By Matthew M. Chingos and Martin R. West. The two most significant laws governing education in this nation, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and the Higher Education Act (HEA), are both well past due for a congressional update. ESEA was last reauthorized in 2002, with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act, and the latest iteration of HEA was authorized in 2008. Despite widespread consensus that these laws need to be rewritten, every attempt at reauthorization in recent years has been met with failure. More...

By Siddharth Kulkarni and Jonathan Rothwell. In our new report, “Beyond College Rankings,” we score two- and four-year U.S. colleges by their “value-added,” meaning the degree to which students do better than expected given their personal characteristics and the kind of school it is. More...

By Rebecca Winthrop and Eileen McGivney. In the last 200 years, the number of children attending primary school globally has grown from 2.3 million to 700 million today, covering nearly 90 percent of the world’s school-age children. But the gulf in average levels of education between rich and poor countries remains huge. Without a fundamental rethinking of current approaches to education, it's going to take another 100 years for children in developing countries to reach the education levels achieved in developed countries. Something needs to change. More...

By Beth Akers. Good morning Chairman Alexander, Ranking Member Murray, and distinguished Members of the Committee. Thank you for giving me the opportunity to be here today to share my thoughts on this very important issue.
My name is Beth Akers.  I am a fellow at the Brookings Institution where I carry out research on the topic of higher education, with a particular focus on student loans. More...