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Since when did an effort to ensure that students receive a high-quality affordable education in exchange for their financial aid become unconstitutional micromanagement of colleges and universities ? This is where the rubber hits the road, folks. Where the needs of a particularly elite form of academia comes into conflict with the average student's right to an affordable public education. And apparently it's about to get ugly.  Don't believe the hype. President Obama is not attacking faculty, he is not seeking to destroy public colleges and universities which are the workhorses of higher education, and for pete's sake he is not proposing a pseudo-NCLB for higher education. The President's main goal is simple:  After decades of hoping that students could hold institutions of higher education and states responsible for providing a high-quality, affordable college experience that leads to degrees, he's calling the nation's attention to the fact that the market...

Yet another policy brief highlights what realists know:   Wisconsin policymakers are presiding over poor policy decisions that threaten to undermine taxpayers' decades-long investment in the state's human capital. Far from saving our children from lifetimes of debt, those on the neoliberal Left and the conservative Right advocating for either "freeing" state universities from the limitations of state funding in pursuit of market models, or diminishing state spending in a time of austerity, are accomplishing the same goal:  driving up the costs of college attendance and reducing the overall educational attainment of our state's workers. Forty years ago our grandparents elected officials who invested $14 per $1000 of personal income in higher education.  Today, we elect jokers who put in just $5.  What happened? Figure courtesy of Tom Mortenson, Postsecondary Education Opportunity Let's admit it: we aren't leaders anymore, we're laggards. Yes, Wisconsin ...

We hope all our readers enjoyed relaxing holidays and have returned refreshed for the new year. While our family and professional lives continue to make it difficult to blog with great frequency, we hope you'll continue to read our infrequent commentary and join in the discussion during 2011. A few thoughts to start the new year... (1) Outcomes First? If outcomes are what really matter in education, it is interesting that so many advocates, commentators and policy organizations seem to count adoption of favored policy reforms as ends in themselves. We are all guilty of this to some degree. It is only when there is a research base to suggest that specific reforms and programs work that there is a strong argument to be made. Examples might include targeted class size reduction in grades k-3, high-quality early childhood education, and comprehensive, multi-year induction support for new teachers. But, at a macro level, certain arguments fall apart when there is no evidence to back...

The College Board's Advocacy and Policy Center reports that "too many students are borrowing more than they are likely able to manage" and this is particularly true for black undergraduates. According to researchers, fully 27% of black BA recipients borrow more than $30,000 for college, compared to 16% of white BA recipients. The gap is especially large among independent students (those who are a bit older, are parents, or independent for other reasons)-- more than 1 in 3 black independent students who earn BA's graduate with high levels of debt, compared to less than 1 in 4 white independents. This is a trend we need to know more about. There have been a few articles written about race differences in college financing patterns and receptivity to financial aid, but none have been especially adept at sorting out the underlying reasons for variation by race/ethnicity. Are the patterns attributable to factors which map onto race in this country (e.g. pov...