Links for 1/7/10

Charlotte Allen

There is very little about FFEL that smacks of a free market that ought to be preserved. Rates of returns on federally guaranteed student loans may be low these days, but they are nonetheless rates of return---which is something, considering that the loans are virtually risk-free investments for the banks that make them…

Doug Lederman

many student affairs officials would probably be wary of looking too closely at what their programs cost and whether they provide a meaningful return on that "investment," for fear that the data, if they don't look good, might be used against them in the fight for resources…

A report on the Investing in Student Success effort, published this week by the two organizations, suggested that a majority of the programs had produced gains in retention that went a long way toward offsetting their costs. Most of the others could not complete the analysis, using a "cost return calculator" that includes a wide range of data, because they didn't have all the necessary cost and retention statistics (for students in the programs and for a comparison group)…

If you don't know what the investment you're returning is, that makes us look really silly."…

George Leef

Duncan’s view of the ed school problem is like that of a doctor with a patient suffering from leukemia saying, “Gosh—you don’t look well. Better take some vitamins to perk up.”