Education Trust News

Fight to Rein In For-Profits Moves to Senate

In the coming weeks, the U.S. Senate will have a chance to weigh in on proposed federal rules on “gainful employment” promised to students in postsecondary career programs. The Education Trust urges all those who care about students to tell their senators to back the rules, designed to shield students from sleazy recruitment tactics and crippling debt burdens.

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CAP, Ed Trust Urge Strong Teacher Provisions for ESEA

As Congress moves toward reauthorizing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), two leading advocacy groups are calling for changes that would help ensure high-level instruction for all students. The Center for American Progress (CAP) and The Education Trust have released joint recommendations to strengthen the bill’s provisions on teachers.

Nationwide, most school systems use performance evaluations that fail to distinguish between teachers who boost student learning and those who need to improve. That means the students who need the most from their teachers are far less likely to get the ones who can help them achieve at high levels.

Education Hit by House Budget Cuts

A resolution to continue the federal government’s fiscal year 2011 funding passed in the U.S. House of Representatives early Saturday. In general, the House bill cuts the federal budget by about $60 billion from current discretionary levels and cuts the U.S. Department of Education’s budget by $5 billion.

Write Your Representative: Oppose Cuts That Would Derail For-Profit College Regulation

This week, the U.S. House of Representatives will vote on an amendment that would cripple the Department of Education's ability to regulate for-profit college companies. To work against the proposed legislation's passage, Ed Trust sent a letter to Congress explaining how the proposed legislation would hurt both students and taxpayers.

Add your voice to debate. Take action now by visiting this page and telling your member of Congress to oppose the Kline amendment.

Read the Ed Trust's letter below:

February 15, 2011
Dear Representative:

During your consideration of the Continuing Resolution this week an amendment will be offered with two dangerous provisions. First, the amendment will eliminate funding to enforce regulations that ensure students receive complete information about the programs for-profit colleges offer. Second, the amendment will eliminate funding to finalize the Department of Education’s gainful employment regulations.

We urge you to stand with the civil rights and student groups who support protections for students and taxpayers, and OPPOSE this amendment.

Ensuring that college companies benefiting from Title IV financial aid do not use misleading or fraudulent tactics to recruit students and that such companies actually prepare their students for gainful employment are long-standing statutory requirements, regulations for which are long overdue. The absence of these regulations has left the most vulnerable students unprotected from unethical for-profit colleges and has bilked tax payers out of millions of precious dollars in Pell Grants and Stafford Loans.

Pell Grants Matter More, Yet Cover Less

The importance of a college education has increased considerably over the past 30 years, but the buying power of federal Pell Grants has simultaneously dwindled.

In 1979, low-income students attending a four-year public college were able, on average, to pay for 77 percent of their tuition, fees, room and board with the maximum Pell award. Today, the grant covers less than half that – just 34 percent of college expenses.

Achieve: College and Career-Ready Are ‘New Norm’

Achieve’s sixth annual “Closing the Expectations Gap” report finds that 20 states and the District of Columbia now have policies in place that require students to complete a college and career-ready course of study in order to graduate from high school. In stark contrast , only three states – Arkansas, Indiana and Texas – had such policies in place in 2004, when the bipartisan education reform group launched its reports.

Pell Grant Proposal Keeps College Doors Open to All

The federal government recently moved to protect some 9 million of our nation’s lowest income students. By setting the maximum Pell Grant at $5,550 for the 2011-12 academic year, the U.S. Department of Education took an important step in keeping college affordable.