Higher Education Affordability

Students attending Georgia’s three research institutions, the University of Georgia, Georgia State University and the Georgia Institute of Technology, will pay $1,000 more in tuition next year, a 16.5 percent hike from the 2009-2010 school-year.  Students at two year schools will pay at least $50 more per semester.  Students who started the University under the short-lived “Fixed-for-Four” program that guaranteed tuition rates for four-years won’t see the increase unless they take longer than four years to graduate.  The Board of Regents, however, did not increase student

Amid reports that students are struggling to finish college, new reports reveal that increasing numbers of college students require remedial courses to catch up on skills they failed to learn in high school. Fully one third of first year students have to take at least one remedial course in subjects including math, reading and English according to a study by the Department of Education.  The situation is worse in two year colleges where 42 percent need remedial courses. For those grappling with tight budgets and high loans, remedial courses can help to break the bank.  For exam

After a number of high profile scandals involving for-profit colleges, the Obama administration is considering regulations that could cut their revenue by up to a third.  The regulations under consideration would disqualify a school from receiving federal aid if its graduates are unable to pay back loans and would restrict their ability to hike tuition.  For-profit institutions like the University of Phoenix are receiving an increasing share of federal aid.   Since 2000, the schools have gone from receiving 4.6 billion to $26.5 billion in 2009.  At the same time, ma

Twenty higher education organizations have come out in opposition to an Obama Administration proposal to condition education tax credits on community service.  While the groups have supported both additional aid and tax credits for higher education and efforts to increase community service, they argue that linking the two will create more harm than good.  Specifically, they argue that it would be hard for low-income and older students to complete community service in addition to work and family commitments, that schools don’t have an infrastructure to administer such a program and

States across the country are grappling with declining state revenues and corresponding declines in appropriations to higher education.  Now, new data shows that this round of cuts may take longer to restore and produce major changes in the makeup of the faculty. A study released this week by the American Educational Research Association (AERA) shows that while state higher education funding tends to be cyclical, this round of budget cuts will take longer to restore than earlier ones.  While in the 1980’s, 76 percent of funding cuts to higher education were restored within five

For-profit colleges, which get most of their revenue through federal grant and loan funds, are increasingly recruiting homeless students to enroll and take on debt to finance their education.  Over the past decade, grant aid and federal loans awarded to students at for-profit colleges increased from $4.6 billion to 26.5 billion.  At the same time, these loan and grant programs have become the dominant part of the operating budget for these schools.  Federal funds now comprise 86% of the revenue for the University of Phoenix and 87% of the revenue for the Drake College of Busi

While study after study shows that student debt is increasing, the College Board recently reported that parents of college students are also taking on alarming levels of debt—up to $71,000 in some cases.  The study, conducted by the College Board, found that when students are taking on high debt, their parents tend to as well.  For students with high debt levels, $30,500 or more, 42 percent of their parents had federal PLUS loans of approximately the same amount.  Parents that earn at least $100,000 per year now have an average loan burden of $41,000.  The same study

A report released last week shows that more than half of graduates from for-profit colleges had more than $30,500 in college loan debt.  The same report, released by the College Board Advocacy and Policy Center, showed that black graduates are most likely to have high debt levels. Overall, the report found that two thirds of bachelor’s degree recipients graduated with some debt while nearly 17 percent graduated with very high debt levels--$30,500 or more. For black graduates, 27 percent graduated with high debt levels and only 19 percent graduated without any debt.   St