Free Republic

Five prominent U.S. universities have agreed to pay a total $104.5 million to settle a lawsuit accusing them of price fixing. Brown University agreed to pay $19.5 million, Columbia and Duke are each paying $24 million, and Yale and Emory are each paying $18.5 million, according to United Press International. The lawsuit was brought forward by eight former students against 17 universities, alleging they colluded as "a price-fixing cartel" to "fix" price competition when it came to financial aid. It essentially states the schools collectively shared confidential data and information about admissions and financial aid, from which they adopted a...

Well-to-do Illinois parents, including lawyers, doctors and realtors, are reportedly giving up custody of their high school-aged children in order to help them secure scholarships and financial aid reserved for low-income students. Separate investigations conducted by ProPublica Illinois and The Wall Street Journal have uncovered dozens of cases in the wealthy suburbs of Chicago involving parents transferring legal guardianship of their teenagers to grandparents, aunts, friends, or even co-workers over the past year-and-a-half. The idea behind the tactic, which is legal in Illinois, is that once the parents give up custody, the children are able to declare themselves financially independent...

Borrowers could soon be required to pay back their federal student loans directly from their paychecks, if one powerful Republican gets his way. Senator Lamar Alexander, a Republican from Tennessee and the chair of the Senate’s Committee on Health, Education Labor and Pensions, which oversees higher education, proposed automatically withholding a borrower’s monthly student-loan payment from their paycheck, similar to the system already used for federal payroll taxes. (snip) ...Proponents of payroll withholding for student-loan payments say the idea would help borrowers stay current on their loans and avoid default, while also ensuring taxpayers received a return on their investment,...

Universities that cry poor while entertaining themselves lavishly are finding it harder to keep up their public service facade, even in publications that would normally be sympathetic to them. "When Congress asked dozens of schools to report on their spending in 2016, for instance, Harvard declined to say exactly how much of its $37 billion endowment is paid to the people who manage it.," Neena Satija wrote in The Washington Monthly. "While most colleges did tell Congress what percentage of their annual endowment payout goes to financial aid, they generally didn't elaborate further--such as on the proportion of aid that’s...

College affordability is a hot political topic these days, with President Obama pushing to make two-year community colleges free for all Americans. People want college to be affordable both to raise future productivity and to address inequality issues by equalizing access to higher education as much as possible. Yet as important as this issue it, it has also been one fraught with misguided policy and is a perfect example of the law of unintended consequences. New research by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows exactly how bad the flaws in our current government policies are. David...

The approval comes one year after Gov. Chris Christie signed a bill into law allowing certain undocumented immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates. In 2013, Christie and Democratic leaders reached a compromise to remove a clause in the bill that also would have offered the same undocumented immigrants state aid to help pay for their higher education.“We have the opportunity to allow all children in this state now to go to college and to go to college in an affordable manner. It provides opportunity and it makes New Jersey the kind of place that all of us want to...

A look at the latest education news seems to show that academia’s left hand doesn’t know what its far left hand is doing. From the Chronicle of Higher Education we learn that “As students confront rising college costs and a labyrinthine financial-aid process, some are turning to crowdfunding websites like Go-FundMe to cover their expenses.” “While the approach is still novel and hardly widespread, financial-aid officials say, enthusiasm for online campaigns is very much a reflection of the times,” Libby Sander wrote in the Chronicle. “Students are frustrated with the aid process, eager to avoid student-loan debt, and worried over...

This week, President Obama is hitting the road to unveil his plan to "combat the soaring costs of higher education." His three part plan consists of connecting financial aid to school performance, supporting academic innovation, and making college more affordable. His road tour and policy initiatives sound good in the nightly news cycle. They make for great talking points, but President Obama's plan does not address the fundamental reasons behind why tuition is rising. Both sides can agree that rising college costs are a big problem and burden for students. But more college subsidies and government aid will not solve...

"If I had only known then what I know now." If it feels as if you know where this one's going, it's probably because you've heard it before. As student indebtedness continues its steady upward climb, it's increasingly become common refrain among cash-strapped college students and graduates, groaning under the weight of hefty student loan payments. Yet at a time when a $1 trillion student loan bill nationally continues to balloon and cripple so many, a new survey finds that the root of many students' financial woes may have started long before they ever set foot on campus. According to...

Since I had my son, I have often heard from family and friends that college is going to be extremely expensive, and it is best to start saving now. After much research I decided that I wouldn't put too much into a college fund. This may be against the usual advice of saving for the future, but here are some sane reasons why parents should not pump too much money into their children's college funds. 1. A large college fund can lower financial aid.

Burck Smith, CEO and Founder of StraighterLine, recently likened higher education to the U.S. Postal Service, which faces private competition and changing methods of communication as a result of new technology. However, in the case of higher education, government subsidies and accreditation requirements provide barriers help established universities maintain their old business models even in the face of innovations such as online courses. “The postal service, I think, gives us a good example outside of academics to look at a subsidized business model that’s uh whose business model is really past […] past the time or whose market conditions have...

IF INSANITY is doing the same thing again and again but expecting a different outcome, then the federal government's strategy for keeping higher education affordable is crazier than Norman Bates. For decades, American politicians have waxed passionate on the need to put college within every family's reach. To ensure that anyone who wants to go to college will be able to foot the bill, Washington has showered hundreds of billions of dollars into student aid of all kinds -- grants and loans, subsidized work-study jobs, tax credits and deductions. Today, that shower has become a monsoon. As Neal McCluskey points...

Financial aid, whether it's a cheap loan, a work-study job at the campus library, or a grant, is supposed to make college more affordable and accessible for students. But what if, by handing money out to undergrads, the government is simply encouraging schools to spend more and jack up tuition? Meet "the Bennett hypothesis," the dismal notion named for Reagan Education Secretary William Bennett, who suggested it in a 1987 New York Times op-ed diplomatically titled "Our Greedy Colleges." Generous student-aid policies had "enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion...

Like many wealthy universities, Harvard offers only "need-based" financial aid, which means that rich parents need to pay much more than poor ones. Using the calculator at the site listed above, you can estimate the marginal income tax rate Harvard imposes. Assuming zero student assets, Harvard expects parents to contribute 10% of income up to $150K, which is $15K for parents earning $150K. Above that level, the marginal income tax is much higher. Parents earning $235K are expected to pay $52K. The marginal tax rate for income rising to $150K to $235K is (52-15)/(235-150) = 43.5% . This is of...

U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority has become an increasingly controversial matter in the wake of the group's decision to bypass peace negotiations and go to the United Nations for recognition of an independent state. But the outlay of funds to the Palestinians may become even more toxic after the release of a report by a media watch organization detailing the payment of salaries from the U.S.-funded PA to imprisoned terrorists. The report from Palestinian Media Watch, an Israeli-based organization that monitors the Palestinian media and culture, said that more than 5,500 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are getting salaries...

Following through on a campaign promise, Gov. Jerry Brown signed a law Monday easing access to privately funded financial aid for undocumented college students. He also signaled that he was likely to back a more controversial measure allowing those students to seek state-funded tuition aid in the future. Assemblyman Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles), author of the private financial aid measure, described it as an important but incremental step toward expanding opportunities for deserving students who were brought to the U.S. illegally through no choice of their own. Cedillo is pressing ahead with a more expansive measure that would make certain...

Anwar Awlaki, now believed to be an Al Qaeda recruiter hiding in Yemen, is connected to at least two recent suspected terrorism cases – the Fort Hood attack and the attempted Christmas Day jet bombing. The American Muslim cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, considered by some to be one of the most wanted terrorists behind Usama bin Laden, was educated in the United States with taxpayers money, an ongoing Fox News investigation has found. Awlaki, now believed to be recruiting for Al Qaeda from hiding in Yemen, is connected to at least two recent suspected terrorism cases – the Fort Hood attack...

Does financial aid count as reportable income to the parents of a college student?

Most dropouts leave college because they have trouble going to school while working to support themselves, according to a report released Wednesday by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research group. The report, “With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them,” was based on a recent survey of more than 600 individuals aged 22 to 30, comparing those who started a college education but did not complete it with those who received a degree or certificate from a two- or four-year institution. With the Obama administration pushing to improve the nation’s competitiveness by doubling the number of college graduates, many educators, foundations and...

... For decades there has been debate about how to help the poor without discouraging work, saving or marriage. Yet with almost no notice just such disincentives have crept up the income ladder, observes economist C. Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury official and expert on the taxation of families. At first blush it would be hard to argue with anything that might help Lederman get back on her feet. Mortgage relief? The voters clamored for it. Scholarships for less-prosperous students? Everyone wants poor kids to get the same chances in life as rich ones. Add up all these good intentions,...