improve upon campaign promises requiring substantial resources. There are pressing student loan issues and pent-up demands for No Child Left Behind (NCLB) funding. Because the stimulus and budget are being developed now, you have a window of opportunity to address all three areas.

In a few weeks, the Florida Gators and Oklahoma Sooners will face off on college football's biggest stage in the Bowl Championship Series' National Championship game. Unfortunately, many of the college seniors playing in this game will not be walking across the graduation stage next May. Instead, their schools will revel in the short-term glory of gridiron success, while the players will have to face the long-term consequences of joining the workforce without a college degree. 

A not-so-funny thing happened on the way to the housing bubble. We created a college tuition bubble as well. As with housing, a toxic combination of easy credit and unsophisticated and unrealistically optimistic consumers has driven college prices sky-high.

Those prices aren't coming down anytime soon - and as the credit crisis continues, that means there's a risk that students who max out on federal loans and need extra private aid won't be able to borrow enough to afford expensive colleges.

For months, the Wall Street credit crisis has made many families nervous that the widespread availability of student loans will dry up. But no matter how many banks fail, there is no danger that families will be deprived access to federal student loans. None.

More than 100 banks have stopped issuing student loans, but about 2,000 continue to originate federal student loans. The government maintains two "fail-safe" systems. To date, not a single student has been unable to get a federal Stafford Loan. Every family, regardless… more

A fair number of freshmen arriving at their colleges this week are legacies, a term that sounds faintly disreputable. Aren't these the students who get into top-tier colleges because their parents went there and donate heavily?

That's what the critics of admission preferences for children of alumni say, and those critics got a boost from research released earlier this month.

A paper by a Duke University sociology professor and… more