It seems unbelievable, but tomorrow marks the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Arriving in New Orleans this week, the memories came flooding back. The Weather Channel picture of a mammoth storm. Survivors’ joy turned to horror over learning that the levees were overtopping and that some would not hold. The faces of death, destruction and despair.

Writeup about Driving Better Outcomes Typology

College affordability is an issue that weighs heavily on many people’s minds. And it should. There was a recent story about a public official who was concerned about college affordability. He said he could relate to students who struggle to pay for college because less than 10 years after leaving graduate school, he was still paying off debt for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. From Harvard.

Those of us residing in the Northeastern United States continue to hide away under blankets, waiting for a sign that spring is just around the corner. And there is one spring staple that Mother Nature can’t take away – the start of baseball.

One day in and March Madness has ensued, already proving why it is one of the best sports events of the year. Filling out the bracket. Pulling for the underdog. Buzzer beaters. The nearly 10 years of a spotless record against my dear husband. I love it all.

This paper by the RADD 2.0 consortium outlines the need for an automatic income-based repayment (IBR) system, measures the current IBR terms against these principles, examines ways to reduce administrative burdens and discusses the reasons for altering the current IBR formula when implementing auto-IBR.

States are natural laboratories for experimentation on policy design and implementation. It is instructive to look to states for guidance on how to strengthen federal accountability for financial aid, including federally guaranteed loans. For the past 35 years, state higher education systems have experimented with ways to use outcomes data to share responsibility for improved outcomes. This review of state policies describes how widespread “shared responsibility” policies for college completion are, what emerging or existing evidence of effectiveness exists and which outcomes metrics are used to implement these policies.

A report that answers a series of questions posed about the effectiveness of Indiana’s financial aid programs, the efficiency of the programs’ administrative operations, and the projected costs of the aid programs over the next twenty years.

HCM convened a small group of financial aid, tax and higher education policy experts. The technical panel was charged with examining the overall financial aid system and developing innovative policy ideas that respond to the fiscal, economic and demographic realities the nation faces today.

This report focuses on a group of institutions that play a particularly important role in the face of these challenges— public research universities.

HCM Strategists partnered with Hart Research Associates and The Winston Group to produce this report on beliefs about the importance of college, impressions of the financial aid system, priority for reform, and reactions to potential reform approaches.

A Better Higher Education Data and Information Framework for Informing Policy