higher education policy

As the first chief economist in the U.S. Department of Education, Ford School alumnus Jordan Matsudaira (PhD ’05), seeks to identify and implement policies that best promote student success—academically and financially—in higher education. Ford...

Federal lawmakers continue to seek out University of Michigan faculty members to lend their expertise and knowledge to help inform federal policy. In the last year, 13 U-M faculty members and researchers testified at 14 congressional hearings...

On Tuesday, Susan Dynarski, professor of public policy, education and economics, testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on how current tax benefits aren't reaching the students they are meant to help. “The education tax benefits...

News coverage about student debt is piling up, just like the student debt itself. But the people who are struggling the most with student debt aren’t the ones you may expect, explains Susan Dynarski, professor of public policy, in an interview with...

College access has been getting a lot of buzz, but getting more people to enroll in higher education is only the first step. Helping people graduate is proving a larger hurdle, something the House Committee on Education and Labor’s Subcommittee on...

Susan Dynarski’s latest New York Times Upshot contribution explores “How to use tax credits to increase college attendance.”“Taxpayers will file for $20 billion in tax credits for college expenses they paid in 2015, but while those who get [the...

Research shows that recent high school grads who attend a four-year college are 50 percent more likely to earn a bachelor’s within six years than those starting at community colleges. In a new NBER Working Paper, Kevin Stange and Jonathan Smith of...

Last week, in her New York Times Upshot piece on higher education policy, Professor Susan Dynarski outlined a critical change in federal financial aid.According to the new rules, students hoping to begin college in September 2017 can file the FAFSA...

Susan Dynarski, who has long argued for transparency of data surrounding student loans, student debt, and student outcomes, celebrates a big new win in her New York Times Upshot column, "New Data Gives Clearer Picture of Student Debt."Until now,...