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| Op-Ed: Free Tuition at New Jersey Public Universities May Not Be a Good Idea | A broader policy approach should be explored under the new state strategic plan for higher education, prior to expanding the free college concept to universities from community colleges. The state should reexamine the complexity of shared responsibilities for paying for college, expected college outcomes, and how existing student financial aid programs can be improved to achieve access and affordability objectives. (Darryl G. Greer, PhD, served as Senior Fellow, Stockton University, 2012-2017, and was the founding CEO of the New Jersey Association of State Colleges and Universities, 1986-2011.) [Note: What does it mean when state college and university leaders seek to forestall or squelch support for state legislation designed to make public higher education tuition-free?]Continue Reading

| Unraveling the Complexity of America’s Student-Loan Debt | Beth Akers, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who focuses on the economics of higher education, put it this way: “The data actually tell us that people who have very large student loan balances are actually doing pretty well. That’s because they have high income that they have access to because of their educational spending…”Akers, of the conservative Manhattan Institute, said she has been disappointed so far in the Democratic candidates’ focus on debt forgiveness and free college. Incremental changes to the existing student-loan repayment programs, she said, would do more to help students repay their debt. [Note: Umm, debt forgiveness and free college will do less to help students repay their debt than holding students accountable to the full repayment terms? Uh-huh. Did the Chronicle of Higher Education have to search far and wide to find this policy expert or is it the first business card in the editors’ Rolodex?]Continue Reading