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3 weeks ago | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
Columbia University has “capitulated” to the Trump administration’s demands, in the words of many media outlets, after the government withdrew around $400 million in federal grants and contracts from the institution. In a four-page letter, Columbia outlined the steps it would take to satisfy the administration’s complaints. Though protests have erupted on campus in opposition to the changes, the reforms Columbia says it will make are eminently reasonable—and some of them are overdue.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
Student loan payments have been due for six months now—yet no one seems to have told the students. The federal government effectively suspended payments on student loans for four and a half years due to the Covid-19 pandemic, leading many borrowers to lose touch with their loan servicers and disengage from the repayment system. False promises of loan cancellation led to confusion and bitterness.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
In March 2020, the federal government enacted a “temporary” pause on student loan repayment, which the Trump and Biden administrations extended a grand total of eight times. But as of October 2024, loan repayment has officially resumed—meaning borrowers who miss payments will face consequences such as negative credit reports.
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1 month ago | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
President Trump’s government has taken several actions recently to curb administrative bloat at America’s colleges and universities. The National Institutes of Health (NIH) capped the “indirect costs” that universities may charge the government on research grants, while the Education Department published guidance to push back on schools’ DEI programs.
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2 months ago | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
Three years ago, then-Governor Larry Hogan of Maryland went out on a limb: He announced that Maryland would eliminate the four-year college degree requirement for thousands of jobs in the state government. Most state jobs, he argued, could “substitute relevant experience, training, and/or community college education for a four-year degree.” It turned out to be the beginning of a trend: 25 states have now taken steps to remove degree requirements from state government job postings.
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2 months ago | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
This post is adapted from a testimony I delivered to the US House Committee on Education and Workforce on February 5, 2025. Americans are losing confidence in the higher education system. According to The Wall Street Journal’s polling, 56 percent of Americans believe that a four-year college education is no longer worth the cost. People are less likely to say that colleges and universities have a positive impact on the direction of the country.
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Jan 23, 2025 | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) published its biannual report on college enrollment trends this morning, providing a comprehensive look at how student numbers totaled up in fall 2024. NSC’s preliminary figures, released in October, initially reported a significant drop in college freshman enrollment. That finding, however, was the result of a data error; this morning’s release of the corrected numbers shows that enrollment actually increased.
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Jan 14, 2025 | 
aei.org | Mark Schneider |Christopher Robinson
“Reskilling” and “upskilling” are common buzzwords in discussions of career and technical training. These terms refer to imparting new skills to workers, enabling them to take on enhanced roles and responsibilities and enabling their employers to better face changing demands for goods and services. Given our dynamic economy, it’s not surprising that interest in improving the skills of workers is increasing. A Google Ngram search (Fig. 1) shows that the use of “reskilling” has skyrocketed. Figure 1.
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Jan 6, 2025 | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
Over the holiday season, the Biden administration withdrew two pending regulations to unilaterally cancel hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of student loans. Officials evidently judged that the administration would not have time to finalize and implement the new regulations before the Trump administration takes over. For the time being, loan cancellation by executive action is dead. But a simple legislative change can ensure these loan bailouts are never attempted again.
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Dec 3, 2024 | 
aei.org | Preston Cooper |Christopher Robinson
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