oflovefaithhopedream

Step 1:  Build an enormous and expansive set of opportunities for higher education and tell everyone that a college education is necessary for economic and social security in America-- but refrain from working towards public consensus on providing a free higher education for all. Step 2: Create the illusion of access with a program of financial aid distribution that isn't backed with a real entitlement program tied to college costs. Step 3: Do nothing to stem the behavior of bad actors and those who encourage them. Allow colleges and universities to raise prices and engage in rankings wars based on flawed metrics that distort the market.  Fail to require states to maintain their effort to ensuring affordability.  Allow, even encourage, private business to step into the gaps. Step 4: Allow the value of need-based aid to decline while redirecting aid towards politically popular programs benefitting the non-needy. Step 5: Refrain from fundamental reforms addressing the core ...

Today Stephen Burd from Education Sector released a provocative new report that fully supports my contention (and that many others including Sandy Baum, Mike McPherson, Rick Kahlenberg ) that we should stop subsidizing the upper middle-class with tax credits for college, and start focusing federal financial aid on those who need it most: Pell recipients. Every time I've publicly discussed this idea I've been attacked as not caring about the middle-class.  This is a red herring-- suggesting that scarce dollars should be targeted to those who most need and will most benefit from them is simply good policy making. It's not about "who cares about whom."  As I pointed out following Obama's latest speech in Michigan, tax credits are demonstrably ineffective  at their goals.  Burd calls a spade a spade when he adds , "Notably, while policymakers continue to tout the tuition tax breaks as a middle-class benefit, the introduction of the AOTC led to significant...