Research & Reports (parent category)

At the close of World War II, a renegade professor admitted a wave of returning veterans to Harvard Law, even though some had questionable credentials and others didn’t even apply. They’d be called “the best class there ever was.

For-profit, offshore Caribbean medical schools that are not eligible to participate in Federal Student Aid’s Direct Loan Program are taking advantage of a regulatory loophole to obtain Title IV, Higher Education Act (HEA) funds. In this report, we discuss how these predatory, offshore medical schools, partnering with American schools, are taking advantage of students to syphon Title IV funds, and call on the U.S. Department of Education to implement policies to address the regulatory loophole and protect students and preserve the integrity of the Title IV program.

Lack of information and advising prior to college matriculation may contribute to poor postsecondary outcomes among non-traditional students. We conducted a large-scale, multi-arm field experiment with the U.S. Army to investigate whether a package of research-based personalized information and access to advising affects postsecondary choices and attainment among a large non-traditional adult population. We find no impact of the intervention on whether veterans enroll in college, on the quality of their college enrollment, or on their persistence in college. Our results suggest that influencing non-traditional populations’ educational decisions and outcomes will require substantially more intensive programs.

A new Student Defense analysis reveals that the U.S. Department of Education - through both decisions and inaction - continues to allow predatory institutions to scam students and taxpayers with impunity and without rebuke. This analysis comes nearly two years after Student Defense called on the Biden Administration to use civil law enforcement authorities to better protect student loan borrowers.

This report was completed as part of a student practicum in collaboration with the American University (AU) Master's of Public Policy program. We are grateful to AU and their bright students for studying these important [...]

Non-traditional students disproportionately enroll in institutions with weaker graduation and earnings outcomes. One hypothesis is that these students would have made different choices had they been provided with better information or supports during the decision-making [...]

In recent years, tens of thousands of students have been harmed by the closures of predatory colleges where—despite years of unheeded warnings—the closures were described as “abrupt” or “precipitous” or caused by sudden financial or [...]

To attract and retain workers in today’s tight labor market, the largest employers in the United States have turned to promoting college tuition and education benefits. In 2021, Amazon announced a plan to revamp its [...]

While the federal government distributes nearly $150 billion in higher education student aid annually, regulations that hypothetically prevent low-quality institutions from benefiting from this aid rarely function as intended. Researchers have made progress in measuring [...]

The Post 9/11 GI Bill (PGIB) was one of the largest expansions of financial aid for veterans and their families. However, how veterans use these benefits and the institutions they attend are not well documented. [...]

Data in this research provides a snapshot of the for-profit sector at a critical moment, as federal student loan payments have been paused during the pandemic. Because of the payment pause, sector-by-sector comparisons related to [...]

"New data obtained by TCF reveal some colleges rely on OPMs to bring in up to one-half or more of their total enrollment." Read the report here.

In 2020, the pandemic pushed millions of college students around the world into virtual learning. As the new academic year begins, many colleges in the U.S. are poised to bring students back to campus, but a large amount of uncertainty remains. Some institutions will undoubtedly continue to offer online or hybrid classes, even as in-person instruction resumes. At the same time, low vaccination rates, new coronavirus variants, and travel restrictions for international students may mean a return to fully online instruction for some U.S. students and many more around the world.

The Evolution of the For-Profit College Industry: New Challenges for Oversight focuses on important changes to the sector, which include the growth of online education, the efforts of for-profit colleges to convert to non-profit status, [...]

A report from the Center for American Progress.

The Center for American Progress analyzed Education Department surveys which followed students from 2003 when they enrolled in postsecondary education through 2015. The report highlights five groups of students with disproportionate student loan debt burdens [...]