Higher Ed Watch

At a time when a higher education is more important to individual and collective prosperity than ever before, students need online courses and degree programs that are effective, affordable, and grounded in public values. A State U Online model is achievable, but only if states and higher education institutions work together to share their resources and reduce barriers that prevent students from moving seamlessly through the system—credits in hand.

State U Online | NewAmerica.net Mention online learning in higher education and the conversation quickly turns to the explosion of Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, and the opportunities for delivering quality education to the greatest number of students. Indeed, online learning is increasingly becoming a permanent fixture in...

California's Groundbreaking State Online Higher Education Plan | NewAmerica.net California is currently home to two of the most important things happening in higher education, one good, one bad. The good thing is the rapid advancement of cheap and free online courses offered by companies like Udacity and Coursera. The bad thing is the catastrophic failure of California lawmaker...

We're co-hosting a twitter town hall about how to fix federal student aid on Thursday from 1-2pm EST. Please join us using !

EVENT February 28: A Twitter Town Hall on the Solution for the Federal Student Aid System | Alliance The federal student aid system is a series of policies and programs that incorporates grants, loans, campus-based programs, and tax benefits aimed at increasing student access to higher education. The system is enormous in both scope and complexity. As more and more of America’s international compet...

Has the Affordable Care Act (ACA) changed an adjunct's ability to obtain health benefits? Doesn't look that way, according to NAF's Andy Lounder. He explores the interplay of the ACA and adjunct labor in his newest post for Higher Ed Watch's series: The Academic Graveyard Shift.

The Academic Graveyard Shift: A Thin-Crust Guy’s Faculty | NewAmerica.net Starting in 2014, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandates that employers with more than 50 employees must provide health insurance to those working more than 30 hours per week. To prevent having to give their employees proper benefits, Papa John’s Pizza voiced intent to cut the hours of employees to…

New College Scorecard: Will Students Use It? | NewAmerica.net In last night’s State of the Union, President Obama announced the release of the College Scorecard, a consumer information resource that helps students and families compare colleges and universities on important measures such as costs and graduation rates. “Colleges must do their part to keep costs…

President Obama’s Bold Plan To Reshape American Higher Education | NewAmerica.net As a rule, speechwriters put the most dramatic parts of a president’s agenda front and center in televised speeches, leaving the boring policy details to the supplemental notes. Last night, the Obama administration did the opposite: the higher education section of the State of the Union address was…

The Academic Graveyard Shift | NewAmerica.net In 1969, tenure track faculty constituted 78 percent of the academic workforce. Today, less than 25 percent of the academy is on the tenure track (TT). This means that in about forty years, faculty labor has turned completely upside down. Non-tenure track (NTT), contract-contingent faculty—otherwise...

NAICU Has Bad Apples Too | NewAmerica.net There are bad actors in every sector of higher education. But the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU) would like you to believe otherwise. During a panel discussion with Congressional staffers at their annual conference, private college presidents expressed frustrat...

We're hiring a higher education policy analyst. Apply here to be part of an amazing team!

Policy Analyst, Education Policy Program | NewAmerica.net The New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program seeks a policy analyst to study and report on federal and state policies and practices that affect students of all types in pursuit of higher education. One focus of the research will be policies that lead to better collection and use of data tha...

Do colleges still provide a gateway to opportunity for low-income and working class students? Or are they perpetuating inequality in this country by limiting opportunity to only those who are rich enough to be able to afford it?

Making Sure Colleges Remain Engines of Opportunity Not Inequality | NewAmerica.net

Did you read This week's Syllabus? Make sure you participate in the discussion about our new report on federal financial aid!

Syllabus: Week of January 27 | NewAmerica.net

Read New America's latest policy report on how to overhaul federal financial aid so that it works for students and taxpayers:

Rebalancing Resources and Incentives in Federal Student Aid | NewAmerica.net The federal financial aid system is no longer up to today’s demands. Built in a different era, its haphazard evolution over the decades has made it inefficient, poorly targeted, and overly complicated. With the need for higher education never greater and college growing increasingly unaffordable, st...