Posts by Robyn Bland
The Hidden Financial Aid Hurdle Derailing College Students
At 19, Elizabeth Clews knew attending community college while balancing a full-time job and caring for a newborn would be hard. But she wanted to give it a shot. After a few months, the single mom, who had just exited the foster care system, realized she wasn’t doing well enough to pass her classes at…
Read MoreProposed Welfare Rule Change May Alter State Scholarship Funding Practices
Colleges and universities in at least eight states could lose a total of between $970 million and $1.3 billion in scholarship funding under a new rule proposed by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The states have been misusing funds from the federal welfare program Temporary Assistance for Needy Families that were intended to help low-income parents on…
Read More‘Modernizing Postsecondary Policy to Better Support Adult Learners’: A Special Report
Inside Higher Ed published a new special report, “Modernizing Postsecondary Policy to Better Support Adult Learners,” with insight provided by HLA’s Julie Peller, executive director, and Amy Ellen Duke-Benfield, managing director of policy and research. This free, print-on-demand report explores how current federal and state policies can impede working learners, veterans, student parents and other…
Read MoreHigher Learning Advocates and 40 Organizations Celebrate Bipartisan Resolution Marking September as National Student Parent Month
Higher Learning Advocates and 40 organizations signed on to a letter to Senators Jerry Moran (R-KS) and Tom Carper (D-DE) applauding Congress for passing the National Student Parent Month resolution. For the third consecutive year, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution designating September as a national celebration of parenting students, which acknowledges the sacrifices…
Read MoreFunding for College-Completion Program at Risk in Federal Budget
Fourteen thousand students dropped out of the Austin Community College District in Texas during the last two academic years. But the institution of more than 36,000 students has a plan to get some of them back. Supported by a $770,765 Education Department grant, that plan involves reaching out to students and connecting them with career…
Read MoreHow to Increase Socioeconomic Diversity at the Ivies
Ivy League colleges are under growing pressure to broaden their student base by using admission policies that increase the proportion of low- and moderate-income students on campuses and raise their rate of socioeconomic mobility. A new report, released Tuesday by the HEA Group, a research and consulting firm focused on college access and success, says…
Read MoreLetter from 39 Organizations Asks ED to Reset Satisfactory Academic Progress
Higher Learning Advocates and 38 organizations submitted a letter to the U.S. Department of Education in support of reforming SAP (satisfactory academic progress) for today’s students, especially returning adult students from the population of 40 million Americans with some college and no credential.
Under current SAP regulations, an individual’s academic performance indefinitely follows them even upon attempted reentry years later, which can result in prospective students being ineligible for critical student financial aid.
Read MoreLetter to Congress from 49 Organizations in Support of SNAP for Today’s Students
Higher Learning Advocates and 48 organizations submitted a letter to Congress in support of expanding SNAP benefits to help counteract the rising rate of food insecurity among today’s students in higher education. Currently, more than one-third of students struggle to afford food and groceries, but only 31% of college students who meet SNAP income limits…
Read MoreComments on Proposed Gainful Employment Regulations
Higher Learning Advocates submitted comments to the U.S. Department of Education (ED) in response to its recent Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) on Gainful Employment (GE) and Certification Procedures, sharing both support for the Department’s actions to reimplement GE and recommendations to strengthen the proposed regulation. While we strongly support ED’s implementation of the GE…
Read MoreDebt Ceiling Deal May Endanger Plan to Double Pell Grants by 2029
“President Joe Biden pledged to double the maximum Pell Grant by 2029, but his recent debt ceiling deal is seemingly at odds with that plan. Biden’s deal struck with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy places spending caps on discretionary spending for fiscal years 2024 and 2025. Factoring in projected inflation over the next two years, the deal will…
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