Instead of putting money towards changing these systems — by funding efforts to make college free across the country or by making it easier for low-income students to get access to decent public K-12 education, for example — wealthy donors tend to funnel their money into causes that keep the system they benefited from in place, Giridharadas said.
The poll results indicate that politics may soon catch up to the reality borrowers are facing, said Mark Huelsman, the associate director of policy and research at Demos, a left-leaning think tank.
“It’s a sign of the increasing anxiety that voters and families are feeling about their own debt or their children going into to debt or them going into debt for their children,” he said.
As Mark Huelsman, a policy analyst at Demos, an advocacy group tweeted: "the average family inheritance to a white college grad can pay off the average undergrad debt balance and have enough left over for a 20 percent down [payment] on a $575,000 home." That’s assuming the inheritor has student debt to begin with.
If the goal is to resegregate higher education, the efforts have largely worked. Amid budget cuts and attacks on affirmative action, elite public colleges are enrolling fewer black students than they were a generation ago.
Loans may be one solution for helping students afford college and increase achievement, but grants that don't have to be repaid is another. The researchers are working on a new study that examines the academic effects of federal loans versus grant aid and agree that the effects of the federal Pell Grant may be stronger on academic performance, Marx said.
We are concerned that given Ms. DeVos’ track record to privatize public education and her lack of a clear position concerning the affordability crisis in higher education, the committee cannot properly assess whether Ms. DeVos is fit to run the U.S. Department of Education.
Walmart's raises to $9 an hour in 2015 and then to $10 an hour in 2016 is a positive step forward, but it still falls short of giving workers the wages they need.
This Explainer explores how the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is used in measuring our economic growth and whether alternative measures are also needed to provide a more comprehensive outlook of economic progress.
Virginia’s investment in higher education has decreased considerably over the past two decades, and its financial aid programs, though still some of the country’s most expansive, fail to reach many students with financial need.
Methodology: Demos sponsored an online survey among 1,536 registered voters, conducted June 5 to June 14, 2017. The research included a base sample of registered voters and, for deeper analysis, oversamples of working-class African Americans, working-class Hispanics, working-class white Obama-to-Trump voters, and progressives, defined as people of all races who identify as extremely or somewhat liberal. The data in this survey is weighted by standard weights to make it fully representative.
Connecticut’s investment in higher education has decreased considerably over the past two decades, and its financial aid programs, though still some of the country’s most expansive, fail to reach many students with financial need.
Demos conducted a nationwide survey of low- and middle-income households in early 2012. The findings in this brief summarize the relationship between college costs and credit card debt, and its impact on students and their parents.
Fast food companies keep employees at poverty-level wages while reaping billions of dollars in profits. It drives inequality, slows growth, and lowers living standards.