The cost of child poverty: $500 billion a year
The United States has the second-highest child poverty rate among the world’s richest 35 nations, and the cost in economic and educational outcomes is half a trillion dollars a year, according to a new report by the Educational Testing Service.The report, called “Poverty and Education, Finding the Way Forward,” says that 22 percent of the nation’s children live in relative poverty, with only Romania having a higher rate in the group of 35 nations. (Next are Latvia, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, Italy, Lithuania, Japan and Portugal, it says; the country with the lowest child poverty rate is Iceland, and the second lowest is Finland.) The report notes, though, that the official U.S. poverty rate is incomplete, and that other data show that 48 percent of the population had incomes in 2011 that are considered inadequate or not livable. (Relative
The Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges plans to announce Thursday the formation of a national commission to review how schools are governed and make recommendations for change. Read full article >>
Why the student loan compromise compromises students
The problem with the compromise that the Obama administration and the Republicans struck over student loan rates is that it compromises students. The deal, which the Senate passed late Wednesday, would bring down student loan rates, which were 3.4 percent until they doubled on July 1 to 6.8 percent because Congress failed to meet a deadline to act on the issue. But it also will link student l