The current discussion of student-loan interests rates has created a welcome focus on college access and on the difficulties some students have repaying their education loans. The federal government does need to take greater responsibility for protecting students from unmanageable education debt.

Unfortunately, the issue is much more complicated than the current political discourse might suggest. There isn’t time to develop a sound long-term plan addressing this issue before July 1, when the interest rate on a subset of loans students will use next year is set to increase. Locking in current interest rates for another year is likely the only viable solution.

But this is a solution that solves a small set of problems for a small subset of students. A better solution depends on a clear understanding of the issues and a realistic perspective on what really matters for educational…

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The American Association of Community Colleges (AACC) recently released a significant commission report that begins to articulate a positive path for change for two-year colleges.  Reclaiming the American Dream: Community Colleges and the Nation’s Future, was issued by a high-level 38-member panel, and had the backing of major players in higher education: the Gates and Kresge foundations and the ACT and Educational Testing Service.

The report, which was featured in a story by David Wessel in the Wall Street Journal, does three important things in my view:

First, the report frankly acknowledges the shortcomings of community colleges in stark language.  “What we find today are student success rates that are unacceptably low, employment preparation that is inadequately connected to job market needs, and disconnects in transitions between high schools, community colleges, and…

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Charles Miller, chair of the Spellings Commission, reminded me the other day that that panel in its report referred to the federal financial aid system as “dysfunctional.” I think I (as a member of the commission) picked the word and Charles seized upon it. More than five years have passed, and the system now has been promoted to “uber dysfunctional.”

Let me outline seven problems or “sins” with the program, some of which I outlined earlier in a piece for National Review Online.

1. The low interest rates (3.4 percent currently, and likely to continue) on federal subsidized Stafford loans are set by the political process, not market forces. Loose Federal Reserve monetary policy along with irresponsible lending by such government subsidized agencies as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac contributed hugely to the housing bubble and 2008 financial crisis, and federal student loans…

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Americans have long prized sarcasm. We have had whole epochs of movies driven by sarcastic retorts. What would the cinematic world be from Jimmy Cagney through Pulp Fiction, without wise-talking gangsters, smart-aleck private eyes, world weary cops, and cynical journalists?  We have great theater—think of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolfe—built entirely of sarcastic repartee. Teen “culture”—if we can call it that—has been one long trial by a jury of sneers. Americans have made an art of impudence.  All of which should be a point of national pride.

But like other forms of American exceptionalism, our well-earned reputation for sarcasm is in decline. The causes are many. The cult of sincerity breaks out every third generation or so. Its practitioners seek to shame us into abiding by rules of mutual respect that would choke off our genius for congratulating buffoons on their…

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Greed arguably ranks high on the list. (Photo by Flickr/CC user Muffet)

My  colleague Roy Boyd and I were complaining about the latest excesses in intercollegiate athletics (ICA) at our school (Ohio University), when Roy opined that a large number of the seven deadly sins were involved. Upon further reflections, I think all seven of those sins have been part of the ICA scene in recent years.

I will use a slightly updated (from Biblical times) list of the sins as used by Dante in the Divine Comedy, very close to what I understand to be the official doctrine today of the Roman Catholic Church regarding such matters.

1. Lechery or Lust: Of course, the Penn State scandal seems rooted in lust,  but so are many others. Football coaches have been sacked at several schools (e.g., the University of…

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A remarkable moment on the presidential campaign tour came on April 23.

Here’s the backdrop. Interest rates on Stafford loans are set to double, from 3.4 to 6.8 percent on July 1. The interest rates were temporarily reduced by Congress in 2007. If the reduction were allowed to elapse, the increase in interest would cost the average student borrower more than $1,000 over the life of the loan—and these are the most popular student loans available.

Of course President Obama’s position is that the interest reduction be extended, and he has said so emphatically on several recent campaign stops. But according to an AP story published on the eve of last Tuesday’s five Republican primaries, Mitt Romney does too. The story quotes Romney as follows:  “I support extending the temporary relief on interest rates for students” because of the “extraordinarily poor conditions in the…

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There is a lot of buzz around New Republic journalist Timothy Noah’s new book, The Great Divergence: America’s Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do About It, which persuasively documents the nation’s burgeoning economic divide. While we appropriately pride ourselves for becoming a more egalitarian society with respect to African-Americans, women, and gays, Noah writes, our incomes have grown stunningly unequal. If in the 1960s and 70s, the United States became an “angrier place,” today, our enormous economic inequalities have helped make America “a meaner place.”

In the early part of the 20th century, when politicians were worried about growing concentrations of income and wealth among families like the Rockefellers, Vanderbilts, and Carnegies, the richest 1% took in 18% of the national income, Noah notes. That figure dropped to 9% in 1970, when unions remained an …

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