About time.
The U.S. Department of Education last week issued the final regulations for the new, more-generous student-loan repayment program announced by the president last October. The plan, known as “Pay as You Earn,” will allow some graduates to peg their federal loan payments to 10% of their discretionary income and then have any remaining balance forgiven after 20 years.
I am currently flying back from the College Board’s National Forum in Miami, FL.[1] I was there as part of the College Board’s ELA program.
My impression of the conference (or forum) was that there is a great deal of passion, hope, and energy in the education professionals who were gathered there. The amount of talent there makes me believe that change is possible even in the face of all of the barriers, all the way through the education pipeline. From pre-K through the highest levels of graduate education there are people working to make the world a better place.
It is great to spend a few days with people who are willing to go base-jumping to make education better for all students. I met many people who are willing to think big, execute and risk everything for students. We need more people like this who are ready to go base-jumping.
It will be very interesting to see where the College Board moves under the new leadership of David Coleman in order to support these people and the education of today’s and the future’s students.
Since Hurricane Sandy did not hit Miami, I guess I can only really say that it was rather windy and rainy while I was in Miami, but not that I experienced an actual hurricane? ↩
I bet on this happening at some point with the introduction of the Net Price Calculator requirement on college websites. College Abacus has launched their Kayak.com-like service for price shopping colleges. I was certainly not the only person to perdict this.
Right now they say they have over 2,000 schools available to search but it is not clear if the colleges agreed to be a part or if the service is simply scraping results from their sites (just like kayak.com has done in the past and run into issues with the airlines, see here and here).
If College Abacus is not asking permission of the colleges, what might the reaction be? Should be interesting to watch, especially that they try to tackle some of the more complex (some have over 50 questions) Net Price Calculators.
As part of the College Board’s Enrollment Leadership Academy I am headed to Miami, FL in two weeks for the College Board’s National Forum.[1] The sessions and presentations are looking really good and I am looking forward to meeting/speaking with a bunch of people in higher education and K–12 from around the country.
If you will be there and want to meet for coffee or drinks, send me a message on twitter @scottcline or if you are more bleeding edge App.net @scottcline.
Call me strange, but one of my favorite parts of traveling from coast-to-coast for conferences is the five hour flight of uninurrpted time to get work done without phone calls (even though more and more I still have internet access). It is great for getting large sections of writing done. It might have been cheaper and more efficent to book more cross-country flights while writing my dissertation then paying for coffee at a coffee shop. ↩
The school year is in full swing and the puppy is now 11 weeks old with her second round of shots, so a few notes, links and catch up items.
OK, those were some odds and ends that needed catching up on over the past two weeks.