When President Barack Obama took office, he pledged to revitalize an economy in the midst of the deepest recession in a generation. Working with Congress, he acted quickly to enact an $878 billion package to stimulate the economy in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). More than $100 billion of that will be for education, spanning…

Federal student assistance has become a tangled thicket of programs and policies. It is complicated, fails to focus benefits on the neediest students, and is increasingly expensive. Complexity and cost, grants or loans, who should benefit from student assistance and who should pay, and reshaping student aid are discussed. (MLW)

This General Accounting Office (GAO) testimony before the Subcommittee on Postsecondary Education, Committee on Education and Labor, House of Representatives, concerns the findings of the task force that addressed the increasing costs of student loan defaults. The task force report is considered, generally, to provide additional incentives and…

Proposed changes in student financial aid for fiscal year (FY) 1986 and their likely effects on higher education are discussed. The Reagan Administration's FY 1986 budget recommends a 25% cut for higher education, or $2.3 billion below the adjusted FY 1985 level of $8.8 billion. All but $100 million of the cuts would come from student aid, and…

Federal aid is seen as not only essential to many college students but also as a mainstay of U.S. economic growth and social progress. The reauthorization of the Higher Education Act represents the best chance for reform, and Congress needs to do more than ratify existing programs. (MLW)

The impact of state funding of higher education and corrections on African American men was studied by analyzing the National Association of State Budget Officers' annual state expenditure reports for the 15-year period from 1985 to 2000. To ensure proper scale, all 1985 figures were converted to 2000-year dollars by using the Bureau of Labor…