A great deal has changed since March 2020, when executive and Congressional action paused payments on most federal student loans. Yet, following nine extensions, the payment pause on student loans remains in place at an approximate direct cost of $5 billion per month. The Biden Administration also has moved to end some repayments altogether, by…

Federal student loans help many college students access and complete postsecondary degrees that would not have been attainable otherwise. But years of well-intentioned policymaking have left the student loan system a complicated mess that is difficult for borrowers to navigate and leads to unfair and inefficient distributions of taxpayer dollars.…

On the campaign trail, President Joe Biden's higher education agenda featured prominent promises to forgive student loan debt and make community college debt free. But as Congress continues to debate these high-profile proposals, Biden's Department of Education has signaled its intent to use a little known yet powerful regulatory process to take…

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…

"Liberal Education" spoke with two higher education policy experts on what they expect and hope for from the Biden administration. Viviann Anguiano is an associate director for postsecondary education at the Center for American Progress. Eric R. Felix is an assistant professor at San Diego State University, specializing in higher…

The Higher Education Act (HEA) of 1965 was meant to unlock the secret to upward economic mobility by granting more Americans the chance to obtain a college degree. Nonetheless, the originators failed to recognize how this dramatic shift in federal higher education policy would affect generations to come. Today the federal government originates or…

Although default rates have decreased in recent years, community colleges still struggle to keep their rates in check: 18.5 percent of borrowers from public two-year colleges default within three years compared to the national average rate of 11.3 percent. In 2015, the Association of Community College Trustees (ACCT) published "A Closer Look…

"A Closer Look at the Trillion: Borrowing, Repayment and Default at Iowa's Community Colleges," takes an unprecedented look at community college student borrowing and repayment behavior. The report uses data from all 16 community colleges in Iowa to examine the characteristics of borrowers and defaulters to help colleges and policymakers…

Getting an appointment with Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is challenging, and it's also a challenge to put Duncan in an ideological box. Though he champions education reforms favored by Republicans such as charter schools and teacher merit pay, his opposition to school vouchers and his solid working relationship with teachers unions keep him…