News Headline

washingtonpost.com — Students enrolled in a $6 billion federal reading program that is at the heart of the No Child Left Behind law are not reading any better than those who don't participate, according to a U.S. government report. The study released by the Department of Education's research arm found that students in schools that use Reading First, which provides grants to improve elementary school reading, scored about the same on comprehension tests as their peers who attended schools that did not receive program money.

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msnbc.msn.com — Unable to push education fixes through Congress, the Bush administration is taking its own pen to the No Child Left Behind law. The Education Department plans to make a host of changes to the education law through regulations. Among the biggest changes is a requirement that by the 2012-13 school year, all states must calculate their high school graduation rates in a uniform way.

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news.newamericamedia.org — A recent study found urban schools in metropolitan areas surrounding 35 of the nation’s largest cities have lower graduation rates than schools in nearby suburban communities. Approximately 1.2 million students drop out each year–about 7,000 every school day, or one every 26 seconds. Nearly half of all Black and Native American students are expected not to graduate with their classes, while less than six in 10 Hispanic students will.

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washingtonpost.com — The House, trying to avert a looming shortage in available student loans, approved a measure allowing the Department of Education to buy federally guaranteed loans that lenders are unable to sell to private investors. The action is intended to address a crisis in the market that has forced Reston-based Sallie Mae, Citigroup's Student Loan subsidiary and about 50 other lenders to stop writing some forms of student loans.

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msnbc.msn.com — Sallie Mae says it cannot write money-losing student loans indefinitely. Top executives are holding “daily deliberations” about how long the nation’s largest student lender can afford to sacrifice its bottom line for the sake of college-bound Americans, Sallie Mae CEO Albert J. Lord said. Lord told analysts, "We’ve been predicting something of a train wreck" in mid-2008 without prompt changes in a market hit by fallout from the subprime mortgage crisis and cuts last year in federal subsidies to student lenders.

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politico.com — Some financial prognosticators see the struggling student loan market, hit by the same credit crunch that’s battered Wall Street, as a potential moneymaker. As many as a dozen hedge funds are watching intently to see if Congress cobbles together a rescue package that adds liquidity to the market for student-loan-backed securities.

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boston.com — The credit market crisis is spreading to student loans. More than 50 firms have abandoned or cut back their federal or private student loan programs this year, unable to raise money in the financial markets. Citigroup, one of the largest private lenders, has said it would stop lending at some schools and end its federal loan consolidations.

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marketplace.publicradio.org — A growing chunk of college costs is the price of textbooks, on which the typical undergraduate spends $900 a year. So a group of college professors is calling for low-priced and free texts online. Congress is getting involved, too.

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chronicle.com — Sallie Mae, the nation’s largest student-loan company, is taking another step away from the government-backed student-loan business, further exacerbating the sense of crisis hanging over the industry.

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nytimes.com — Parents will have to navigate unfamiliar and difficult terrain when it comes time to pay for college this year, with student loan companies in turmoil and banks tightening their standards and raising rates on other types of borrowing.

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