The Overhyped College Dropout ‘Scandal’
About 40 percent of Americans who enroll in college drop out before earning a certificate or degree. A high percentage of those who drop out are from poor families; they…
Did You Know? College Textbook Prices Have Increased 88% Since 2006
Among presidential candidates, many campaign platforms have a plan to lower college costs. There’s no question that college costs have increased, but textbook prices have seen the sharpest increase—88 percent…
Cutting Tuition Prices So Students Can Borrow Less
In the past few years, large public universities have garnered headlines by freezing tuition. Purdue University, the Pennsylvania State System, and every public four-year university in Virginia have all frozen…
Did You Know? The North Carolina Colleges with High Student Default Rates
When students take federal loans to pay for college, the government declares them to be in default if a student doesn’t make a payment for 9 months. According to the…
The Majors that Pay and the Degrees that Don’t for Graduates
The College Scorecard, a Department of Education initiative that publishes data on student debt and earnings after graduation for thousands of schools, just got a major update. Previously, the Scorecard’s…
Why Students Should Still Pick a History Major
Since the 2008 financial crisis, the history field has seen a precipitous decline in the number of bachelor’s degrees awarded in American colleges. As Benjamin Schmidt, a historian at Northeastern…
Did You Know? The Biggest NC Endowments Keep Growing
A college endowment is a fund where an institution keeps its financial assets and donations and can invest that money for the college’s long-term stability. In North Carolina, the largest…
How Colleges Have Made Students Poorer and Undereducated
There is general agreement among higher education observers and reformers that tuition and fees at public universities have increased at an unsustainable pace. It’s equally uncontroversial to note that financial…
Did You Know? Student Loan Defaults Are Most Common in West Virginia, New Mexico
When students are late making a monthly payment on their federal student loans, the loan becomes delinquent. And if they don’t make any payments for 270 days, most types of…
How Colleges Can Survive the Coming Enrollment Crash
Nationwide, higher education enrollment has been trending down for several years. According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, 2019 was the eighth straight year of decline, with an overall drop…