What’s Killing Higher Ed?

By Mary Nguyen Barry A few weeks ago, Drexel University asked me to come speak on the question of “What’s Killing Higher Ed.” My answer for Drexel, and for similarly expensive private universities, was vodka. A whole lot of vodka.    Megan Lullally as Karen Walker in TV Sitcom Will & Grace No, this wasn’t a

Tough Love on Student Loan Repayment Rates

By Mary Nguyen Barry When my colleague and I wrote our Tough Love report last year, we recommended the federal government draw a line at the bottom 5 percent of four-year institutions in terms of their performance in carrying out the core purposes underlying federal student aid: low-income student access, student graduation, and student loan

RELEASE: ​Report Lays Out Larger Narrative Behind Obama College Scorecard & Early Financial Aid Application Announcement

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: media@edreformnow.org   Report Lays Out Larger Narrative Behind Obama College Scorecard and Early Financial Aid Application Announcement  Resources and Reform: The Obama Administration’s Higher Education Legacy and the 45th President’s Challenge  WASHINGTON, DC  – The Obama administration’s release of outcome data on thousands of colleges and announcement that students can apply for financial aid

Is our children learning?

By Mary Nguyen Barry From yesterday’s op-ed in The Hill’s Congress blog:   Hillary Clinton joins her Democratic presidential contenders in laying out a plan to create a new cap on student loan debt.  While her plan couples a proposed infusion of resources for college affordability with reforms forcing colleges and states to pay attention

It’s Time for a “Higher Ed NAEP”

By Mary Nguyen Barry Education Secretary Arne Duncan was right earlier this week when he said college access must go much further than college affordability. As he said, college access must also focus on whether students are graduating in a timely way with a meaningful degree. But what exactly does a meaningful degree entail? In

The American Opportunity Tax Credit: How Politics Got Ahead of Good Policy

By Mary Nguyen Barry Many may not realize it, but President Obama’s goal to link increased financial aid resources to higher education reform goes back to the very beginning of his campaign days. While ultimately unsuccessful, the story around how the American Opportunity Tax Credit sought to promote student responsibility sheds light on how the

Resources and Reform: The Obama Administration’s Higher Education Legacy and the 45th President’s Challenge

By Michael Dannenberg and Mary Nguyen Barry President Obama invested more in student financial aid than any American President in history. The deeper story though is Obama extended the federal higher education policy paradigm beyond financial aid into areas of college quality and degree completion. There have been successes and disappointments. The Obama administration cracked down on shoddy

A Response to the Naysayers: The Change in College Ratings is Not an Abdication of Accountability

By Mary Nguyen Barry and Michael Dannenberg Critics and supporters of the Obama Administration’s proposed college ratings system seemed to join hands last month when the Department of Education abruptly announced it would reprioritize its goals and focus on creating a new consumer data tool by this summer instead of releasing its long-expected college ratings system. Critics

Strange Bedfellows: Elizabeth Warren & The Wall Street Journal

By Mary Nguyen Barry The Wall Street Journal released an exposé today on our stunningly defective higher education accreditation system.   Via public records requests, the Journal asked for accreditation reports on colleges with extremely low graduation rates. They found “evaluation” comments wholly unrelated to student outcomes: For the University of Maine at Augusta, which

How The Racial Bias of Zero-Tolerance Follows Students into College

By Mary Nguyen Barry A damning report is out that details the toxic combination of the disparate racial impact of various high school discipline policies and the consequent “arbitrary and capricious” use of disciplinary records in the college admissions process. Considering that black students are over 3 times more likely to be suspended or expelled