Matt Chingos’s Tweets

. DCPS parent (x2). Author of GAME OF LOANS & CROSSING THE FINISH LINE.

Washington, DCurban.org/policy-centers…Joined July 2009

1,096 Following

7,650 Followers

Matt Chingos’s Tweets

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Jan 12

The Education Data Explorer -- the point-and-click interface of the Education Data Portal -- has a fresh new look and enhanced functionality. A quick thread on how to use the new Explorer to access data on schools, districts, and colleges (1/N) educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer

Who attends alternative schools, and how has the sector evolved over time? New Learning Curve essay by

@adamkho_

@sjrabovsky

The Students Alternative Schools Serve

As states establish accountability measures more appropriate for highly mobile students in alternative schools, we need to understand the students who attend these schools to address their needs and...

Jul 27

I love that this morning's NYT newsletter on changes in ASL managed to find a cranky retired professor to complain about the kids these days:

Got some big

fans down here in the DMV.

Jul 25

This special call for proposals has a deadline of August 31, 2022. (We also continue to invite general pitches for Learning Curve essays on an open-ended basis.) Read more and find the link to the application form here:

Learning Curve Call for Proposals: Analyzing Existing and Proposed Policies

Analyses of proposed policies (including legislation, informal proposals by legislators, candidates, advocacy groups, etc) can estimate how the proposal is likely to affect different groups of students, institutions, or government budgets. For example:

The States That Need It Most Might Not Enroll in Statewide Free Meals

President Biden’s proposed Build Back Better agenda would allow states to provide free school meals to all students, but the proposed reimbursement structure might discourage some states where child...

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Jul 25

Analyses of existing policies can show how it affected students (and education systems), unintended consequences that resulted, and broader lessons learned. For example:

The Fine Print on Free College: Who Benefits from New York’s Excelsior Scholarship?

Though federal efforts to enact free college have stalled, some states and individual colleges have continued to promote affordable higher education with various programs under the label of free...

New Call for Proposals -- send us your ideas for analyzing the effects of existing or proposed policies! Accepted essays will be published on the Learning Curve and authors receive a $2,500 honorarium:

Learning Curve Call for Proposals: Analyzing Existing and Proposed Policies

In my view, there's way too little analysis of policies governing how student loans are made (as opposed to how they are repaid). So it's great to see

@delislealleges

's new brief on student loan limits:

Federal Undergraduate Loan Limits and Inflation

This brief examines data on students constrained by borrowing limits and the evidence on how prior loan limit increases affected students and institutions.

Jul 11

My first ride with the Folding Thunder biker gang.

Matt Chingos Retweeted

Nick Sementelli

@NSementelli

Jul 8

Can I find 4 more folks who care about closing the 8th Street Gap in the MBT to help push our letter over 800 signatures?! mailchi.mp/10da8fbbe58d/8

Jul 8

Do students borrow more at colleges that set higher living allowances (even after accounting for cost of living in the area)? New Learning Curve essay by

@clibassi

@zmabes

finds that they do:

A Closer Look at College Affordability: The Link between Living Allowances and Student Debt

Jul 7

Join us at 4pm TODAY at

(L'Enfant Plaza and online) for a discussion of Sandy Baum & Mike McPherson's new book, moderated by

@DLeonhardt

. Reception to follow!

Can College Level the Playing Field? Higher Education in an Unequal Society

Join the Urban Institute for a conversation about the role of higher education in reducing inequality in a society in which children grow up in dramatically unequal environments and adults face...

Matt Chingos Retweeted

David Deming

@ProfDavidDeming

Jul 7

The Harvard Skills Lab is hiring for a Product Manager to work with

@Weidmann

and me + a small team of software developers to design and develop “soft skills” assessment tools. See the full job ad here harvardskillslab.com/_files/ugd/175. Please RT + send to your network, and/or apply! 1/x

Researchers can access the data through our Education Data Portal API (including Stata/R packages): educationdata.urban.org/documentation/ And anyone can download data for their local schools from our Education Data Explorer: educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer

We emphasize that these are ESTIMATES that are measured with (varying degrees of) error, so are more useful for research and policy analysis than for policymaking. But we think that, for many uses, MEPS is a significant improvement over existing measures.

Some states report free lunch counts for their schools, some report direct certification counts, and some reports a mix or both.

, Emily Gutierrez, and I developed a model to map these different measures onto a common scale.

Free lunch participation is no longer a useful proxy for student need in many schools, so what should researchers and policy analysts use instead? Check out the first nationally comparable measure of student poverty at the school level:

Model Estimates of Poverty in Schools

Most researchers and policymakers rely on the share of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals when describing student socioeconomic background in schools.

How does inequality in the U.S. manifest - from children’s earliest experiences in life to what they encounter as adults in the labor market - and what is role of higher ed? Join us on Thursday at

for a discussion moderated by

@DLeonhardt

Can College Level the Playing Field? Higher Education in an Unequal Society

Join the Urban Institute for a conversation about the role of higher education in reducing inequality in a society in which children grow up in dramatically unequal environments and adults face...

Jul 5

Which master's degree programs weigh down students with high debt relative to their earnings? Turns out private nonprofits are the biggest offenders.

High-Debt, Low-Earning Master’s Degrees Are Widespread at Private Nonprofit Universities

New Urban Institute analysis shows master’s programs at private nonprofit universities make up a disproportionate share of graduate degree programs that lead to high debt-to-earnings ratios.

Matt Chingos Retweeted

Kristin Blagg

Jun 29

Researchers use FRLP eligibility as a proxy for the share of students from low-income families in schools, but these data can be inconsistent. Emily Gutierrez,

, and I built a new statistical measure, MEPS, to compensate for these differences:

Model Estimates of Poverty in Schools

Most researchers and policymakers rely on the share of students eligible for free and reduced-price meals when describing student socioeconomic background in schools.

Tying forgiveness to the payment restart would also make clear that forgiveness is a one-time thing tied to the pandemic, and not how the Biden administration plans to run the loan program.

How Forgiveness Could Support the Student Loan Restart

By tying student loan forgiveness to borrowers reconnecting with their loan servicers, President Biden can ease the transition back toward loan repayments.

Normally adding administrative burden is a bad idea, but in this case it could have the upside of making the payment restart work better. Downside seems limited -- people who don't reconnect with their servicers are going to default regardless of whether they owe $15k or $25k.

Here's how it would work: The 15 million borrowers who owe less than $10,000 wouldn't have to do anything, but the 45 million who owe more would have to connect with their servicers and make a plan to resume repayment (which could be $0 IDR payments if they are eligible).

The payment restart appears on track to be a shitshow -- Dept of Ed is missing email addresses for 13% of borrowers. Biden could grab borrowers' attention by requiring them to reconnect with their servicer in order to get the $10,000 of forgiveness.

President Biden is reportedly planning to dampen any inflationary impact of student loan forgiveness by tying it to the payment restart. I argue that coupling these policies makes sense but that Biden should consider going one step further:

How Forgiveness Could Support the Student Loan Restart

By tying student loan forgiveness to borrowers reconnecting with their loan servicers, President Biden can ease the transition back toward loan repayments.

And stay afterwards for a reception with FREE BOOZE where you can mingle with DC's (triple-vaccinated) elite. Thursday, July 7 at 4pm -- in-person at Urban's L'Enfant Plaza headquarters and streamed online (register for link).

Join us for

's first IN-PERSON education policy event where Sandy Baum & Mike McPherson will discuss their new book on higher education's role in reducing inequality. Awesome panelists include

@DLeonhardt

@davidmwessel

& Rekha Balu:

Can College Level the Playing Field? Higher Education in an Unequal Society

Join the Urban Institute for a conversation about the role of higher education in reducing inequality in a society in which children grow up in dramatically unequal environments and adults face...

And read the full report on strengthening institutional accountability (by Sandy Baum

@etblom

@js_cohn

Using Multiple Metrics to Strengthen Institutional Accountability

Design your own higher education accountability system and see how it would affect different types of institutions. New policy modeling tool from

team:

By using multiple metrics that holistically capture the return on students’ investment in higher education, policymakers can develop a reliable high-quality accountability system.

Degrees of Value

Should school systems collect and publicly report data on the languages students speak at home? In a new Learning Curve essay,

& Marguerite Lukes show how this kind of data could inform decision-making in education:

Leveraging Nuanced Data to Inform Research and Policy for Immigrant Students and Families

More than a quarter of US children have at least one immigrant parent, but researchers and policymakers often do not have adequate data on these children’s experiences in school.

Jun 9

YIMBY Congress has gone too far.

Jun 8

Exciting news -- and great to see my

colleague

@TomasEMonarrez

is part of the inaugural team!

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James Kvaal

@UnderSecKvaal

· Jun 8

I’m pleased to share some big news: Secretary Cardona has appointed Jordan Matsudaira to serve as the Department of Education’s first-ever Chief Economist. Jordan, with years of higher education research experience, is the perfect person to carry out the role of Chief Economist.

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For the 43 million Americans with student loan debt, income-driven repayment (IDR) plans can offer a more affordable option for paying off loan balances. A third of all borrowers, holding nearly half...

Jun 3

How would different approaches to income-driven repayment affect borrowers like Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani, Janet, Michael, and Jason? New from Sandy Baum

team:

#2:

looks at how federal policymakers hold short-term credential programs accountable for student outcomes:

How Should Federal Policymakers Hold Short-Term Credential Programs Accountable?

Short-term postsecondary credentials can help students improve their job opportunities at a lower cost than traditional degree programs. Many graduates, however, struggle in the labor market.

Learning Curve double-header: #1:

@MimiArnoldLyon

examines characteristics of school districts where teachers went on strike:

In the Strike Zone: New Data to Contextualize the Recent Surge in Teacher Strikes

Patterns in teacher strikes between fall 2007 and spring 2019 show that most of the 696 strikes that occurred over those 12 years happened between 2017 and 2019, and most of them were part of...

Bottom line: it seems hard to justify all the rigmarole of verifying income eligibility for such a small change in progressivity and cost.

107

This income cap would make forgiveness slightly more progressive by phasing it out for borrowers with very high incomes.

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· Apr 30

Upper-middle-income families would get the largest share of dollars and low-income families the smallest. Means-testing produces a somewhat more progressive distribution -- but not that much given the income caps being considered. Very similar results for $20k plan (not shown).

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May 27

Latest reports indicate the White House is leaning towards cancelling $10,000 of student debt with income caps of $150k/$300k for single/married borrowers. washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2022 That income cap would shave ~4% off the total amount of debt forgiven (relative to no income cap).

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