Given an opportunity to talk one-on-one with U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, the newspaper in Georgia Southern University’s hometown asked him what his department is doing about student debt.
In the 10-minute phone interview Monday evening, the Statesboro Herald also asked Duncan about Race to the Top grants to the states for K-12 education and whether there is an overemphasis on testing. Duncan was actually in Carrolton, where he visited Southwire, a cable manufacturer that places at-risk students in jobs in a program with the Carroll County school system. During the day, he also had visited Booker T. Washington High School in Atlanta with first lady Michelle Obama.
He mentioned her husband in answering the question about college debt.
“It’s a huge concern that the president and I worry a lot about, and I hear about it literally everywhere that I travel in the country,” Duncan said. “What I worry a lot about is that in hardworking, middle-class families, some are starting to think, well, college isn’t for me, college is just for rich folks, for wealthy folks.”
Of four-year college graduates nationwide, 71 percent left college with debt, averaging $29,400 in 2012, according to a report last December by the Institute for College Access & Success and its Project on Student Debt.
Meanwhile, the national, two-year default rate for federal student loans had risen from 9.1 percent for fiscal 2010 loans to 10 percent for 2011 loans, the Department of Education reported in September 2013. The two-year default rate for recipients who went to Georgia Southern was 18.5 percent for fiscal 2011, up from 17.3 percent in 2010, according to a school-specific report at www.nslds.ed.gov. These statistics, accessed independently, were not part of the interview with Duncan.
The Department of Education has put in place “income-based repayment,” Duncan noted. He wasn’t more specific than that in the brief interview, but President Barack Obama in June directed him to propose regulations expanding a program that allows some borrowers to cap payments at 10 percent of their income.
A $40 billion expansion of the Pell Grant program in the administration’s first term has grown the number of these family income-based grants from about 6 million to almost 9 million annually, Duncan noted. His point was that students do not have to repay the grants.
The White House maintains that the expansion was done at no net cost to taxpayers because the cost was offset by shifting subsidized student loans, through banks, to direct student loans, saving $68 billion.
“But I’m not satisfied,” Duncan said. “It’s still a very real concern, so we’re challenging ourselves to do more. We’re challenging states to reinvest in higher education, because we know when states cut their investment, the first thing universities do is they jack up their tuition, and we’re challenging universities themselves to do a better job of containing costs.”
The president, Duncan said, also has challenged the department to develop a rating system for colleges and universities. Part of the ratings will look at value, asking, “Are colleges affordable? Are they doing a good job of keeping down costs?” he said.
Race to the Top
Duncan is talking about progress on Race to the Top grants, awarded to states for proposals to improve primary and secondary education, as one of the announced topics of his three-state tour.
From the process that began in 2010, Georgia was one of the first 12 states awarded a grant, roughly $400 million.
A March 2014 U.S. Department of Education report noted delays in Georgia’s implementation of its plan the first year and some “significant challenges” the second year.
But observing that the states all face different challenges, Duncan said he believes Georgia is working hard to increase educational opportunities and reduce dropout rates.
“This work is hard. There’s nothing easy about it. It’s challenging all over the country, but we’ve been proud to be a partner with Georgia and feel that, overall, things are going in the right direction,” he said.
This school year, Georgia is replacing its Criterion-Referenced Competency Tests and End of Course Tests with a new testing program called Georgia Milestones Assessment System. Together with student learning objectives measured using locally selected tests, Georgia Milestones results also will be tied to teachers’ and principals’ performance in the state’s new Teacher Keys and Leader Keys Effectiveness Systems.
Asked if testing is being overemphasized with Race to the Top, Duncan defended the need for assessment, to an extent.
“What we’ve been real interested in is first of all having states have high standards so that young people are graduating from high school truly college- and career-ready, not having to take remedial classes once they get to college,” he said.
One state reported last week that 40 percent of its high school graduates require remedial classes when they arrive at college, Duncan noted. He didn’t name the state, but it was Oklahoma, according to media reports.
“So they had not been challenged, there was not a level of honesty and integrity there, and so we have to take that on, thinking about teacher and principal support and evaluation in more meaningful ways and ensuring that students are learning,” he said.
For these purposes, testing is important, but it can be taken too far, Duncan said. As superintendent of the Chicago schools, the job he held before Obama asked him to serve as secretary of education, he asked why the district was using both the Illinois test and the Iowa Test of Basic Skills, and Chicago dropped the Iowa test.
“Where either states or districts are doing too much time testing or where they’re spending too much time teaching to the test, we’re also asking them to challenge that status quo and be thoughtful on it, so there’s always a common-sense, middle ground,” he said.
Tuesday, Duncan visited schools and other sites in Birmingham and Huntsville, Alabama, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. Today, he will complete the tour with events in Nashville and Memphis.
Al Hackle may be reached at (912) 489-9454.