About half of the more than $1 trillion in outstanding federal student Direct Loans are being repaid by borrowers using IDR plans. Some borrowers in IDR plans are now potentially eligible for forgiveness of their remaining loan balances after 20 or 25 years of payments. GAO was asked to review IDR forgiveness. This report examines: (1) how many…

The William D. Ford Federal Direct Loan (Direct Loan) program is the single largest source of federal financial assistance to support students' postsecondary educational pursuits. The U.S. Department of Education estimates that in FY2025, $93.1 billion in new loans will be made through the program. As of the end of the third quarter of FY2024,…

In early 2020, in response to the emerging COVID-19 pandemic, the Trump Administration declared a public health emergency under the Public Health Service Act, a national emergency under the National Emergencies Act, and a nationwide emergency under the Robert T. Stafford Disaster Relief and Emergency Assistance Act. Congress and the U.S.…

This study considers socially stratified take-up of income-driven repayment plans among federal student loan borrowers with high-debt payment obligations. Qualitative analyses of borrower complaints from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau are used to document borrowers' experiences of administrative burden in the federal loan repayment…

Evidence shows that what students study matters as much as, if not more than, where they study. Program-level measures can provide important data on student outcomes, which will allow policymakers to hold institutions and programs that receive federal funding accountable. This fact sheet highlights some of the most frequently discussed measures…

Center-based early care and education (ECE) is important for promoting positive early development and supporting families by providing child care so parents can work. However, the center-based supply varies substantially in terms of funding sources, indicators of quality, and services offered; and many families experience a lack of equitable…

"Still Asleep at the Wheel" continues the investigation of the U.S. Department of Education's Charter Schools Program (CSP) that began with the March 2019 report "Asleep at the Wheel: How the Federal Charter Schools Program Recklessly Takes Taxpayers and Students for a Ride" (ED612862). This report takes up where the first…

The federal government has a long history of investing in programs for feeding children, starting with federal aid for school lunch programs in the 1930s. Today, federal child nutrition programs support food served to children in schools and a variety of other institutional settings. The child nutrition programs support meals and snacks served to…

From March 2020 through March 2021, three laws providing federal funding for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education were enacted in response to the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020. The second of these laws provided a higher amount of funding than the first, and the third…

Rising college prices and student debt, the growth and collapse of online for-profit colleges, and expansions of federal grant, loan, and loan forgiveness policies have increased calls for more accountability in our higher education system. And there is significant consensus among lawmakers that the existing set of quality assurance policies for…

With pandemic stimulus funding subsiding, efforts to boost achievement, stem absenteeism, and narrow outcome gaps in California's TK-12 public school system will rely on the level and sustainability of ongoing state and local dollars. First implemented over 10 years ago, California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) provides additional funding…

Since its implementation over a decade ago, California's Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) has targeted additional dollars to districts with larger shares of high need students--low-income, English Learners, and foster youth. The system has long used free and reduced-price meal (FRPM) enrollment as a proxy for income to allocate additional…

These Technical Appendices for the report "Funding Student Need: Evaluating Measures of Need in California's TK-12 Funding Formula" contain: (1) Data Sources and Definitions; (2) Universal School Meals Differences-in-differences; (3) Comparing FRPM and Other Poverty Measures; (4) LCFF Impact on Low-Income Identification; (5) Predictive…

A school facility's quality and accessibility have important impacts on schools' functionality to serve as places of high-quality education. While these challenges are familiar to most schools in the United States, charter schools are responsible for acquiring and paying for their educational facilities, a responsibility that local school…

In 2021-2022, Head Start served nearly 790,000 young children, primarily from low-income families. However, the Department of Health and Human Services' (HHS) estimates that far more children are eligible than can be served due to limited resources, heightening the importance of targeting services effectively. House Report 117-96 includes a…