The federal government is the lender for the current student loan system, but replacing it with a system that harnesses the advantages of a marketplace of private lending would save $212 billion over the next 10 years while also benefiting students by helping them avoid risky educational choices. Due to ongoing court cases and upcoming regulatory…

Across the country, charter schools now serve a diverse student body of 3.7 million students in nearly 8,000 charter schools and family demand for charter schools continues to grow. The Charter Schools Program (CSP) is the only source of federal funding that supports the growth of charter schools to meet this community need, but the CSP has been…

"Varying Degrees 2024" continues to explore Americans' perspectives on a variety of higher education issues, including value, affordability, funding, and accountability. The findings this year show Americans' confidence in higher education declines in a few areas. But at the same time, they still believe higher education is worth it and…

This position statement focuses on the importance of the federal role in the Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) and why federal involvement matters. The Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) recognizes the crucial role that the federal government has played in the education of students with disabilities. CEC is committed to ensuring…

This article aims to examine how Cuban higher education has implemented and created frameworks for key performance indicators (KPIs) to enhance its higher education accountability and quality. Referring to the past 15 years of available data on the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization's website (2005-2020), this study…

The federal government currently provides more than $150 billion each year to students and their families in the form of grants, loans, work-study funds, and tax credits to help make college more affordable. This sizable public investment in higher education has indeed made college attendance possible for a larger share of Americans. However,…

The landscape of K-12 education funding in the United States is exceptionally complex. When it comes to funding an equitable, high-quality education for English Learners (ELs), discussions often focus on federal funds under Title III of the "Every Student Succeeds Act" (ESSA)--an important source of funding for many aspects of ELs'…

This memorandum provides information for states that plan to amend their Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) consolidated state plan and identifies technical assistance resources. The State accountability system, including the requirement to assess all students, and the requirement to annually publish extensive information on…

After decades of slow growth, the share of young Americans completing college has increased to 48 percent in 2019, from 39 percent 10 years earlier. What accounts for the rise? Are more students clearing a meaningful bar for graduation, or are colleges and universities engaging in credential inflation and lowering their academic standards? This…

Completing a college degree, or failing to, is a major factor in determining whether a person will have an economically stable future. While it might have been possible a few decades ago to graduate from high school, enter the job market, and find a career that enabled one to earn a solid middle-class life, that path to success has been almost…

This playbook provides ways in which Higher Education Agencies (sometimes referred as the State Higher Education Executive Officers) and teams can blur the lines between high school, postsecondary education, and the workforce. Higher Education Agencies (HEAs) play a significant role to Raise the Bar for student success by developing an…

In 2019, 46 states and territories are implementing Preschool Development Grants (PDGs), which will support states to do five broadly defined activities: 1. A Birth to Five Needs Assessment 2. A Birth to Five Strategic Plan 3. Maximizing Parent Knowledge and Choice 4. Sharing Best Practices 5. Improving Overall Quality. This brief starts by…

The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

"Student Debt and the Class of 2018" is the fourteenth annual report produced by The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) on the student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges, documenting the changes in student loan debt and variation among states as well as colleges. This report includes federal policy…

In this concluding article for the special issue on COVID-19 and K-12 arts education, the authors look forward to some positive possible changes for the delivery of arts education as students return to school past COVID-19 and will address some of the barriers to these positive changes, including policy opportunities and implications. The barriers…