Student Loan Relief Extended
On August 8, the President directed the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to extend relief for student loan borrowers, which continues the suspension of loan payments, stops collections, and waives interest on ED-held student loans through December 31, 2020. TICAS first called for a halt to student loan payments in March, and we continue to work to expand this relief to all federal student loans and extend it for the duration of the pandemic.
Read the updated resources for students and borrowers impacted by COVID-19
College Insight in CA: Using TICAS’ Updated Tool to Bring Higher Education Data to Your Fingertips
If you missed last month’s ‘how-to’ webinar on our revamped research and data tool, College Insight, you’re in luck – our first-ever College Insight tutorial, with a focus on California, is available online. The training provides an overview of the site and guides users on how to find concrete data on higher education issues quickly and easily using multiple, combined datasets at multiple levels of data aggregation (national, sector, and state).
Diving Deeper into College Affordability Gaps in California: A Blog Series and Interactive Data Feature
Following the recent release of the third iteration of our brief on net price, What College Costs for Low-Income Californians: 2020, we’ve launched a new blog series Diving Deeper into College Affordability Gaps in California, which explores particular equity concerns raised in the analysis. The series also features a new interactive tool to help visualize the layers of data involved in this year’s study.
SHEEO Policy Conference Series – How to Recession-Proof Public Higher Education
Our colleagues at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association have launched their policy conference as a virtual webinar series. Last month TICAS president James Kvaal discussed how to recession-proof public higher education with experts F. King Alexander, Jennifer Delaney, and Sue Dynarski. TICAS senior analyst Michele Streeter moderated the conversation.
TICAS in the News
- Student Loan Borrowers Would See a Big Chunk of Debt Disappear Under Biden Plan | Josh Mitchell, The Wall Street Journal
“James Kvaal, a former adviser to President Barack Obama who now heads the Institute for College Access and Success, an advocate for student borrowers, said Mr. Biden’s policies would make whole many borrowers who were defrauded by colleges or who never landed the well-paying job they had expected. Federal law entitles borrowers who can prove they were defrauded to have their loans canceled, and the Biden campaign says he would aggressively use that law.” - Student loans may be needed now more than ever. Here’s how to navigate the options | Michelle Fox, CNBC
“Navigating the student loan process tends to be confusing for a lot of students and parents, said Michele Streeter, senior policy analyst with The Institute for College Access and Success. ‘It can be overwhelming,’ she said. ‘There is a lot that goes into it from every stage of the process.’ Here are the steps to take and options for student loans.” - What’s Next for the Higher Education Act After Another Year Passes Without a Reauthorization? | Owen Daugherty, NASFAA
“‘There’s a sense that things are so incredibly uncertain right now that it’s almost hard to know how to do an HEA bill well right now,’ said Michele Streeter, a senior policy analyst at the Institute for College Access and Success. ‘We almost need to see how the dust settles and what that looks like going forward.’ Notably, the pandemic has brought a different set of higher education issues to the forefront, including ensuring students have protections from sudden school closures and supporting institutions in their transition to online learning, Streeter noted.”
