Renewing the War on Poverty clearly needs to be one of President Barack Obama's main objectives during the coming years. As Barbara Ehrenreich and so many others are documenting, the deteriorated safety net is failing poor people during this recession, leaving them in dire straits.

So when Nick Kristof decided to pen a column for The New York Times urging the Democrats to again lead a fight against poverty, his heart was in the right place. But his aim was way off. On Thursday, he wrote that the Dems must focus on public schools, since they "constitute a far more potent weapon against poverty than welfare, food stamps or housing subsidies. " Huh?

Social science researchers across the nation are scratching their heads. Where in the world did Kristof get this one? For decades, solid analyses have demonstrated that while aspects of schooling can be important in improving student outcomes ...

Since 1958, the Federal Perkins Student Loan Program has been providing low-interest loans to needy students via campus-based revolving funds. More than 600,000 students (mostly undergraduates with family incomes under $30,000) receive a Perkins each year. The current Perkins differs from other federal loan programs, most notably the Stafford, because it is subsidized (the interest doesn't begin accruing until nine months after graduation) and has a lower interest rate (5 percent, compared to the 6.8-percent Stafford). 

The Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act (SAFRA) would change the Perkins in some notable ways, not all of which are clear improvements. The proposed changes are rather intricate, and as I've spent a fair bit of time puzzling over them lately I want to bring some of my nagging questions to this wider audience in an effort to gain some insights and answers. (In full ...

Well, it had to happen sometime. Faced with a thoughtful, responsive piece of federal legislation to reform the financial-aid system, some ideologue had to come forward with a proposal to end federal student aid entirely. Yep, you heard me right -- get rid of financial aid. Throw out the baby with the bathwater.

The Chronicle is reporting that a director of the Cato Institute's Center for Education Freedom -- aka the freedom not to be helped by the goverment -- is purporting that "student aid explains the pain" of rising tuition. This "higher education expert" (honestly, some people are way too kind) argues that phasing out aid will make colleges more responsive to people who pay "with their own money."

Too bad this expert, Neal McCluskey, didn't bother to do his homework. If he'd cracked a book, he would've learned -- fast -- how wrong he is.  Not to mention unoriginal. Back in 1987...

As I've described in several posts this year, there's an ongoing debate over the role, value, and outcomes of the private for-profit sector of higher education, particularly the two-year schools.  Community colleges are often compared to their for-profit counterparts, many times unfavorably.  For example, their graduation rates are notably lower. And enrollment in the for-profits continues to rise rapidly, suggesting that consumers are voting with their feet, regardless of any hesitation on the part of academic researchers. The students, some say, are the best judge of institutional quality.

But a new study suggests that student behavior may reflect another factor: institutional resources.  Community colleges are historically underfunded, and as I've argued elsewhere, this seriously affects their capacity to serve students. It's one thing to point to differences in practices between the...

Efforts are underway to simplify the complex, byzantine system we've created to administer financial aid, and it's about time. Streamlining the process holds promise. Take a look at the recent H&R Block study if you have any doubt. Where policy makers are starting, by reducing the complexity of the application, is a good place to begin, but we could do more. There are some basic facts about individual decision making which are neglected in the design of the current system -- and remedying those oversights could go a long way towards enhancing participation.

I don't want to argue over who figured out first that humans aren't highly rational beings. Maybe it was the behavioral economists, maybe the psychologists, maybe the sociologists. In any case, it's clear that we tend toward inertia, confusion over too many choices, and that we're highly influenced by what those around us do. And as ...

A quick update on the proposed legislation affecting community colleges -- HR 3221. Yesterday, an online JAM in support of the American Graduation Initiative took place, drawing a virtual crowd of around 400 folks. Lots of good discussion happened, especially about issues of how to make the competitive grant process work well without leaving the more disadvantaged colleges behind, and questions about that required match for the construction funds. Even more exciting, today the House of Representatives passed the Student Aid and Fiscal Responsibility Act by a vote of 253 to 171.  The Senate is expected to begin taking action next week. Stay tuned...

With the President imploring more Americans to go to college and not give up on themselves or their nation, it's understandable that many policy makers want to join in and do their part. Making college more affordable is a very good place to start.

And free tuition -- heck, free anything -- sounds great, especially in a recession. Free tuition provided without changes to the state's operating budget or cuts to any other programs, or by digging a deeper deficit, sounds even better. That's probably why Michigan state representative Fred Durhal Jr. thinks he's got a good thing going, proposing to use a new lottery and casino profits to provide free tuition to more than 160,000 students. It's a win-win right? Says Durhal, "You can feel a little better about losing money to the house if you know it's going to go to children."

Except that the money you are losing is being taken from your own...

Some members of the media are covering the release of a new Canadian study, associated with the Educational Policy Institute, that examines the effects of a financial-aid program on college-going and completion among low-income students. Researchers at the Measuring the Effectiveness of Study Aid Project tried to isolate those effects by examining what happened following a change in student-aid policy in Quebec that increased aid eligibility and decreased reliance on loans. By comparing student outcomes both before and after the policy change, and comparing the outcomes of similar students in Quebec to those in other provinces (where such reforms did not occur), analysts attempted to establish a causal effect of aid.

They conclude that the policy affected access (increasing overall enrollment among students from families making less than $20K per year by 4 to 6 percentage points), and...

For several years, researchers have debated the relative merits of public community colleges vs. 2-year for-profit schools, in part because the latter are deemed a relevant comparison group for the former -- they share some of the same students, offer the same kinds of degrees, etc. These comparisons have become part of the basis for assessing whether there is a "community college penalty" -- a negative effect of choosing that kind of school over an alternative. The basic numbers certainly seem damning. For example, according to a study by Ann Person and Jim Rosenbaum, among students starting college as part of the Beginning Postsecondary Study in 1995-1996, 42 percent of those attending a two-year proprietary completed an associate's degree or higher within three years, compared to just 8 percent of those who began in community colleges. 

Of course, those differences in outcomes could ...

A spate of recent articles, including those covering Bill Bowen and Mike McPherson's new book (which I promise to review just as soon as my copy arrives), have left me a bit perplexed -- wondering aloud "where have you all been?" The punchline each time is that a fair proportion of adults starting college are not finishing. Yes, and duh. This is not new, and if it's news, well I guess it's only because we've deliberately kept our heads in the sand.

But there's no way that folks like New York Times reporter David Leonhardt have been deliberately oblivious, and yet he's writing about low college completion rates as if they've just been unearthed.  In a recent blog post, Kevin Carey implied the same -- just as he did in a recent American Enterprise Institute report. But this has been a prominent topic of discussion for years -- maybe a decade plus!  Just look at Kevin's own 2004 report A...