The president wants to cut annual funding to IES from $800 million to $260 million But I think you should pay very little attention to budget proposals from a president with a 40% approval rating in an election year--especially proposals that Congress already rejected last year

We now know how many people work at NCES: 13 (12 full-time). That's down from about 100 FTEs pre-DOGE. This info comes from ED's response to the ACTS lawsuit, because you can't spell transparency without lawsuit (or something like that).

I would be willing to bet my savings a bill that cuts state funding by almost 50% at multiple institutions will not become law

"They do it not because they expect it to survive a legal challenge—in lots of these cases, by the time the courts decide, they overturn their policies—but because they know in the interim it will scare institutions into proactively complying,” Fansmith said.

Just received this email from ED about switching off the SAVE repayment plan To my eye, this reads as trying to sell RAP over the other IDR plans--even though RAP will not be the best option for everyone

Not here to defend Tyler Cowen's quote, but anyone who doesn't think there's a role for economics in education policy (or climate change) does not understand economics, particularly microeconomics

Me to my neighbors re: mowing our lawns for the first time this year

Jay Powell 2028

Something I've thought about a lot since last March: the case for education policy research needs to be taken directly to voters and politicians And I don't think people within the research community are the right ones to do that hechingerreport.org/proof-points...

I'm going to have to move to a new repayment plan for all of 1-2 months before requesting a PSLF buyback

Color me skeptical of this "evidence" from an ED press release that the loan provisions of OBBBA are making college more affordable (Note: some of these examples predate OBBBA!)

My mind was blown by this history podcast explaining the Ku Klux Klan's early structure was heavily influenced by college fraternities, including the rituals, the titles, and even the name open.spotify.com/episode/3kHu...

So, it looks like public universities in the states that filed the case *and only those states* will have until April 6 to complete ACTS. The judge will decide by April 2 or 3 whether or not to issue a preliminary injunction that will spare public universities in the 17 states from completing ACTS.

I do higher education research and frequently try to recruit colleges/systems/state agencies to participate in new projects and follow through on existing projects It has been extremely apparent to me in the last six months the extent to which everyone who works in higher ed is overwhelmed

A valuable new addition to the lit on test optional policies. At Ivy Plus schools (~97K undergrads), scores predict FYGPA better than HS GPA, likely due to the fact that Iyy+ students mostly have (nearly) perfect grades. In the CUNY system (~125K undergrads), grades are a stronger predictor.

New paper looks at the effects of merit-based free community college in Chicago Unsurprisingly, students were diverted from universities to community colleges. But, surprisingly, they were just as likely to earn a bachelor's degree within six years. edworkingpapers.com/ai26-1426

It has finally happened: after several years of coming to AEFP in late March, the conference conflicts with a Michigan tournament game for the first time I now must choose between my two loves: higher education research or Michigan athletics

I see it's time to renew this muted word

Lol that the #AEFP2026 flyer for student attendees highlights sessions with food

Kinda guessed this was the case having heard nothing since Jan 2025 but closure is nice?

I've long assumed my FY25 IES research proposal disappeared into the ether I suppose it's nice to at least have some closure?

The pressure to add advanced nursing degrees to ED's list of professional programs, which would allow students to borrow more, continues to grow 150 lawmakers, including 20 Republicans, signed a letter urging ED to reconsider

The big question here is whether the administration is going to start using FERPA investigations to stymie research it doesn't like or if this investigation is specific to this project focused on student voting Either way, I expect it to make colleges more hesitant to share data with researchers

ED Releases Recommendations to Reimagine IES www.insidehighered.com/news/quick-t...

"Heroes of American Education" being honored on the ED building: Benjamin Franklin Martin Luther King Ann Sullivan Booker T. Washington Catharine Beecher Charlie Kirk

I don't think I've shared on here yet that I am leading an RCT of a program that helps borrowers manage loan repayment and avoid delinquency and default The first report, with estimated impacts on enrollment in IDR and delinquency, is set to come out in 2027 www.mdrc.org/work/project...

Dozens of my former colleagues lost their careers because of DOGE in order to "reduce wasteful government spending"

This is a fantastic resource for students looking for a paper topic 25 RCTs, with documentation and data Thank you, @mdrc-news.bsky.social! www.cos.io/blog/data-fr...

Thinking of running an RCT in postsecondary education? MDRC has created a fantastic set of resources to help you in projecting minimum effect sizes, randomizing, and processing data Proud to have helped advise this project! www.mdrc.org/the-rct

Freezing tuition revenue is a great way to get colleges to serve fewer students

Make that three weeks

MDRC has over two decades of experience conducting randomized controlled trials in higher education And, for some reason, we've decided to give away all our resources and best practices to help other researchers conduct high-quality, efficient RCTs Check out the website soft launch:

How does one square the claim that "new grad loan limits aren't cutting access" with this research? www.philadelphiafed.org/-/media/FRBP...

This is a good, concise accounting from @urbaninstitute.bsky.social of the issues with earnings tests for postsecondary degrees E.g., failing to account for differences in employer benefits, student characteristics, non-financial benefits, and societal benefits www.urban.org/urban-wire/e...

A single missing elderly woman, while sad, should not be the entire A block on every news program for two weeks

Science is winning www.insidehighered.com/news/governm...

Lots of news in the world, so I'm grateful to see this IHEP post about how Congress quietly repudiated the damage the president want to do to education research in the new appropriations package. www.ihep.org/lawmakers-ma...

New study shows after SCOTUS struck down affirmative action the number of underrepresented minority (URM) students enrolling in Ivy Plus colleges decreased by ~450 The number of low-income non-URM students increased by ~120, suggesting these colleges placed more weight on income in absence of race

The US immigrant population generated more in taxes than they received in benefits from all levels of government every year from 1994 to 2023. The Cato study provides the first-ever 30-year analysis of the fiscal effects of immigration on government budgets. https://ow.ly/jy8a50Y8kM3

State funding for public higher ed went up by approximately 0.7% in FY26, the fourteenth consecutive increase but below the rate of inflation this time. Eight states cut funding by at least five percent, setting off warnings going forward. shef.sheeo.org/wp-content/u...

Except the professional degree designation *is* about value--just in a ham-handed way Policymakers allowed students in professional programs to go into more debt because those programs are perceived to generally be more valuable

It's relatively easy to communicate to the public "X is broken." It's harder to communicate "X is broken in this particular way, and here's how to fix it." Only communicating the former can pave the way for people to implement reforms that might have nothing to do with the way X is broken

I have recently come to terms with the fact my job is now ~40% bugging people until they do the things I need them to do

New RCT findings from MDRC on the long-term effects of NYC's Small Schools of Choice--high schools with 100 students/grade that emphasize personalized student-teacher relationships: -10pp increase in college enrollment after HS (53% vs 43%) -3pp increase in bachelor degree attainment (15% vs 12%)

The Iowa Legislature is considering a bill to require its universities to pay 25% of students' defaulted loans Risk-sharing is not a new idea, but enacting it at the state level creates an odd dynamic of effectively sending state dollars to the federal gov't iowacapitaldispatch.com/briefs/state...

Sounds like staffing cuts at ED are preventing it from fulfilling its legal obligations

Glad to see many people recommended better peer review quality control for IES proposals I could tell you some real horror stories...

Curious about what people said in response to the RFI about "re-imagining" the Institute of Education Sciences (IES)? I put the public comments in one file (763 pages) and used AI to analyze the themes and areas of agreement and disagreement (5 pages) by audience ⬇️: docs.google.com/document/d/1...

As states introduce their own student loan programs to fill the federal gap, it's going to be more important than ever to provide borrowers with support as they navigate the complex repayment landscape www.washingtonpost.com/education/20...

From May to December, ED cut the IDR application backlog in half--from 1.5 million to 750k But the storm on the horizon is there are 7 million borrowers who will need to be moved to new plans once SAVE is officially terminated www.nasfaa.org/news-item/38...