Edward Conroy

1 month ago | forbes.com | Edward Conroy

Today the Trump administration administration is expected to issue a notice that it intends to fire approximately half the staff at the United States Department of Education. The Reduction in Force notice (a legal requirement when the federal government is planning large scale layoffs), is expected this evening, after all staff at the department were told to leave their office buildings by 6pm, and not to come to work on Wednesday, March 12.

1 month ago | newamerica.org | Edward Conroy

The past few weeks have felt awful for public policy and its important role in American life. Every day brings news of another agency gutted, experts laid off, lifesaving research canceled, and more people vilified for spending their careers in public service, doing their best to make America better in ways large and small.

1 month ago | forbes.com | Edward Conroy

The answer is probably: give them more money. Austin Community College has been running a support program for parenting students since the Fall of 2021, and last week Trellis Strategies, a national research firm focused on postsecondary education, released an evaluation of the effort. The results are impressive. Trellis found that 95% of students in the program remained enrolled the next semester, compared to 75% for their peers who did not participate.

1 month ago | newamerica.org | Antoinette Flores |Edward Conroy

The New America Higher Education Policy Team submitted comments on the Postsecondary Commission's (PSC) (an aspiring accreditor) most recent revision of its standards. The comments raise concerns that PSC is moving its central value added metric, which it has claimed will make it a very rigorous accrediting agency, out of its standards, and into policy documents that can be edited at any time.

2 months ago | newamerica.org | Edward Conroy

The most frequent response you are likely to get from a financial aid professional when asking “how much help will I get to pay for college”? Is, it depends. That answer might annoy a student, but it’s one driven by the reality that financial aid is really complicated. Part of the U.S. Department of Education’s job is to help students navigate that complexity.