Public Service Loan Forgiveness: A Rewarding Way to Pay Off College Debt

There is growing concern about the amount of student loan debt in the U.S, with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) warning that more than $1 trillion is owed on outstanding loans.  The reason behind this record amount of student debt is tied to the rising cost of college and the increase in college enrollment.

While a college degree is still a worthwhile investment, the debt today’s graduates accumulate can impede their financial stability for decades after they leave school.  In fact, it can leave many young people with the impression they can’t afford to take a job in public service, such as teaching, because it doesn’t offer a salary high enough to pay off their loans. This reality drives talent away from public service, and is one of reasons the CFPB  and others are trying to raise awareness of loan repayment and forgiveness options (See: Public Service & Student Debt).

According to the CFPB, the cost of attending a public university in the U.S. has increased 42% in the last ten years, and for private universities the cost rose 31% for the same period.

Yet even in the face of rising costs, more people are attending college.  In the last 20 years, college enrollment has risen from 13.8 million to 21 million.  Pew Research now estimates 19%, or one out of five, American households owe outstanding student debt as of 2010.

As worrying as the cost of a college education may be, there is still value in it.  Last year

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Class Attendance is Tied to Outcomes, Even in Preschool

Not long ago, I was talking about early learning with a cousin who teaches Pre-K here in Oklahoma. Our state’s publically funded Pre-K program, although universally available to children, is not mandatory. However, my cousin Jane said we still need to stress to parents that regular attendance for enrolled students is important, even if the program itself is voluntary. This is a familiar theme in my world; because attendance is something we are mindful of here at CAP Tulsa as well.

And we’re not alone in our concern, either. Researchers at the University of Chicago have found that preschool students do, in fact, miss a lot of school. Their recent report, Preschool Attendance in Chicago Public Schools, states almost half of three-year-olds and more than one-third of four-year-olds are chronically absent from school. To put Chicago’s rate of preschool absenteeism into perspective, only 11% of kindergartners across the country are chronically absent.

But what does chronically absent mean? And why is regular attendance important at such an early age?

“Chronic absenteeism,” for the purposes of the Chicago report, was defined as having an absence rate of 10% or higher. The “absence rate” is determined by taking the number of days a student missed school and dividing it by the total number of days he or she was enrolled. As they put it – if a typical student was enrolled for 150 days, he or she would be chronically absent if 15 or more days were missed over the course of the school year.

Researchers determined, among other things, that chronic absenteeism is higher among students who live in high-poverty areas. This is troubling because

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