Julie Peller, executive director of Higher Learning Advocates, said, “It just puts data behind what we all know: lower-income, working adults and student parents are being hit hardest and are needing to make difficult choices to stop or drop out of college during this pandemic in ways that some of their peers are not.” Read…

WASHINGTON — Earlier today, a bipartisan group of Senators released a framework summary for their $908 billion proposal, dubbed the Bipartisan Emergency COVID Relief Act of 2020. While we are encouraged by bipartisan movement to provide additional COVID relief before the end of the year, we continue to urge Congressional leaders and negotiators t...

Higher Learning Advocates, a bipartisan policy organization, and other groups, are urging Biden to pick an Education secretary “who holds both classroom experience and higher education experience” — a role that’s often been held by someone with more K-12 education focus. Read the full piece here.

Julie Peller, executive director of Higher Learning Advocates, told the Hechinger Report that the FAFSA application is often the first step students take when applying to college. FAFSA applications are strong predictors of student enrollment, particularly for low-income students who depend on the FAFSA to pay for college. Read the full piece here....

COVID-19 has upended the global economy with astonishing speed and severity. Millions have had their work environments drastically changed, or even worse, now find themselves without work and with few options. In contrast to past recessions, certain industries are bearing the brunt of the damage. Sadly, they happen to be ones that offer employment ...

WASHINGTON — This morning, Julie Peller, Executive Director of Higher Learning Advocates, made the following statement regarding the 2020 elections: “As we welcome President-Elect Biden, Vice President-Elect Harris, and the 117th Congress, Higher Learning Advocates is energized by the opportunity for renewed bipartisan work centered on the ...

For the 2021-2022 school year, the FAFSA application cycle that opened on Oct. 1 ends on June 30. Submitting a FAFSA early has its benefits, while waiting to submit can have long-lasting consequences. “State aid – and many states rely on FAFSA completion – is a lot of times first come, first served, even for…

Back to school shopping should be an exciting time for many children and parents. Yet, for families that have to decide between a pack of binders or a pack of diapers for the week, it can be an extremely stressful time. COVID-19 has changed the landscape of what back to school shopping looks like. Forget…

Emily Bouck West and Wesley Whistle discuss the issues students face when they do not have access to reliable and affordable WiFi and laptops. Students often suffer setbacks in learning because they can’t access or complete coursework at home. Read the full piece here.

I, like the rest of nearly four million student parents, am already juggling a million different tasks all at once. Student parents juggle ever so carefully because we have perfectly balanced everything out. However, in March, those carefully balanced tasks were all thrown out of balance and we were tasked with yet another hundred things…

“Was higher ed designed for minority students?”   A student asked this question during a Temple University “Sociology of Education” class I spoke to this fall about parenting college students.   My answer? “No.” The first college in the United States, Harvard University (then Harvard College), was founded in 1636, and its legacy and...

Before the COVID-19 pandemic upturned how all of us work and learn, nearly four million student parents—more than a fifth of the entire U.S. undergraduate student population—faced near-impossible demands on their time and resources as they worked to juggle school and child care. Life before the pandemic was not working for most student parents....