On the very day that a Republican filibuster halted a Democrat-backed student loan bill that would have extended the 3.4% interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans, a key administration official went to Boston to pitch the president's goals on higher ed funding and a national think tank delivered ...]]> It was quite a week for student financial aid news.

On the very day that a Republican filibuster halted a Democrat-backed student loan bill that would have extended the 3.4% interest rates on subsidized Stafford loans, a key administration official went to Boston to pitch the president's goals on higher ed funding and a national think tank delivered recommendations on refocusing aid.

On the interest rate front, unless Congress can agree on a way to fund the interest-rate freeze, interest rates will double to 6.8% beginning July 1 for all new loans. Senate Democrats have proposed paying for the extension by ending a tax benefit for S corporations. The House had already passed a Republican-backed extension last month, which the Obama administration vows to veto because it would finance the interest-rate freeze by defunding parts of the health care affordability law.

• Also early in the week, U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Martha Kanter spoke at Northeastern University and met with a small group of higher education leaders, including Massachusetts Secretary of Education Paul Reville and NEBHE's President and CEO Michael Thomas. Kanter shared briefly some of the department's goals for increasing college affordability including:
  - Making the American Opportunity Tax Credit permanent
  - Doubling the number of Federal Work Study opportunities for students
  - Revisiting the distribution formula for Perkins Loans, Supplemental Educational Opportunity Grants (SEOG) and Work Study to reward campuses that offer lower net tuition prices and/or restrain tuition growth; enroll and graduate relatively higher numbers of Pell-eligible students; and prepares graduates to obtain employment and repay student loans through education and training programs.

• The Brookings Institution, meanwhile, hosted Making College Affordable: Strengthening State Grant Aid in conjunction with the release of "Beyond Need and Merit: Strengthening State Grant Programs," a report from the Brookings State Grant Aid Study Group. Recommendations included:
  - Focus resources on students whose chances of enrolling and succeeding in college will be most improved by the receipt of state support.
  - Consolidate and simplify programs in order to make them easily understood by prospective college students and their families.
  - Design programs so that they not only help students gain access to college but also encourage success after students arrive.

• The New England states vary in the average state grant aid per student and the percent of grant aid based on need (as opposed to merit). State data collected in the Brookings report indicate that while the New England states provided less grant aid to students than the national average in 2009-10, the six states granted a higher than average proportion of state grant aid to students based on need:

The meeting will offer an opportunity for students, families, advocates, financial aid counselors ...]]> U.S. Department of Education Under Secretary Martha Kanter and other senior officials will discuss the Obama administration’s college affordability and higher education policy reform proposals at a "town meeting"  scheduled for Tuesday, May 8, at 4 p.m. at Northeastern University's Cabral Student Center.

The meeting will offer an opportunity for students, families, advocates, financial aid counselors and other interested parties to ask questions and engage in a dialogue with the under secretary.

For more, view this form and RSVP to Amelia Brizicky at a.brizicky@neu.edu or 617-373-8528.

Despite the myth that Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students are universally high achieving, large groups of  AAPI students have low high school graduation rates and are underrepresented in certain sectors the workforce, according to a new report to be released by the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE) ...]]>

Despite the myth that Asian-American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) students are universally high achieving, large groups of  AAPI students have low high school graduation rates and are underrepresented in certain sectors the workforce, according to a new report to be released by the National Commission on Asian American and Pacific Islander Research in Education (CARE) based at New York University.

In particular, Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders suffer unemployment and poverty rates three to five times higher than other AAPI subgroups.

The report was released ahead of an APIASF Higher Education Summit, to be held June 23 in Washington, D.C., featuring keynotes by U.S. Under Secretary of Education Martha Kanter and U.S. Rep. Mike Honda (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.