Since its inception in 1993, the National Guard Youth Challenge Program has produced over 200,000 graduates across dozens of sites located in the states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico. Currently, the program operates 39 sites. House Report 117-88, accompanying the Department of Defense Appropriations Bill for Fiscal Year 2022, included…

Arizona education savings accounts (ESAs) empower parents in the state with the freedom and flexibility to customize their children's education. Participating parents receive 90 percent of the state funds that would otherwise have been spent on their child in public school via a restricted-use savings account. Parents can use those funds to pay…

The Department of Education's (Education's) Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) initiated the Next Gen program in 2017. Next Gen's purpose was to modernize the systems and processes that students, parents, borrowers, and school partners use to apply for, administer, and/or process federal student aid. This report examines: (1) the status of FSA's…

This report examines: (1) the extent to which veterans pursue STEM degrees using Veterans Affairs (VA) education benefits; (2) challenges these veterans face in obtaining a STEM degree; and (3) how VA administers the Rogers STEM scholarship. The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) analyzed VA administrative data and interviewed officials…

The veterans' educational assistance programs, including the GI Bills, are intended to support recruitment to and retention in the Armed Forces, help servicemembers and veterans adjust to the civilian workforce, and provide educational assistance to family members of servicemembers and veterans who may not be able to do so as a result of their…

White-label programs in higher education, designed and supported by online program management (OPM) firms, pose unique challenges to current policy. In part this is because OPM firms and services are either exempt from policy or fall into a gray area that policy has not yet considered. Policymakers, however, do not need to develop entirely new…

This "Building Capacity for Change" "playbook" highlights practices and strategies that proved to be effective in supporting the rollout and implementation of certain programs under the New York State Department of Health's First 1,000 Days on Medicaid Initiative, a series of evidence-based reforms aimed at improving health and…

Most states in the United States operate their public preschool programs in a mixed delivery system that serves children in local education agencies (LEAs) as well as non-LEA settings, such as Head Start agencies, child care centers, private schools, and family child care homes. To inform state preschool administrators and policymakers as they…

Head Start is an essential part of the programs and funding streams that provide early care and education (ECE) services to young children in the U.S. Head Start focuses on supporting children and families with low incomes, but also contributes to the broader effort to expand access to high quality ECE for all young children. Programs and…