Student Loans

This week and next, federal lawmakers will consider a comprehensive overhaul of the terms and conditions associated with over $68 billion in new federally guaranteed student loans distributed each year to more than 10 million students and their families attending over 6,800 institutions of higher education. Changes of this magnitude in federal student loan law were last made over seven years ago and are not scheduled to be considered again until 2012.

In the first independent analysis of the pending and… more

A four-year college degree has become all but a necessity for getting ahead in the information age. Since the 1980s the average real income of workers with only a high school diploma has fallen, while salaries among those with at least a college degree have risen: they now earn 75 percent more than high school graduates. At the national level, having a highly educated work force is critical in order to sustain our technological edge in the global economy.

America's… more

The New America Foundation's Education Policy Program is lauching a Federal Education Budget (FEB) Project. 

The federal education budget shapes almost all education policy decisions.  Budget implications reach every elementary, secondary, and higher education institution in the country.  New America's FEB Project will analyze the financing, cost-effectiveness, and distribution of federal education initiatives, including each year's federal education budget, appropriations legislation, education-related tax policy changes, and mandatory entitlement spending.  It… more