New Report: After the FAFSA

We released a new report today, After the FAFSA: How Red Tape Can Prevent Eligible Students from Receiving Aid. It examines how the complicated process after students submit the FAFSA can keep them from getting grants they would otherwise qualify for, and recommends improvements at the federal and campus levels. The report also notes that the U.S. Department of Education's pending draft regulations, which are intended to streamline the federal aid "verification" process, could actually increase paperwork burdens on some of the neediest students and the colleges that serve them.

Read the press release

Read the report

New Dept. of Education Proposal on Career Education Rip-Offs

Last week the U.S. Department of Education proposed a much-needed definition of "gainful employment" to hold colleges accountable for career education programs that over-promise and under-deliver. Hundreds of you sent letters urging the Department to issue the rules in time for them to take effect next year, and the Department did -- thank you for keeping the pressure on!

The proposed definition of gainful employment is a step in the right direction, but it needs to be strengthened to more fully protect students and taxpayers from programs that routinely leave students deep in debt they cannot repay.

See our statement

Follow TICAS on Twitter!

We just joined Twitter today! Please follow us and stay up-to-the-minute on what we're doing and what's happening in the world of financial aid and student loan policy.

Follow @TICAS_org on Twitter

NASFAA Honors Lauren Asher

Last week at their national conference in Denver, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators awarded TICAS President Lauren Asher with the 2010 Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award, for "published work which exemplifies the highest quality of research methodology, analysis, or topical writing on the subject of student financial aid or its administration." Lauren and TICAS are humbled to receive this honor, and to share it with Alisa Cunningham, Vice President of Research and Programs at the Institute for Higher Education Policy.

Featured Work

Poll: Young Adults Say Higher Education is More Important but Less Affordable

A national bi-partisan survey of adults ages 18-34 reveals that young adults today believe a college education is more important than it was for their parents' generation, that it has become less affordable in the last five years, and that students are leaving school with too much debt.

Student Debt and the Class of 2010

College seniors who graduated in 2010 carried an average of $25,250 in student loan debt and also faced the highest unemployment levels for new college graduates in recent history at 9.1 percent.

Critical Choices

Our new report looks at promising and problematic practices of financial aid offices when students apply for private student loans.

Still Denied

Our new issue brief Still Denied: How Community Colleges Shortchange Students by Not Offering Federal Loans found that more than one million community college students were denied access federal student loans, the safest and most affordable way to borrow for college.

Adding It All Up

By the end of October, U.S. colleges must meet a federal requirement to create online "net price calculators." We took an early look at how colleges are approaching this requirement and found mixed results for how easy the calculators were to find, use, and understand. 

Student Debt and the Class of 2009

Our student debt report for the class of 2009 found college seniors carried an average of $24,000 in student loan debt while unemployment climbed from 5.8% to 8.7% in 2009.

After the FAFSA

This report sheds light on what happens to federal financial aid applicants after they submit the FAFSA. Using 2007-08 financial aid data from 13 California community colleges, the Institute found that one in three likely Pell-eligible applicants did not receive a Pell Grant.