By Shanta Devarajan. The Middle East and North Africa (MENA) was the cradle of higher education.  The three oldest, still-functioning universities in the world are in Iran, Morocco, and Egypt.  The University of Al-Karaouine in Fes has been granting degrees since 859 A.D.  The Ancient Library of Alexandria, in addition to being repository of books and manuscripts, was a center of learning during the Ptolemaic dynasty, with scholars traveling to there from all around the Mediterranean and beyond.  And scholars such as Ibn Khaldoun discovered fundamental economics four centuries before Adam Smith and others. In short, all of us who have benefited from a university education owe a debt to the MENA region. More...

By Beth Akers, Adrianna Pita and Jonathan Rothwell. A lot of the conversation around college education is that tuition is increasing very rapidly, debt is increasing very rapidly and what does that mean for everyone? If we take a bigger step back we want to reframe the discussion around higher education as the potential investment available to people in our economy to help them be more productive in the labor market and to help them have better financial lives themselves. More...

By John Mugo. “So, now close your eyes and imagine we have arrived at the year 2030. What does Africa’s education now look like?” invited our facilitator, Dzingai Mutumbuka. More...

By Fred Dews. In the latest Intersections podcast, experts Beth Akers and Jonathan Rothwell discuss with host Adrianna Pita the current state of higher education, student debt, and whether taking on that debt is worth it. More...

By Emily Gustafsson-Wright and Sophie Gardiner. “This is about governments using data for performance rather than compliance” was a resounding message coming out of the U.S. Department of Education’s conference on June 10 on the use of Pay for Success contracts in education. These contracts, known globally as social impact bonds, continue to be at the forefront of global conversations about results-based financing mechanisms, and have garnered significant momentum this week with passage of the Social Impact Partnerships for Pay for Results Act in the U.S. More...

By Stephanie Riegg Cellini and Rajeev Darolia. College student loan debt has become a central focus of students and policymakers in the United States. Over the past ten years, the volume of outstanding college student loan debt has tripled, reaching more than $1 trillion and raising concerns for both students and policymakers. More...

By Richard V. Reeves and Edward Rodrigue. Community colleges are a vital part of America’s opportunity structure, not least because they often provide a way into higher education for adults from less advantaged backgrounds. Each year there are around 10 million undergraduates enrolled at public, two-year colleges. More...

By Dick Startz. More specifically, American teachers are underpaid when compared to teachers in the nations we compete with. Let me begin with a picture showing how we compare to Finland—everyone’s favorite educational success story and a country not noted for paying its teachers especially well. More...