Cost and Financing

Construction is predicted to be one of the fastest growing sectors in the next decade, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. In order to meet this demand, states have begun to enact new legislation and programs aimed at increasing the number of students attending vocational and technical education programs.

In 2017, Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam signed a ...

Data from the National Center for Education Statistics, or NCES, states that 53.4 percent of post-secondary undergraduate students financed at least part of their education through federal loans in 2011-12, an increase from 34.4 percent in 2003-04¹. While the NCES’s data does not account for private loans, which would further raise this percentage, it already brings to concern the effect that increased educational borrowing will have on repayment rates and future personal financial indicators, such as credit scores.

Although a final version is expected to be released next week, The Washington Post obtained preliminary budget documents for the Trump Administration’s education spending. The proposed budget would end the federal student loan forgiveness program for public sector and non-profit workers, and cut...

The New York legislature passed a bill enacting the Excelsior Scholarship on April 7^th. The program, designed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, provides tuition-free college at New York public universities to families making up to $125,000 a year. Although other states offer free community college, New York is the first state to fully subsidize tuition at both two and four-year universities.

Minnesotans struggling with high student debt and monthly payments can now get some assistance from their state government. Launched in January, the Self Refi program is the result of legislation (HF 3172) passed in 2014. That law gave Minnesota’s Office of Higher Education the authority to refinance student loans through the sale of revenue bonds.

The idea of providing tuition-free community college got a major boost in early 2015, when President Barack Obama included it in his State of the Union speech. The America’s College Promise Actwas subsequently introduced this past summer in the U.S. House and U.S. Senate. If signed into law, the act would create a new state-federal partnership to waive student tuition and fees at community colleges, with the federal government providing $3 for every $1 invested by a state.

During the first half of 2013, state legislators crafted and passed budgets under much improved fiscal conditions. Later in the year, college students and their parents got a bit of relief of their own: The average cost of tuition and fees at the nation’s public four-year schools had risen by the lowest rate (2.9 percent) in more than 30 years, according to the College Board’s “Trends in College Pricing 2013.” It is a pattern seen time and again: Increases in state higher-education spending (the result, in many cases, of improved fiscal conditions) lead to smaller, or even no, hikes in tuition.