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Cost of Education - Student Debt

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Reining In College Tuition. The federal government must do more to rein in tuition costs at the public colleges that educate more than 70 percent of the nation’s students.

Reining In College Tuition

By one estimate, the cost of four-year public college tuition has tripled since the 1980s, outpacing both inflation and family income. The increase in the tuition burden is largely caused by declining state support for higher education in the past three decades. How Washington Could Make College Tuition Free (Without Spending a Penny More on Education) - Jordan Weissmann. The federal government already spends enough on student aid to cover tuition for every public college student in America.

How Washington Could Make College Tuition Free (Without Spending a Penny More on Education) - Jordan Weissmann

The New York Times - Breaking News, World News & Multimedia. By Mary K. Rawlings Published: July 4th, 2009. States Exploring Free Community College. Photo Credit: Kolett / Shutterstock April 10, 2014 | Like this article?

States Exploring Free Community College

Cheap, Maybe Even Free, Higher Education - Innovations. Two recent happenings have me increasingly convinced that it is almost certainly impossible to effect important efficiency and cost-enhancing changes in existing colleges and universities. First, Kelly Field of The Chronicle interviewed me for a story on the fifth anniversary of the report of the Spellings Commission (on which I served). I had to admit that, despite being pretty good, the report had at best a modest positive impact on higher education, largely because of institutional intransigence. Second, the recent ferocity of response of the University of Texas to the mere publishing of data and hints of attempts of increasing faculty productivity was breathtaking. In American higher education, outsiders are expected to be seen but not heard (except, of course, when they deliver the cash needed to run the schools). The way to low-cost higher education, then, lies largely outside the current establishment.

Let me mention four innovations. Peter Thiel: We're in a Bubble and It's Not the Internet. It's Higher Education. Fair warning: This article will piss off a lot of you.

Peter Thiel: We're in a Bubble and It's Not the Internet. It's Higher Education.

I can say that with confidence because it’s about Peter Thiel. Why the Student Loan Problem Is Even Worse Than You Think. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York published its latest Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit recently, and, as usual, the real story about student loans is buried in its back pages.

Why the Student Loan Problem Is Even Worse Than You Think

The report highlights the fact that loan-payment delinquency rates continue to improve (i.e. decline). On average, a little over 7% of all outstanding consumer debt obligations are in some stage of delinquency (30 or more days past due), and roughly 70% of those are seriously so (90 or more days past due). The executive summary also notes that student loan balances that are 90 or more days past due represent 11.5% of the total outstanding. 020712 NACBA student loan debt report.pdf (application/pdf Object) Does A College Education Have To Cost So Much? Copyright © 2011 NPR.

Does A College Education Have To Cost So Much?

For personal, noncommercial use only. Shocking Chart on Tuition vs. Earnings for College Grads. Student debt levels have reached a new high – rising $42 billion in the last quarter to $956 billion, according to a report this week from the New York Fed.

Shocking Chart on Tuition vs. Earnings for College Grads

At the same time, tuition rates have seen a staggering 72 percent increase since 2000. As if those two upward trends weren’t hitting students hard enough – the average earnings for full-time workers ages 25-34 with Bachelor’s degrees has also dropped 14.7 percent since 2000. The Importance of College: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - Daniel Indiviglio. As long as employers insist that a degree is necessary, it will continue to be These days, getting a college degree is a pretty good idea.

The Importance of College: A Self-Fulfilling Prophecy - Daniel Indiviglio

College Debt. As Parents Struggle to Repay College Loans for Their Children, Taxpayers Also Stand to Lose by Marian Wang ProPublica, April 4, 3:30 p.m.

College Debt

New Department of Education data shows rising default rates on federal loans to parents. After Years of Troubles, Largest Student-Loan Servicers Get Stepped-up Oversight by Marian Wang ProPublica, Dec. 3, 2013, 5:39 p.m. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau announced increased oversight of the companies that act as go-between for student borrowers and lenders. The College Graduate as Collateral. ACADEMIC economists like to make fun of businesspeople: they want competition when they enter a new market but are quick to lobby for subsidies and barriers to competitors once they get in.

The College Graduate as Collateral

Yet scholars like me are no better. We work in the least competitive and most subsidized industry of all: higher education. We criticize predatory loans by mortgage brokers, when student loans can be just as abusive. To avoid the next credit bubble and debt crisis, we need to eliminate government subsidies and link tuition financing to the incomes of college graduates. Nearly eight million students received Pell grants in 2010, costing $28 billion. Just as subsidies for homeownership have increased the price of houses, so have education subsidies contributed to the soaring price of college. The Myth of Working Your Way Through College - Svati Kirsten Narula.

A lot of Internet ink has been spilled over how lazy and entitled Millennials are, but when it comes to paying for a college education, work ethic isn't the limiting factor. The economic cards are stacked such that today’s average college student, without support from financial aid and family resources, would need to complete 48 hours of minimum-wage work a week to pay for his courses—a feat that would require superhuman endurance, or maybe a time machine. Heavy Debt, but No Degree.

A study published earlier this year by Education Sector, a research group based in Washington, shows that the borrowers who drop out are more than four times more likely than those who graduate to default on their college loans because they are more likely to be unemployed and earn less when they get a job. The study, based on Department of Education data, compares student borrowers who entered college in 1995 with those who entered in 2003 to see how each group fared six years later.

Students who were not enrolled and did not earn degrees after six years were classified as dropouts. The study found that the percentage of students who borrowed for college increased from 47 percent in the first group to 53 percent in second. At the same time, the proportion of borrowers who dropped out rose to nearly 30 percent for the 2003 enrollees, compared with 23 percent for the 1995 enrollees. The dropout rates rose across all kinds of colleges. Poor Students Struggle as Class Plays a Greater Role in Success.

By Kassie Bracken The Diploma Divide: Angelica Gonzales graduated at the top of her high school class and headed off to one of the nation’s top universities. How Students of Different Incomes Apply for College - Graphic. Harkin Report Condemns For-Profit Colleges. Alarming Research Shows the Sorry State of US Higher Ed - Andrew McAfee. By Andrew McAfee | 8:00 AM July 11, 2013. The Myth of the Science and Engineering Shortage - Michael S. Teitelbaum. The Growth of College Grads in Dead-End Jobs (In 2 Graphs) - Jordan Weissmann. Finding Life After Academia — and Not Feeling Bad About It. Academia's indentured servants - Opinion. On April 8, 2013, the New York Times reported that 76 percent of American university faculty are adjunct professors - an all-time high.

Elizabeth Warren: Student Loans Should Have Same Rate Big Banks Get. WASHINGTON -- Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) unveiled her first bill Wednesday, designed to set student loan interest rates at the same level the Federal Reserve offers to big banks. With some student loan rates set to double on July 1 -- from 3.4 percent to 6.8 percent -- Warren's bill would reduce student loan interest rates to 0.75 percent, opening the Fed's discount window to students. "Every single day, this country invests in big banks by lending them money at near-zero rates," Warren told The Huffington Post.