TICAS' 2025 Federal Policy Agenda advises members of the 119th Congress on how to strengthen the nation's higher education system to ensure a college degree is both accessible and affordable. Our higher education system faces extensive challenges, but a postsecondary credential remains the most reliable path to economic mobility, and the economy…

It has become increasingly difficult for the two major parties in Congress to reach agreement on major higher education legislation. As a result, the Higher Education Act is long overdue for reauthorization. Congressional stalemates on higher education legislation are not conducive to effective and productive governance in this important area of…

Despite the billions of dollars that the federal government spends each year on education and workforce training, education and labor market outcomes remain inequitable. Research shows that students do not receive sufficient information about what careers are available and which courses best lead to those options, so they waste time in courses…

Troubled by the inequities in competitive grantmaking, we use critical quantitative methods to analyze the FY2023 federal academic earmarks as a potential mechanism for racialized change work. Specifically, we ask: To what extent does Congress distribute academic earmarks in ways that reinforce or weaken the racialized stratification of resources…

Background: Nearly two decades have passed since the last successful reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. Since then, student loan debt and the accumulation patterns based on race have become a pressing issue to address in U.S. society. Purpose: Student debt is one of the key issues on the federal higher education policy agenda. The…

The nineteenth-century debate about the role of the US Bureau of Education was marked by negotiations between the civic republican language of antebellum common school advocacy and a social scientific language of educational professionalism. To advance this argument, this essay traces how members of Congress defined, criticized, and delimited the…

The persistent problem of sexual assault on college campuses is receiving attention in both the public sphere and state legislatures. Although a considerable body of research examines various aspects of campus sexual assault, such as rates and reporting, scholars have not examined how state characteristics and interstate dynamics influence the…

International relations is often confusing for students. IR theories are introduced as parsimonious and elegant and then systematically challenged as students learn more about detailed events. There are rules, there are norms, and states follow them until they don't. East Asia increases these challenges because it often undermines IR theory.…

Art Ellison is longtime advocate for adult education, having managed numerous advocacy campaigns over the past forty years on the state and national levels. Prior to his employment in 1980 as the NH State Director of Adult Education he worked for many years as a high school teacher and as a community organizer. In this article, Ellison offers some…

This case study analyses the events and debates between 2012 and 2016 leading up to the adoption of a Legal Framework for early childhood development in Brazil, focussing on advocacy efforts of the National Network of Early Childhood (RNPI), while recognising the active roles played by the Brazilian government's legislative and executive powers,…

As Congress considers the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), there is bipartisan interest in finding ways to address concerns about student debt and the quality of higher education. One possibility for bipartisan cooperation might be an attempt to provide more accountability in the higher education sector, including additional data…

The role and impact of taxes in the lives of Americans makes basic tax education an imperative for all Americans. Not only will that knowledge be valuable to the taxpayer, it will also be valuable to the Government that imposes a variety of taxes. Specifically, it is our position that the lack of basic understanding of taxes is unwarranted, long…

Since the 1970s, American governors have become increasingly active in education politics. Where they once told state education chiefs to "make me the best education governor ever," they now demand control of state boards of education, push for state control of school funding, and urge statewide standards for teacher evaluation. This…

Now that Republicans have taken control of the U.S. House of Representatives and bolstered their minority in the U.S. Senate, it remains to be seen if education is one area of federal policy that can avoid the partisan stalemate that many observers predict will paralyze Washington for the next two years. Republicans and Democrats famously came…

In this paper the author offers a reprint of "Equality of Opportunity: The Making of the Americans with Disabilities Act" (July 26, 1997). This personal story is part and parcel of the ADA's (Americans with Disabilities Act) significance in the society. The ADA is a nondiscrimination law. It is a clarion call for transforming attitudes…