education in usa topic

How much does the government spend on education? What percentage of people are college educated? How are kids doing in reading and math?

Table of Contents

What is the current state of education in the us.

How much does the US spend per student?

Public school spending per student

Average teacher salary.

How educated are Americans?

People with a bachelor's degree

Educational attainment by race and ethnicity.

How are kids doing in reading and math?

Proficiency in math and reading

What is the role of the government in education?

Spending on the education system

Agencies and elected officials.

The education system in America is made up of different public and private programs that cover preschool, all the way up to colleges and universities. These programs cater to many students in both urban and rural areas. Get data on how students are faring by grade and subject, college graduation rates, and what federal, state, and local governments spending per student. The information comes from various government agencies including the National Center for Education Statistics and Census Bureau.

During the 2019-2020 school year, there was $15,810 spent on K-12 public education for every student in the US.

Education spending per k-12 public school students has nearly doubled since the 1970s..

This estimate of spending on education is produced by the National Center for Education Statistics. Instruction accounts for most of the spending, though about a third includes support services including administration, maintenance, and transportation. Spending per student varies across states and school districts. During the 2019-2020 school year, New York spends the most per student ($29,597) and Idaho spends the least ($9,690).

During the 2021-2022 school year , the average public school teacher salary in the US was $66,397 .

Instruction is the largest category of public school spending, according to data from the National Center for Educational Statistics. Adjusting for inflation, average teacher pay is down since 2010.

In 2021 , 35% of people 25 and over had at least a bachelor’s degree.

Over the last decade women have become more educated than men..

Educational attainment is defined as the highest level of formal education a person has completed. The concept can be applied to a person, a demographic group, or a geographic area. Data on educational attainment is produced by the Census Bureau in multiple surveys, which may produce different data. Data from the American Community Survey is shown here to allow for geographic comparisons.

In 2021 , 61% of the Asian 25+ population had completed at least four years of college.

Educational attainment data from the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey allows for demographic comparisons across the US.

In 2022, proficiency in math for eighth graders was 26.5% .

Proficiency in reading in 8th grade was 30.8% ., based on a nationwide assessment, reading and math scores declined during the pandemic..

The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) is the only nationally representative data that measures student achievement. NAEP is Congressionally mandated. Tests are given in a sample of schools based on student demographics in a given school district, state, or the US overall. Testing covers a variety of subjects, most frequently math, reading, science, and writing.

In fiscal year 2020, governments spent a combined total of $1.3 trillion on education.

That comes out to $4,010 per person..

USAFacts categorizes government budget data to allocate spending appropriately and to arrive at the estimate presented here. Most government spending on education occurs at the state and local levels rather than the federal.

Government revenue and expenditures are based on data from the Office of Management and Budget, the Census Bureau, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Each is published annually, although due to collection times, state and local government data are not as current as federal data. Thus, when combining federal, state, and local revenues and expenditures, the most recent year for a combined number may be delayed.

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American Education: What We Absolutely Can and Should Be Doing

In a pandemic-induced moment when the American education system has been blown into 25 million homes across the country, where do we go from here?

In a wide-ranging national policy discussion on the current state and future of learning and work, John C. White , former state superintendent of schools in Louisiana and chair of Propel America , interviews John B. King, Jr. ,  former U.S. secretary of education under President Obama and president and CEO of Education Trust , and Margaret Spellings , former U.S. secretary of education under President Bush and president and CEO of Texas 2036 . Their conversation addresses how to motivate the national will, focus, and resources to improve preK–16 education and postsecondary pathways in the U.S. to better serve the future of our democracy and economy.

The Era of Local Control

JOHN C. WHITE: You’re both former secretaries of education, but currently leaders of state-specific efforts. Tell us about where the education systems of those states are, broadly speaking, in the pandemic and over the last nine months.

MARGARET SPELLINGS: I’ve been calling this the era of local control, where the states, for good or ill, have had the action on education. We have just had a time of really diminished federal leadership — some people love that, some people hate that. I think John and I both were privileged to serve in administrations where we did believe the federal platform was important.

I want to give a little context. The Texas legislature meets, blessedly, 140 days every two years. So two years ago they enacted a major education reform bill that invested around 10 billion dollars in K–12 education, including a billion dollars for early childhood education. Even in Texas those are big numbers. The bill included reforms around quality teaching and research-based reading instruction and accountability, technology, an extended school year — and these things were just on the eve of being implemented when COVID hit. So a major legislative battle we’ll be fighting this session is hanging onto those resources and the reforms.

How have we fared in COVID? Not terribly well. As John and I have said many times, it has revealed gaps that we knew existed for a very long time and made them worse. In Texas our enrollment is down about 6 percent – that’s about 250,000 students who now are not even enrolled, so we don’t know how they’re doing, let alone how we capture their learning or lack of it. We have early returns that there’s significant learning loss for all students, but certainly for our low-income and minority students. I’m concerned that we’ve asked not too much of our kids, but too little. They are disengaged, disconnected, and it’s not a good scene.

Technology — obviously we’ve expanded learning significantly from where we were. It’s been clumsy and awkward, but we’ve learned a lot. Better than nothing, but we are not where we should be, and without investment our workforce in Texas will not be all it needs to be in future years.

JOHN B. KING, JR.: In many ways the story in Maryland has significant parallels. This has been an incredibly difficult period and an equity disaster. We already had very large disparities pre-COVID between the performance of our Black and Latino students and our white students, disparities based on income, and COVID has exacerbated all of that. It’s the kids in our highest-needs communities that are least likely to have Internet. Their parents are the least likely to work from home so they’re not in a position to support them. Most of our districts have stayed virtual for a significant part of this period, and that will have a toll in terms of lost learning but also in terms of socio-emotional well-being. We are seeing that kids need the relationships with peers and teachers at school, and being without that is very hard on kids across lines of race and income.

Before COVID, our General Assembly passed a major school funding reform, so we have some parallels with Texas. It would have directed significant additional resources to our highest-needs districts and PreK, improved teacher compensation, and created a teacher career-ladder model to strengthen the profession. We were very excited, but COVID hit, and the governor used COVID as the pretense, in my view, to veto it, a funding reform he didn’t support in the first place. My expectation is that the General Assembly will override that veto in the next couple of months. *

I’m concerned that we’ve asked not too much of our kids, but too little.

The reality now is that funding reform is the floor. We actually need more resources now as we think about how we address learning loss, hopefully with things like high-dosage tutoring and an extended school year. We need more investment in counselors and mental health services.

We’re seeing some transformations in our economy that have made improving education even more urgent. Some jobs went away due to technology over the last decade that just aren’t coming back, and that process has only accelerated due to COVID. We really need a workforce that is ready for information economy jobs and green jobs and renewable energy.

We have a very educated state in Maryland. Upwards of 45 percent of folks have an associate’s degree or better, among the highest in the country. That positions us well, but if we want to continue to grow and be competitive, we’ve got to make sure that folks in the high-needs rural and urban parts of the state get the support they need, not just to get to college but to get through to a meaningful credential.

SPELLINGS: We envy Maryland’s high completion rate since Texas numbers are in the low 30s, and we have some industries that have been particularly strained — the oil and gas industry, the refinery industry. Those carbon-based jobs are in real stress, and they’ll come back only in the short run as we shift to a more carbon-neutral world.

So how do we do a much better job of connecting the supply side — largely undereducated people, especially in demographically changing states like ours — with the demand side, our employer community? We have enjoyed Texas being a magnet for talent from around the country and around the world, but we have done a much less good job of educating our own students. We have to change that.

A Civil Rights Issue

WHITE: One thing that struck me over the last four years is the absence of a sense of collective leadership. To what degree in your states are the leaders — political, business, civic, the community leaders — saying coherently that these are the priorities and we need to move forward? Or is it more like the Washington cacophony where people are still going in a million different directions?

KING: I think there’s a sense that we need to do better and invest more on the career and technical education front. That’s pretty broadly shared across the business community and political leaders. But there isn’t the “hair on fire” feeling of urgency that we should have.

I was thinking this morning about NAEP scores — the National Assessment of Educational Progress scores. Probably 34 percent of our fourth graders are African American, and of those, 49 percent are below basic in reading. That’s a disaster, but we don’t have that feeling of urgency — that we should show up every day, placard in hand, chanting on the steps of the state capitol. But we should. And COVID has made the situation much more dire. I am certain that the next round of NAEP scores in 2022 will show even wider gaps based on race and income, and yet there isn’t the fire about it that there once was. A challenge for the new administration is whether they can bring a sense of national urgency to these issues, like President Bush and President Obama did.

SPELLINGS: In Texas, this big reform bill created some major momentum, but only after 10 years going in the wrong direction. We had gone from 33rd nationally in fourth grade reading to 46th, and that was a wake-up call for the state and leaders in the business community. Happily, they acted. I agree with John — the urgency isn’t there now. That hair-on-fire feeling, we need to reinstate it, because the communities that were instrumental in No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top were the business community and the civil rights community, and they both have drifted for a while. We need to get that band back together around these issues of urgency and predictability.

WHITE: You’ve both acknowledged the positive role that Washington can play in lighting people’s hair on fire. You were there in different roles for two presidents who tried to do that; then you were later in a seat to implement large pieces of those presidents’ agendas. What about the forces around these leaders that shape their thinking? What is the path back to strength, making education a front-page issue versus a back-page issue?

SPELLINGS: I’m optimistic that it can happen. I’m looking at the vote count sheet from No Child Left Behind, which was 87 to 10 in the Senate, thanks to leaders like Judd Gregg and Ted Kennedy, so we can do it. Americans might not agree on much, but I think we all agree that education is the way to create successful lives and communities and a successful country. Using that bully pulpit matters a lot. I will say — probably I shouldn’t — that maybe it was best that this administration did not use the bully pulpit, because I don’t know what that would have been like.

WHITE: The Trump administration.

SPELLINGS: I read the executive order on schools from President Biden and I couldn’t have written it better myself. It was all the things that we absolutely can and should be doing. Convening our best researchers at the Institute 0f Education Sciences on what we’re learning, getting with Health and Human Services on best practices and providing that as guidance to our schools and communities. It’s absolutely the right thing, and I agree with every word and I hope they’ll hurry up.

What Are the Most High-Leverage Things to Do at This Moment?

WHITE: I feel like I’m getting real optimism here! It sounds like you all feel a good band is coming to town, and that the pandemic, as horrible as it has been in so many ways, potentially could dislodge some of the stasis in education policymaking.

SPELLINGS: Absolutely. Our challenge will be building on John’s point about more resources. There’s going to be a lot of money sloshing around and our job is to make sure we don’t squander it. If we had all the money in the world, which we do not have all the money in the world, but plenty, how would we spend it? What are the most high-leverage things to do at this moment? I think it’s a great opportunity and I’m excited about it.

KING: I think that’s exactly right. And for a good example, Governor Haslam in Tennessee launched the Tennessee Tutoring Corps last summer where college students did intensive tutoring with younger students focusing on reading. Then they actually evaluated it. They learned what worked and what didn’t and now they’re going to scale the program, with some tweaks based on what they learned. He and I agreed that if there’s a big federal investment in tutoring, there needs to be a set of guardrails, basing it on evidence-based practices, with an evaluation component to know what works. Too often I think we fight over "do we have money or do we have accountability?" — when we actually need both. This is Margaret’s signature phrase, right? Reform plus resources equals results.

SPELLINGS: Amen!

WHITE: A missing piece is where the capacity exists to take resources and motivation and inspiration from federal regulations and translate it into coherent high-impact planning on the ground. I think you’d be hard-pressed to find many examples of where Cares Act funding was either notably high-impact or transformative, for instance.

SPELLINGS: That’s why it was such a lost opportunity with the previous administration, because you can aggregate and learn from and research those activities on the ground, like the one in Tennessee. Frankly, these things are embodied in Biden’s executive order. Secretary Cardona should immediately gather the best thinkers, the best researchers in mental health, in space usage and technology, and in reading and closing gaps. When you get those experts together you can glean and learn and proliferate, as opposed to having to make it up every day.

WHITE: Agreed. So what happens to the last generation of education reforms when we’re talking about new issues — infrastructure, student loan debt, getting kids back to school, and supporting students in acute states of need because of COVID? For the last 25 years we’ve been talking about other things — accountability and measurement, intervention at the school level, school choice, and market reforms. None of those things are going away, so in a world where we’re turning to a new agenda, what happens to the old agenda?

KING: I’d like to think we could weave them together. One challenge in setting college- and career-ready standards has been helping students catch up who are behind. Now we’re going to have a huge national effort to help students catch up and hopefully accelerate, so that should be an opportunity for some learning that would strengthen our approach to math and all instruction generally.

Some high-performing charters and some district schools did some creative things to navigate COVID and we ought to learn from them. Some schools deployed teachers differently so that, for example, the teacher who’s the superstar presenter of the mini-lesson does that for more kids, which frees up her colleagues to provide intensive support in small groups or to give more feedback on student work. We should learn from that. I think we can blend some of the things we’ve learned over the last 25 years with new things to meet the current challenges.

Too often I think we fight over "do we have money or do we have accountability?" — when we actually need both. This is Margaret’s signature phrase, right? Reform plus resources equals results.

SPELLINGS: I think there’s a 2.0 version of the issues you raised, John. For example, we’ve all labored around standardized assessment and accountability and transparency, and those things are still important in a virtual world, a tech-based world. It’ll be accelerated by COVID and these investments. How do we embed assessment in tech-based programs so there’s quicker feedback? Parents are more aware now of where their students are in their learning. When you’re sitting with your child on a cell phone, you can understand that they don’t read very well, even though they got a B on their report card. How do we engage parents to be more actively involved in student learning? We’ve seen the importance of connecting with adults and peers, not only for mental health but for deploying personnel in smarter ways. I think that’s a 2.0 version of this old issue.

Another favorite is how are we going to use time? We’ve now blown open and extended the year, extended the day, proliferating high-quality curriculum through technology. Those are the 2.0 issues of those same old bedrock issues — measurement, accountability, high-quality curriculum, and high-quality teachers, but shaped and formed in a more modern way.

How Do We Create a More Muscular Federal Policy around Outcomes?

WHITE: It’s fair to say that No Child Left Behind and its predecessor legislation ushered in an era of standardization. But now the moment has blown our education system into 25 million little homes across the country. Standardization and uniformity are in smithereens. Will we ever get back to standard assessment in the way it was before the pandemic? Should we get back to it?

SPELLINGS: I think a little of both. We absolutely have to get back to assessment, although obviously we’ll have a temporary hiatus on school ratings and all of that — that’s right and proper. But we have seen before what happens when we don’t care enough to find out. When everybody is using their own measurements, sending their own invalid measures, we know who suffers.

I do think we’ll see much more innovation and thousands of different models for use of time, use of people, use of technology. But that’s a winning combination: bedrock, uniform, standardized, valid, reliable assessment coupled with a proliferation of lots of innovation.

KING: I agree. The underlying rationale behind assessment systems remains. But we are still going to be grappling with the fact that too many low-income students and students of color are not getting what they need to access a decent life. Whether people are accountability hawks or in denial about the need, the reality is that we have all these young people who aren’t being equipped with what they need, and as a society we have a moral responsibility to do something about that.

WHITE: Well said. I’m going to pivot now to a different subject, higher education. Is there an emerging higher education reform analogous to the K–12 movement? And will the pending renewal of the Higher Education Act be as cataclysmic, given the greater role the federal government plays in that system?

What is the path back to strength, making education a front-page issue versus a back-page issue?

SPELLINGS: I think a coherent higher education reform agenda is happening in the private sector, in the employer community, and it is amazingly innovative. Whether it’s Amazon training high-skilled tech workers or employers doing it here in Texas, they’re addressing employability and postsecondary credentials, but not necessarily at a flagship university or a private university. We’re seeing an opening of the academy to the idea that you can get postsecondary learning in lots of places. It may or may not lead to a job, and we’re eventually going to do a much better job of knitting together the employer demand side and the worker supply side. A million and a half Texans lost their jobs in COVID and they’re slowly scratching their way back, seeking and finding enhanced skill development in all manner of places. I’m excited about it and it’ll be a motivator for policymakers, because as you know the federal role in education is largely about money and supports and Pell Grant rates and whatnot, and it’s not terribly strategic. I’m excited that this is emerging as a new frontier, and at the state level as well. We just can’t afford to do higher ed like we’ve been doing it.

KING: This is another place where I see a big opportunity for the new administration. President Biden talked during the campaign about doubling the Pell Grants. I think that’s great. But also how do we create a more muscular federal policy around outcomes? Do we find ways to reward the institutions that do the best job serving the highest-need students in getting them to a degree, a meaningful credential, and a good job? Do we exclude from Pell Grant access the institutions that chronically underserve students, where students start but don’t finish, don’t get meaningful credentials, aren’t able to get good jobs? Do we try to make up for the horrible history of underinvestment in our HBCUs? We then have to link that to a vision of how we improve degree completion at the most struggling institutions. Let’s give the resources, yes, and then let’s invest in strategies like better advising and wrapround supports and prerequisite courses and other things that we know will help improve outcomes. That’s a big opportunity. I hope the administration will seize it.

WHITE: You both talked about the civil rights role of the federal government and noted that the federal power in higher education is its checkbook. That checkbook now subsidizes the system that rewards conventional degrees, but credible studies are finding that the use of the bachelor’s degree as a sorting mechanism continues social stratification. It has the effect of reducing upward mobility, of promoting systemic racism and other forms of bias. And yet I don’t see right now a credible response to that civil rights issue from the alternative-credentials movement. What is the civil rights argument in higher education?

KING: There’s the idea of stackable credentials, where you create the opportunity to secure a credential that helps you get a job today, but with credits and transferability to do something different later on. I may take a job as a solar panel installation expert today but in three years, if I want to become a manager, I can use those credits to get that bachelor’s degree, or more. Creating that kind of flexibility could be a way to thread the needle.

The second thing is that the institutions best positioned to help us work through this are the ones we starve of resources. Community colleges can be the lynchpin of a credential system, a pathway for first-gen students and low-income students and students of color and returning adults to get onto a four-year degree path. In most states we spend a ton on the flagship universities where the affluent students go and dramatically less on the community colleges, even though they are the key engines of social mobility. Again, this is an opportunity where the federal government could say “We’re going to give you new money, but you — the state — have to show us you’re going to put resources into your community colleges.”

SPELLINGS: That’s also true of our HBCUs — Historically Black Colleges and Universities — and our comprehensive universities like my alma mater, the University of Houston, and public universities in our central cities. We have our incentives wrong in postsecondary education. We really need to think about what is our objective in producing human capital as a strategic asset for our state and nation and how are we going to invest around that and we have not done that in higher education. We’ve come a lot closer to thinking about our strategy and our plan in K–12, at least we’ve had those discussions. We’ve virtually had none of that in higher education, so it’s time.

WHITE: It seems like another opportunity for leadership from Washington, but also from those who have something to say about what happens in Washington — like the two of you, who have made this such an interesting conversation. 

*Indeed, on February 12, 2021, the Blueprint for Maryland’s Future Act become law after the state Senate overrode Governor Hogan’s veto (the House of Delegates had already voted to override the governor’s veto).

John B. King, Jr. , former U.S. secretary of education (2016–17), is president and CEO of the Education Trust . Margaret Spellings , former U.S. secretary of education (2005–9), is the president and CEO of Texas 2036 . John C. White , former Louisiana state superintendent of education (2012–20), is cofounder and chair of the board of Propel America . This Carnegie Conversation, which was recorded via Zoom on January 22, 2021, has been edited for clarity and length.

TOP (l–r):  John B. King, Jr., John C. White, Margaret Spellings (Credit: Illustrations by Alessandra Scandella)

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The State of Education: Rebuilding a More Equitable System

Covid-19 has exposed long-standing inequities in america’s education system..

The pandemic’s toll on our education system has had a broader effect on academic regressions than initially predicted. And the most vulnerable learners—students of color, those from low socioeconomic backgrounds, and students with additional learning needs—have been impacted the most. While the pandemic has exacerbated existing disparities, it’s also presented a unique opportunity to dramatically overhaul our education system.

We convened education advocates and practitioners, from both K–12 and higher education, to explain how the disruption of the pandemic is pushing forward long-overdue pedagogical reform. And we outlined the innovative solutions that should be implemented to create an equitable learning environment for all students.

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Understanding the American Education System

The American education system offers a rich field of choices for international students. There is such an array of schools, programs and locations that the choices may overwhelm students, even those from the U.S. As you begin your school search, it’s important to familiarize yourself with the American education system. Understanding the system will help you narrow your choices and develop your education plan.

The Educational Structure

Primary and secondary school.

Prior to higher education, American students attend primary and secondary school for a combined total of 12 years. These years are referred to as the first through twelfth grades.

Around age six, U.S. children begin primary school, which is most commonly called “elementary school.” They attend five or six years and then go onto secondary school.

Secondary school consists of two programs: the first is “middle school” or “junior high school” and the second program is “high school.” A diploma or certificate is awarded upon graduation from high school. After graduating high school (12th grade), U.S. students may go on to college or university. College or university study is known as “higher education.”

Grading System

Just like American students, you will have to submit your academic transcripts as part of your application for admission to university or college. Academic transcripts are official copies of your academic work. In the U.S. this includes your “grades” and “grade point average” (GPA), which are measurements of your academic achievement. Courses are commonly graded using percentages, which are converted into letter grades.

The grading system and GPA in the U.S. can be confusing, especially for international students. The interpretation of grades has a lot of variation. For example, two students who attended different schools both submit their transcripts to the same university. They both have 3.5 GPAs, but one student attended an average high school, while the other attended a prestigious school that was academically challenging. The university might interpret their GPAs differently because the two schools have dramatically different standards.

Therefore, there are some crucial things to keep in mind:

• You should find out the U.S. equivalent of the last level of education you completed in your home country.
• Pay close attention to the admission requirements of each university and college, as well as individual degree programs, which may have different requirements than the university.
• Regularly meet with an educational advisor or guidance counselor to make sure you are meeting the requirements.

Your educational advisor or guidance counselor will be able to advise you on whether or not you must spend an extra year or two preparing for U.S. university admission. If an international student entered a U.S. university or college prior to being eligible to attend university in their own country, some countries’ governments and employers may not recognize the students’ U.S. education.

Academic Year

The school calendar usually begins in August or September and continues through May or June. The majority of new students begin in autumn, so it is a good idea for international students to also begin their U.S. university studies at this time. There is a lot of excitement at the beginning of the school year and students form many great friendships during this time, as they are all adjusting to a new phase of academic life. Additionally, many courses are designed for students to take them in sequence, starting in autumn and continuing through the year.

The academic year at many schools is composed of two terms called “semesters.” (Some schools use a three-term calendar known as the “trimester” system.) Still, others further divide the year into the quarter system of four terms, including an optional summer session. Basically, if you exclude the summer session, the academic year is either comprised of two semesters or three quarter terms.

The U.S. Higher Education System: Levels of Study

• First Level: Undergraduate

"The American system is much more open. In Hong Kong you just learn what the teacher writes on the board. In America, you discuss the issues and focus more on ideas."

Paolo Kwan from Hong Kong: Studying English and Business Administration at Sierra College in California

A student who is attending a college or university and has not earned a bachelor’s degree, is studying at the undergraduate level. It typically takes about four years to earn a bachelor’s degree. You can either begin your studies in pursuit of a bachelor’s degree at a community college or a four-year university or college.

Your first two years of study you will generally be required to take a wide variety of classes in different subjects, commonly known as prerequisite courses: literature, science, the social sciences, the arts, history, and so forth. This is so you achieve a general knowledge, a foundation, of a variety of subjects prior to focusing on a specific field of study.

Many students choose to study at a community college in order to complete the first two years of prerequisite courses. They will earn an Associate of Arts (AA) transfer degree and then transfer to a four-year university or college.

A “major” is the specific field of study in which your degree is focused. For example, if someone’s major is journalism, they will earn a Bachelor of Arts in Journalism. You will be required to take a certain number of courses in this field in order to meet the degree requirements of your major. You must choose your major at the beginning of your third year of school.

A very unique characteristic of the American higher education system is that you can change your major multiple times if you choose. It is extremely common for American students to switch majors at some point in their undergraduate studies. Often, students discover a different field that they excel in or enjoy. The American education system is very flexible. Keep in mind though that switching majors may result in more courses, which means more time and money.

• Second Level: Graduate in Pursuit of a Master’s Degree

Presently, a college or university graduate with a bachelor’s degree may want to seriously think about graduate study in order to enter certain professions or advance their career. This degree is usually mandatory for higher-level positions in library science, engineering, behavioral health and education.

Furthermore, international students from some countries are only permitted to study abroad at a graduate level. You should inquire about the credentials needed to get a job in your country before you apply to a postgraduate university in the USA.

A graduate program is usually a division of a university or college. To gain admission, you will need to take the GRE (graduate record examination). Certain master’s programs require specific tests, such as the LSAT for law school, the GRE or GMAT for business school, and the MCAT for medical school.

Graduate programs in pursuit of a master’s degree typically take one to two years to complete. For example, the MBA (master of business administration) is an extremely popular degree program that takes about two years. Other master’s programs, such as journalism, only take one year.

The majority of a master’s program is spent in classroom study and a graduate student must prepare a long research paper called a “master’s thesis” or complete a “master’s project.”

• Third Level: Graduate in Pursuit of a Doctorate Degree

Many graduate schools consider the attainment of a master’s degree the first step towards earning a PhD (doctorate). But at other schools, students may prepare directly for a doctorate without also earning a master’s degree. It may take three years or more to earn a PhD degree. For international students, it may take as long as five or six years.

For the first two years of the program most doctoral candidates enroll in classes and seminars. At least another year is spent conducting firsthand research and writing a thesis or dissertation. This paper must contain views, designs, or research that have not been previously published.

A doctoral dissertation is a discussion and summary of the current scholarship on a given topic. Most U.S. universities awarding doctorates also require their candidates to have a reading knowledge of two foreign languages, to spend a required length of time “in residence,” to pass a qualifying examination that officially admits candidates to the PhD program, and to pass an oral examination on the same topic as the dissertation.

Characteristics of the U.S. Higher Education System

Classroom Environment

Classes range from large lectures with several hundred students to smaller classes and seminars (discussion classes) with only a few students. The American university classroom atmosphere is very dynamic. You will be expected to share your opinion, argue your point, participate in class discussions and give presentations. International students find this one of the most surprising aspects of the American education system.

Each week professors usually assign textbook and other readings. You will be expected to keep up-to-date with the required readings and homework so you can participate in class discussions and understand the lectures. Certain degree programs also require students to spend time in the laboratory.

Professors issue grades for each student enrolled in the course. Grades are usually based upon:

• Each professor will have a unique set of class participation requirements, but students are expected to participate in class discussions, especially in seminar classes. This is often a very important factor in determining a student’s grade.
• A midterm examination is usually given during class time.
• One or more research or term papers , or laboratory reports must be submitted for evaluation.
• Possible short exams or quizzes are given. Sometimes professors will give an unannounced “pop quiz.” This doesn’t count heavily toward the grade, but is intended to inspire students to keep up with their assignments and attendance.
• A final examination will be held after the final class meeting.

Each course is worth a certain number of credits or credit hours. This number is roughly the same as the number of hours a student spends in class for that course each week. A course is typically worth three to five credits.

A full-time program at most schools is 12 or 15 credit hours (four or five courses per term) and a certain number of credits must be fulfilled in order to graduate. International students are expected to enroll in a full-time program during each term.

If a student enrolls at a new university before finishing a degree, generally most credits earned at the first school can be used to complete a degree at the new university. This means a student can transfer to another university and still graduate within a reasonable time.

Types of U.S. higher education

Xujie Zhao from China: Studying Computer Networking at Wentworth Institute of Technology in Boston

1. State College or University

A state school is supported and run by a state or local government. Each of the 50 U.S. states operates at least one state university and possibly several state colleges. Many of these public universities schools have the name of the state, or the actual word “State” in their names: for example, Washington State University and the University of Michigan.

2. Private College or University

These schools are privately run as opposed to being run by a branch of the government. Tuition will usually be higher than state schools. Often, private U.S. universities and colleges are smaller in size than state schools.

Religiously affiliated universities and colleges are private schools. Nearly all these schools welcome students of all religions and beliefs. Yet, there are a percentage of schools that prefer to admit students who hold similar religious beliefs as those in which the school was founded.

3. Community College

Community colleges are two-year colleges that award an associate’s degrees (transferable), as well as certifications. There are many types of associate degrees, but the most important distinguishing factor is whether or not the degree is transferable. Usually, there will be two primary degree tracks: one for academic transfer and the other prepares students to enter the workforce straightaway. University transfer degrees are generally associate of arts or associate of science. Not likely to be transferrable are the associate of applied science degrees and certificates of completion.

Community college graduates most commonly transfer to four-year colleges or universities to complete their degree. Because they can transfer the credits they earned while attending community college, they can complete their bachelor’s degree program in two or more additional years. Many also offer ESL or intensive English language programs, which will prepare students for university-level courses.

If you do not plan to earn a higher degree than the associate’s, you should find out if an associate’s degree will qualify you for a job in your home country.

4. Institute of Technology

An institute of technology is a school that provides at least four years of study in science and technology. Some have graduate programs, while others offer short-term courses.

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The alarming state of the American student in 2022

Subscribe to the brown center on education policy newsletter, robin lake and robin lake director, center on reinventing public education - arizona state university @rbnlake travis pillow travis pillow innovation fellow, center on reinventing public education - arizona state university @travispillow.

November 1, 2022

The pandemic was a wrecking ball for U.S. public education, bringing months of school closures, frantic moves to remote instruction, and trauma and isolation.

Kids may be back at school after three disrupted years, but a return to classrooms has not brought a return to normal. Recent results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) showed historic declines in American students’ knowledge and skills and widening gaps between the highest- and lowest-scoring students.

But even these sobering results do not tell us the whole story.

After nearly three years of tracking pandemic response by U.S. school systems and synthesizing knowledge about the impacts on students, we sought to establish a baseline understanding of the contours of the crisis: What happened and why, and where do we go from here?

This first annual “ State of the American Student ” report synthesizes nearly three years of research on the academic, mental health, and other impacts of the pandemic and school closures.

It outlines the contours of the crisis American students have faced during the COVID-19 pandemic and begins to chart a path to recovery and reinvention for all students—which includes building a new and better approach to public education that ensures an educational crisis of this magnitude cannot happen again.

The state of American students as we emerge from the pandemic is still coming into focus, but here’s what we’ve learned (and haven’t yet learned) about where COVID-19 left us:

1. Students lost critical opportunities to learn and thrive.

• The typical American student lost several months’ worth of learning in language arts and more in mathematics.

• Students suffered crushing increases in anxiety and depression. More than one in 360 U.S. children lost a parent or caregiver to COVID-19.

• Students poorly served before the pandemic were profoundly left behind during it, including many with disabilities whose parents reported they were cut off from essential school and life services.

This deeply traumatic period threatens to reverberate for decades. The academic, social, and mental-health needs are real, they are measurable, and they must be addressed quickly to avoid long-term consequences to individual students, the future workforce, and society.

2. The average effects from COVID mask dire inequities and widely varied impact.

Some students are catching up, but time is running out for others. Every student experienced the pandemic differently, and there is tremendous variation from student to student, with certain populations—namely, Black, Hispanic, and low-income students, as well as other vulnerable populations—suffering the most severe impacts.

The effects were more severe where campuses stayed closed longer. American students are experiencing a K-shaped recovery, in which gaps between the highest- and lowest-scoring students, already growing before the pandemic, are widening into chasms. In the latest NAEP results released in September , national average scores fell five times as much in reading, and four times as much in math, for the lowest-scoring 10 percent of nine-year-olds as they had for the highest-scoring 10 percent.

At the pace of recovery we are seeing today, too many students of all races and income levels will graduate in the coming years without the skills and knowledge needed for college and careers.

3. What we know at this point is incomplete. The situation could be significantly worse than the early data suggest.

The data and stories we have to date are enough to warrant immediate action, but there are serious holes in our understanding of how the pandemic has affected various groups of students, especially those who are typically most likely to fall through the cracks in the American education system.

We know little about students with complex needs, such as those with disabilities and English learners. We still know too little about the learning impacts in non-tested subjects, such as science, civics, and foreign languages. And while psychologists , educators , and the federal government are sounding alarms about a youth mental health crisis, systematic measures of student wellbeing remain hard to come by.

We must acknowledge that what we know at this point is incomplete, since the pandemic closures and following recovery have been so unprecedented in recent times. It’s possible that as we continue to dig into the evidence on the pandemic’s impacts, some student groups or subjects may have not been so adversely affected. Alternatively, the situation could be significantly worse than the early data suggest. Some students are already bouncing back quickly. But for others, the impact could grow worse over time.

In subjects like math, where learning is cumulative, pandemic-related gaps in students’ learning that emerged during the pandemic could affect their ability to grasp future material. In some states, test scores fell dramatically for high schoolers nearing graduation. Shifts in these students’ academic trajectories could affect their college plans—and the rest of their lives. And elevated rates of chronic absenteeism suggest some students who disconnected from school during the pandemic have struggled to reconnect since.

4. The harms students experienced can be traced to a rigid and inequitable system that put adults, not students, first.

• Despite often heroic efforts by caring adults, students and families were cut off from essential support, offered radically diminished learning opportunities, and left to their own devices to support learning.

• Too often, partisan politics, not student needs , drove decision-making.

• Students with complexities and differences too often faced systems immobilized by fear and a commitment to sameness rather than prioritization and problem-solving.

So, what can we do to address the situation we’re in?

Diverse needs demand diverse solutions that are informed by pandemic experiences

Freed from the routines of rigid systems, some parents, communities, and educators found new ways to tailor learning experiences around students’ needs. They discovered learning can happen any time and anywhere. They discovered enriching activities outside class and troves of untapped adult talent.

Some of these breakthroughs happened in public schools—like virtual IEP meetings that leveled power dynamics between administrators and parents advocating for their children’s special education services. Others happened in learning pods or other new environments where families and community groups devised new ways to meet students’ needs. These were exceptions to an otherwise miserable rule, and they can inform the work ahead.

We must act quickly but we must also act differently. Important next steps include:

• Districts and states should immediately use their federal dollars to address the emergent needs of the COVID-19 generation of students via proven interventions, such as well-designed tutoring, extended learning time, credit recovery, additional mental health support, college and career guidance, and mentoring. The challenges ahead are too daunting for schools to shoulder alone. Partnerships and funding for families and community-driven solutions will be critical.

• By the end of the 2022–2023 academic year, states and districts must commit to an honest accounting of rebuilding efforts by defining, adopting, and reporting on their progress toward 5- and 10-year goals for long-term student recovery. States should invest in rigorous studies that document, analyze, and improve their approaches.

• Education leaders and researchers must adopt a national research and development agenda for school reinvention over the next five years. This effort must be anchored in the reality that the needs of students are so varied, so profound, and so multifaceted that a one-size-fits-all approach to education can’t possibly meet them all. Across the country, community organizations who previously operated summer or afterschool programs stepped up to support students during the school day. As they focus on recovery, school system leaders should look to these helpers not as peripheral players in education, but as critical contributors who can provide teaching , tutoring, or joyful learning environments for students and often have trusting relationships with their families.

• Recovery and rebuilding should ensure the system is more resilient and prepared for future crises. That means more thoughtful integration of online learning and stronger partnerships with organizations that support learning outside school walls. Every school system in America should have a plan to keep students safe and learning even when they can’t physically come to school, be equipped to deliver high-quality, individualized pathways for students, and build on practices that show promise.

Our “State of the American Student” report is the first in a series of annual reports the Center on Reinventing Public Education intends to produce through fall of 2027. We hope every state and community will produce similar, annual accounts and begin to define ambitious goals for recovery. The implications of these deeply traumatic years will reverberate for decades unless we find a path not only to normalcy but also to restitution for this generation and future generations of American students.

The road to recovery can lead somewhere new. In five years, we hope to report that out of the ashes of the pandemic, American public education emerged transformed: more flexible and resilient, more individualized and equitable, and—most of all— more joyful.

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Trade Schools Home > Articles > Issues in Education

Major Issues in Education: 20 Hot Topics (From Grade School to College)

By Publisher | Last Updated August 1, 2023

In America, issues in education are big topics of discussion, both in the news media and among the general public. The current education system is beset by a wide range of challenges, from cuts in government funding to changes in disciplinary policies—and much more. Everyone agrees that providing high-quality education for our citizens is a worthy ideal. However, there are many diverse viewpoints about how that should be accomplished. And that leads to highly charged debates, with passionate advocates on both sides.

Understanding education issues is important for students, parents, and taxpayers. By being well-informed, you can contribute valuable input to the discussion. You can also make better decisions about what causes you will support or what plans you will make for your future.

This article provides detailed information on many of today's most relevant primary, secondary, and post-secondary education issues. It also outlines four emerging trends that have the potential to shake up the education sector. You'll learn about:

• 13 major issues in education at the K-12 level
• 7 big issues in higher education
• 5 emerging trends in education

13 Major Issues in Education at the K-12 Level

1. Government funding for education

School funding is a primary concern when discussing current issues in education. The American public education system, which includes both primary and secondary schools, is primarily funded by tax revenues. For the 2021 school year, state and local governments provided over 89 percent of the funding for public K-12 schools. After the Great Recession, most states reduced their school funding. This reduction makes sense, considering most state funding is sourced from sales and income taxes, which tend to decrease during economic downturns.

However, many states are still giving schools less cash now than they did before the Great Recession. A 2022 article from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) notes that K-12 education is set to receive the largest-ever one-time federal investment. However, the CBPP also predicts this historic funding might fall short due to pandemic-induced education costs. The formulas that states use to fund schools have come under fire in recent years and have even been the subjects of lawsuits. For example, in 2017, the Kansas Supreme Court ruled that the legislature's formula for financing schools was unconstitutional because it didn't adequately fund education.

Less funding means that smaller staff, fewer programs, and diminished resources for students are common school problems. In some cases, schools are unable to pay for essential maintenance. A 2021 report noted that close to a quarter of all U.S. public schools are in fair or poor condition and that 53 percent of schools need renovations and repairs. Plus, a 2021 survey discovered that teachers spent an average of $750 of their own money on classroom supplies.

The issue reached a tipping point in 2018, with teachers in Arizona, Colorado, and other states walking off the job to demand additional educational funding. Some of the protests resulted in modest funding increases, but many educators believe that more must be done.

2. School safety

Over the past several years, a string of high-profile mass shootings in U.S. schools have resulted in dozens of deaths and led to debates about the best ways to keep students safe. After 17 people were killed in a shooting at a high school in Parkland, Florida in 2018, 57 percent of teenagers said they were worried about the possibility of gun violence at their school.

Figuring out how to prevent such attacks and save students and school personnel's lives are problems faced by teachers all across America.

Former President Trump and other lawmakers suggested that allowing specially trained teachers and other school staff to carry concealed weapons would make schools safer. The idea was that adult volunteers who were already proficient with a firearm could undergo specialized training to deal with an active shooter situation until law enforcement could arrive. Proponents argued that armed staff could intervene to end the threat and save lives. Also, potential attackers might be less likely to target a school if they knew that the school's personnel were carrying weapons.

Critics argue that more guns in schools will lead to more accidents, injuries, and fear. They contend that there is scant evidence supporting the idea that armed school officials would effectively counter attacks. Some data suggests that the opposite may be true: An FBI analysis of active shooter situations between 2000 and 2013 noted that law enforcement personnel who engaged the shooter suffered casualties in 21 out of 45 incidents. And those were highly trained professionals whose primary purpose was to maintain law and order. It's highly unlikely that teachers, whose focus should be on educating children, would do any better in such situations.

According to the National Education Association (NEA), giving teachers guns is not the answer. In a March 2018 survey , 74 percent of NEA members opposed arming school personnel, and two-thirds said they would feel less safe at work if school staff were carrying guns. To counter gun violence in schools, the NEA supports measures like requiring universal background checks, preventing mentally ill people from purchasing guns, and banning assault weapons.

3. Disciplinary policies

Data from the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights in 2021 suggests that black students face disproportionately high rates of suspension and expulsion from school. For instance, in K-12 schools, black male students make up only 7.7 percent of enrollees but account for over 40% percent of suspensions. Many people believe some teachers apply the rules of discipline in a discriminatory way and contribute to what has been termed the "school-to-prison pipeline." That's because research has demonstrated that students who are suspended or expelled are significantly more likely to become involved with the juvenile justice system.

In 2014, the U.S. Department of Justice and the Department of Education issued guidelines for all public schools on developing disciplinary practices that reduce disparities and comply with federal civil rights laws. The guidelines urged schools to limit exclusionary disciplinary tactics such as suspension and expulsion. They also encourage the adoption of more positive interventions such as counseling and restorative justice strategies. In addition, the guidelines specified that schools could face a loss of federal funds if they carried out policies that had a disparate impact on some racial groups.

Opponents argue that banning suspensions and expulsions takes away valuable tools that teachers can use to combat student misbehavior. They maintain that as long as disciplinary policies are applied the same way to every student regardless of race, such policies are not discriminatory. One major 2014 study found that the racial disparities in school suspension rates could be explained by the students' prior behavior rather than by discriminatory tactics on the part of educators.

In 2018, the Federal Commission on School Safety (which was established in the wake of the school shootings in Parkland, Florida) was tasked with reviewing and possibly rescinding the 2014 guidelines. According to an Education Next survey taken shortly after the announced review, only 27 percent of Americans support federal policies that limit racial disparities in school discipline.

4. Technology in education

Technology in education is a powerful movement that is sweeping through schools nationwide. After all, today's students have grown up with digital technology and expect it to be part of their learning experience. But how much of a role should it play in education?

Proponents point out that educational technology offers the potential to engage students in more active learning, as evidenced in flipped classrooms . It can facilitate group collaboration and provide instant access to up-to-date resources. Teachers and instructors can integrate online surveys, interactive case studies, and relevant videos to offer content tailored to different learning styles. Indeed, students with special needs frequently rely on assistive technology to communicate and access course materials.

But there are downsides as well. For instance, technology can be a distraction. Some students tune out of lessons and spend time checking social media, playing games, or shopping online. One research study revealed that students who multitasked on laptops during class scored 11 percent lower on an exam that tested their knowledge of the lecture. Students who sat behind those multitaskers scored 17 percent lower. In the fall of 2017, University of Michigan professor Susan Dynarski cited such research as one of the main reasons she bans electronics in her classes.

More disturbingly, technology can pose a real threat to student privacy and security. The collection of sensitive student data by education technology companies can lead to serious problems. In 2017, a group called Dark Overlord hacked into school district servers in several states and obtained access to students' personal information, including counselor reports and medical records. The group used the data to threaten students and their families with physical violence.

5. Charter schools and voucher programs

School choice is definitely among the hot topics in education these days. Former U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was a vocal supporter of various forms of parental choice, including charter schools and school vouchers.

Charter schools are funded through a combination of public and private money and operate independently of the public system. They have charters (i.e., contracts) with school districts, states, or private organizations. These charters outline the academic outcomes that the schools agree to achieve. Like mainstream public schools, charter schools cannot teach religion or charge tuition, and their students must complete standardized testing . However, charter schools are not limited to taking students in a certain geographic area. They have more autonomy to choose their teaching methods. Charter schools are also subject to less oversight and fewer regulations.

School vouchers are like coupons that allow parents to use public funds to send their child to the school of their choice, which can be private and may be either secular or religious. In many cases, vouchers are reserved for low-income students or students with disabilities.

Advocates argue that charter schools and school vouchers offer parents a greater range of educational options. Opponents say that they privatize education and siphon funding away from regular public schools that are already financially strapped. The 2018 Education Next survey found that 44 percent of the general public supports charter schools' expansion, while 35 percent oppose such a move. The same poll found that 54 percent of people support vouchers.

6. Common Core

The Common Core State Standards is a set of academic standards for math and language arts that specify what public school students are expected to learn by the end of each year from kindergarten through 12th grade. Developed in 2009, the standards were designed to promote equity among public K-12 students. All students would take standardized end-of-year tests and be held to the same internationally benchmarked standards. The idea was to institute a system that brought all schools up to the same level and allowed for comparison of student performance in different regions. Such standards would help all students with college and career readiness.

Some opponents see the standards as an unwelcome federal intrusion into state control of education. Others are critical of the way the standards were developed with little input from experienced educators. Many teachers argue that the standards result in inflexible lesson plans that allow for less creativity and fun in the learning process.

Some critics also take issue with the lack of accommodation for non-traditional learners. The Common Core prescribes standards for each grade level, but students with disabilities or language barriers often need more time to fully learn the material.

The vast majority of states adopted the Common Core State Standards when they were first introduced. Since then, more than a dozen states have either repealed the standards or revised them to align better with local needs. In many cases, the standards themselves have remained virtually the same but given a different name.

And a name can be significant. In the Education Next 2018 survey, a group of American adults was asked whether they supported common standards across states. About 61 percent replied that they did. But when another group was polled about Common Core specifically, only 45 percent said they supported it.

7. Standardized testing

During the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) years, schools—and teachers—were judged by how well students scored on such tests. Schools whose results weren't up to par faced intense scrutiny, and in some cases, state takeover or closure. Teachers' effectiveness was rated by how much improvement their students showed on standardized exams. The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA), which took effect in 2016, removed NCLB's most punitive aspects. Still, it maintained the requirement to test students every year in Grades 3 to 8, and once in high school.

But many critics say that rampant standardized testing is one of the biggest problems in education. They argue that the pressure to produce high test scores has resulted in a teach-to-the-test approach to instruction in which other non-tested subjects (such as art, music, and physical education) have been given short shrift to devote more time to test preparation. And they contend that policymakers overemphasize the meaning of standardized test results, which don't present a clear or complete picture of overall student learning.

8. Teacher salaries

According to 2021-22 data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in most states, teacher pay has decreased over the last several years. However, in some states average salaries went up. It's also important to note that public school teachers generally enjoy pensions and other benefits that make up a large share of their compensation.

But the growth in benefits has not been enough to balance out the overall low wages. An Economic Policy Institute report found that even after factoring in benefits, public-sector teachers faced a compensation penalty of 14.2 percent in 2021 relative to other college graduates.

9. The teaching of evolution

In the U.S., public school originated to spread religious ideals, but it has since become a strictly secular institution. And the debate over how to teach public school students about the origins of life has gone on for almost a century.

Today, Darwin's theory of evolution through natural selection is accepted by virtually the entire scientific community. However, it is still controversial among many Americans who maintain that living things were guided into existence. A pair of surveys from 2014 revealed that 98 percent of scientists aligned with the American Association for the Advancement of Science believed that humans evolved. But it also revealed that, overall, only 52 percent of American adults agreed.

Over the years, some states have outright banned teachers from discussing evolution in the classroom. Others have mandated that students be allowed to question the scientific soundness of evolution, or that equal time be given to consideration of the Judeo-Christian notion of divine creation (i.e., creationism).

Some people argue that the theory of intelligent design—which posits that the complexities of living things cannot be explained by natural selection and can best be explained as resulting from an intelligent cause—is a legitimate scientific theory that should be allowed in public school curricula. They say it differs from creationism because it doesn't necessarily ascribe life's design to a supernatural deity or supreme being.

Opponents contend that intelligent design is creationism in disguise. They think it should not be taught in public schools because it is religiously motivated and has no credible scientific basis. And the courts have consistently held that the teaching of creationism and intelligent design promotes religious beliefs and therefore violates the Constitution's prohibition against the government establishment of religion. Still, the debate continues.

10. Teacher tenure

Having tenure means that a teacher cannot be let go unless their school district demonstrates just cause. Many states grant tenure to public school teachers who have received satisfactory evaluations for a specified period of time (which ranges from one to five years, depending on the state). A few states do not grant tenure at all. And the issue has long been mired in controversy.

Proponents argue that tenure protects teachers from being dismissed for personal or political reasons, such as disagreeing with administrators or teaching contentious subjects such as evolution. Tenured educators can advocate for students without fear of reprisal. Supporters also say that tenure gives teachers the freedom to try innovative instruction methods to deliver more engaging educational experiences. Tenure also protects more experienced (and more expensive) teachers from being arbitrarily replaced with new graduates who earn lower salaries.

Critics contend that tenure makes it difficult to dismiss ineffectual teachers because going through the legal process of doing so is extremely costly and time-consuming. They say that tenure can encourage complacency since teachers' jobs are secure whether they exceed expectations or just do the bare minimum. Plus, while the granting of tenure often hinges on teacher evaluations, 2017 research found that, in practice, more than 99 percent of teachers receive ratings of satisfactory or better. Some administrators admit to being reluctant to give low ratings because of the time and effort required to document teachers' performance and provide support for improvement.

11. Bullying

Bullying continues to be a major issue in schools all across the U.S. According to a National Center for Education Statistics study , around 22 percent of students in Grades 6 through 12 reported having been bullied at school, or on their way to or from school, in 2019. That figure was down from 28 percent in 2009, but it is still far too high.

The same study revealed that over 22 percent of students reported being bullied once a day, and 6.3 percent reported experiencing bullying two to ten times in a day. In addition, the percentage of students who reported the bullying to an adult was over 45 percent in 2019.

But that still means that almost 60 percent of students are not reporting bullying. And that means children are suffering.

Bullied students experience a range of emotional, physical, and behavioral problems. They often feel angry, anxious, lonely, and helpless. They are frequently scared to go to school, leading them to suffer academically and develop a low sense of self-worth. They are also at greater risk of engaging in violent acts or suicidal behaviors.

Every state has anti-bullying legislation in place, and schools are expected to develop policies to address the problem. However, there are differences in how each state defines bullying and what procedures it mandates when bullying is reported. And only about one-third of states call for school districts to include provisions for support services such as counseling for students who are victims of bullying (or are bullies themselves).

12. Poverty

Student poverty is a growing problem. Data from the National Center for Education Statistics show that as of the 2019-2020 school year, low-income students comprised a majority (52 percent) of public school students in the U.S. That represented a significant increase from 2000-2001, when only 38 percent of students were considered low-income (meaning they qualified for free or discounted school lunches).

The numbers are truly alarming: In 39 states, at least 40 percent of public school enrollees were eligible to receive free or reduced-price lunches, and 22 of those states had student poverty rates of 50 percent or more.

Low-income students tend to perform worse in school than their more affluent peers. Studies have shown that family income strongly correlates to student achievement on standardized tests. That may be partly because parents with fewer financial resources generally can't afford tutoring and other enrichment experiences to boost student achievement. In addition, low-income children are much more likely to experience food instability, family turmoil, and other stressors that can negatively affect their academic success.

All of this means that teachers face instructional challenges that go beyond students' desires to learn.

13. Class size

According to NCES data , in the 2017-2018 school year, the average class size in U.S. public schools was 26.2 students at the elementary level and 23.3 students at the secondary level.

But anecdotal reports suggest that today, classrooms commonly have more than 30 students—sometimes as many as 40.

Conventional wisdom holds that smaller classes are beneficial to student learning. Teachers often argue that the size of a class greatly influences the quality of the instruction they are able to provide. Research from the National Education Policy Center in 2016 showed smaller classes improve student outcomes, particularly for early elementary, low-income, and minority students.

Many (but not all) states have regulations in place that impose limits on class sizes. However, those limits become increasingly difficult to maintain in an era of budget constraints. Reducing class sizes requires hiring more teachers and constructing new classrooms. Arguably, allowing class sizes to expand can enable districts to absorb funding cuts without making reductions to other programs such as art and physical education.

7 Big Issues in Higher Education

1. Student loan forgiveness

Here's how the American public education system works: Students attend primary and secondary school at no cost. They have the option of going on to post-secondary training (which, for most students, is not free). So with costs rising at both public and private institutions of higher learning, student loan debt is one of the most prominent issues in education today. Students who graduated from college in 2022 came out with an average debt load of $37,338. As a whole, Americans owe over $1.7 trillion in student loans.

Currently, students who have received certain federal student loans and are on income-driven repayment plans can qualify to have their remaining balance forgiven if they haven't repaid the loan in full after 20 to 25 years, depending on the plan. Additionally, the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program allows qualified borrowers who go into public service careers (such as teaching, government service, social work, or law enforcement) to have their student debt canceled after ten years.

However, potential changes are in the works. The Biden-Harris Administration is working to support students and make getting a post-secondary education more affordable. In 2022, the U.S. Department of Education provided more than $17 billion in loan relief to over 700,000 borrowers. Meanwhile, a growing number of Democrats are advocating for free college as an alternative to student loans.

2. Completion rates

The large number of students who begin post-secondary studies but do not graduate continues to be an issue. According to a National Student Clearinghouse Research Center report , the overall six-year college completion rate for the cohort entering college in 2015 was 62.2 percent. Around 58 percent of students completed a credential at the same institution where they started their studies, and about another 8 percent finished at a different institution.

Completion rates are increasing, but there is still concern over the significant percentage of college students who do not graduate. Almost 9 percent of students who began college in 2015 had still not completed a degree or certificate six years later. Over 22 percent of them had dropped out entirely.

Significant costs are associated with starting college but not completing it. Many students end up weighed down by debt, and those who do not complete their higher education are less able to repay loans. Plus, students miss out on formal credentials that could lead to higher earnings. Numbers from the Bureau of Labor Statistics show that in 2021 students who begin college but do not complete a degree have median weekly earnings of $899. By contrast, associate degree holders have median weekly wages of $963, and bachelor's degree recipients have median weekly earnings of $1,334.

Students leave college for many reasons, but chief among them is money. To mitigate that, some institutions have implemented small retention or completion grants. Such grants are for students who are close to graduating, have financial need, have used up all other sources of aid, owe a modest amount, and are at risk of dropping out due to lack of funds. One study found that around a third of the institutions who implemented such grants noted higher graduation rates among grant recipients.

3. Student mental health

Mental health challenges among students are a growing concern. A survey by the American College Health Association in the spring of 2019 found that over two-thirds of college students had experienced "overwhelming anxiety" within the previous 12 months. Almost 45 percent reported higher-than-average stress levels.

Anxiety, stress, and depression were the most common concerns among students who sought treatment. The 2021 report by the Center for Collegiate Mental Health (CCMH) noted the average number of appointments students needed has increased by 20 percent.

And some schools are struggling to keep up. A 2020 report found that the average student-to-clinician ratio on U.S. campuses was 1,411 to 1. So, in some cases, suffering students face long waits for treatment.

4. Sexual assault

The Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that more than 75 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to law enforcement, so the actual number of incidents could be much higher.

And the way that colleges and universities deal with sexual assault is undergoing changes. Title IX rules makes sure that complaints of sexual assault or harassment are taken seriously and ensuring the accused person is treated fairly.

Administrators were also required to adjudicate such cases based on a preponderance of evidence, meaning that they had to believe that it was more likely than not that an accused was guilty in order to proceed with disciplinary action. The "clear and convincing" evidentiary standard, which required that administrators be reasonably certain that sexual violence or harassment occurred, was deemed unacceptable.

Critics argued that the guidelines failed to respect the due process rights of those accused of sexual misconduct. Research has found that the frequency of false sexual assault allegations is between two and 10 percent.

In 2017, the Trump administration rescinded the Obama-era guidelines. The intent was to institute new regulations on how schools should handle sexual assault allegations. The changes went into effect on August 14, 2020, defining sexual harassment more narrowly and only requiring schools to investigate formal complaints about on-campus incidents officially filed with designated authorities, such as Title IX coordinators. The updated guidelines also allow schools to use the clear and convincing standard for conviction.

Victims' rights advocates were concerned this approach would deter victims from coming forward and hinder efforts to create safe learning environments.

The Biden administration is expected to release their proposed revisions to Title IX in October 2023 which could see many of the Trump administration changes rescinded.

5. Trigger warnings

The use of trigger warnings in academia is a highly contentious issue. Trigger warnings alert students that upcoming course material contains concepts or images that may invoke psychological or physiological reactions in people who have experienced trauma. Some college instructors provide such warnings before introducing films, texts, or other content involving things like violence or sexual abuse. The idea is to give students advance notice so that they can psychologically prepare themselves.

Some believe that trigger warnings are essential because they allow vulnerable people to prepare for and navigate difficult content. Having trigger warnings allows students with post-traumatic stress to decide whether they will engage with the material or find an alternative way to acquire the necessary information.

Critics argue that trigger warnings constrain free speech and academic freedom by discouraging the discussion of topics that might trigger distressing reactions in some students. They point out that college faculty already provide detailed course syllabi and that it's impossible to anticipate and acknowledge every potential trigger.

In 2015, NPR Ed surveyed more than 800 faculty members at higher education institutions across the U.S. and found that around half had given trigger warnings before bringing up potentially disturbing course material. Most did so on their own initiative, not in response to administrative policy or student requests. Few schools either mandate or prohibit trigger warnings. One notable exception is the University of Chicago, which in 2016 informed all incoming first-year students that it did not support such warnings.

6. College accreditation

In order to participate in federal student financial aid programs, institutions of higher education must be accredited by an agency that is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education. By law, accreditors must consider factors such as an institution's facilities, equipment, curricula, admission practices, faculty, and support services. The idea is to enforce an acceptable standard of quality.

But while federal regulations require accreditors to assess each institution's "success with respect to student achievement," they don't specify how to measure such achievement. Accreditors are free to define that for themselves. Unfortunately, some colleges with questionable practices, low graduation rates, and high student loan default rates continue to be accredited. Critics argue that accreditors are not doing enough to ensure that students receive good value for their money.

7. College rankings

Every year, prospective college students and their families turn to rankings like the ones produced by U.S. News & World Report to compare different institutions of higher education. Many people accept such rankings as authoritative without truly understanding how they are calculated or what they measure.

It's common for ranking organizations to refine their methodologies from year to year and change how they weigh various factors—which means it's possible for colleges to rise or fall in the rankings despite making no substantive changes to their programs or institutional policies. That makes it difficult to compare rankings from one year to the next, since things are often measured differently.

For colleges, a higher ranking can lead to more visibility, more qualified applicants, and more alumni donations (in short: more money). And the unfortunate reality is that some schools outright lie about test scores, graduation rates, or financial information in their quest to outrank their competitors.

Others take advantage of creative ways to game the system. For example, U.S. News looks at the test scores of incoming students at each institution, but it only looks at students who begin in the fall semester. One school instituted a program where students with lower test scores could spend their first semester in a foreign country and return to the school in the spring, thus excluding them from the U.S. News calculations.

Rankings do make useful information about U.S. colleges and universities available to all students and their families. But consumers should be cautious about blindly accepting such rankings as true measures of educational quality.

5 Emerging Trends in Education

1. Maker learning

The maker movement is rapidly gaining traction in K-12 schools across America. Maker learning is based on the idea that you will engage students in learning by encouraging interest-driven problem solving and hands-on activities (i.e., learning by doing). In collaborative spaces, students identify problems, dream up inventions, make prototypes, and keep tinkering until they develop something that makes sense. It's a do-it-yourself educational approach that focuses on iterative trial and error and views failure as an opportunity to refine and improve.

Maker education focuses on learning rather than teaching. Students follow their interests and test their own solutions. For example, that might mean creating a video game, building a rocket, designing historical costumes, or 3D-printing an irrigation system for a garden. It can involve high-tech equipment, but it doesn't have to. Repurposing whatever materials are on hand is an important ideal of the maker philosophy.

There is little hard data available on the maker trend. However, researchers at Rutgers University are currently studying the cognitive basis for maker education and investigating its connection to meaningful learning.

2. Moving away from letter grades

Many education advocates believe that the traditional student assessment models place too much emphasis on standardization and testing. They feel that traditional grading models do not sufficiently measure many of the most prized skills in the 21st-century workforce, such as problem-solving, self-advocacy, and creativity. As a result, a growing number of schools around the U.S. are replacing A-F letter grades with new assessment systems.

Formed in 2017, the Mastery Transcript Consortium is a group of more than 150 private high schools that have pledged to get rid of grade-based transcripts in favor of digital ones that provide qualitative descriptions of student learning as well as samples of student work. Some of the most famous private institutions in America have signed on, including Dalton and Phillips Exeter.

The no-more-grades movement is taking hold in public schools as well. Many states have enacted policies to encourage public schools to use something other than grades to assess students' abilities. It's part of a larger shift toward what's commonly known as mastery-based or competency-based learning, which strives to ensure that students become proficient in defined areas of skill.

Instead of letter grades, report cards may feature phrases like "partially meets the standard" or "exceeds the standard." Some schools also include portfolios, capstone projects, or other demonstrations of student learning.

But what happens when it's time to apply to college? It seems that even colleges and universities are getting on board. At least 85 higher education institutions across New England (including Dartmouth and Harvard) have said that students with competency-based transcripts will not be disadvantaged during the admission process.

3. The rise of micro-credentials

Micro-credentials, also known as digital badges or nanodegrees, are mini qualifications that demonstrate a student's knowledge or skills in a given area. Unlike traditional college degrees that require studying a range of different subjects over a multi-year span, micro-credentials are earned through short, targeted education focused on specific skills in particular fields. They tend to be inexpensive (sometimes even free) and are typically taken online.

Some post-secondary schools are developing micro-credentialing partnerships with third-party learning providers, while other schools offer such solutions on their own. A 2020 Campus Technology article stated 70 percent of higher education institutions offer some type of alternative credentialing.

Micro-credentials can serve as evidence that students have mastered particular skills, but the rigor and market worth of such credentials can vary significantly. Still, they are an increasingly popular way of unbundling content and providing it on demand.

4. Flipped classrooms

A growing number of schools are embracing the notion of flipped learning. It's an instructional approach that reverses the traditional model of the teacher giving a lecture in front of the class, then sending students home to work through assignments that enhance their understanding of the concepts. In flipped learning, students watch lecture videos or read relevant course content on their own before class. Class time is devoted to expanding on the material through group discussions and collaborative learning projects (i.e., doing what was traditionally meant as homework). The instructor is there to guide students when questions or problems arise.

Provided that all students have access to the appropriate technology and are motivated to prepare for each class session, flipped learning can bring a wide range of benefits. For example, it allows students to control their own learning by watching lecture videos at their own pace; they can pause, jot down questions, or re-watch parts they find confusing. The model also encourages students to learn from each other and explore subjects more deeply.

Flipped learning is becoming widespread in all education levels, but it is especially prevalent at the college level. In a 2017 survey , 61 percent of college faculty had used the flipped model in some or all of their classes and another 24% of instructors were considering trying it.

5. Social-emotional learning

There is a growing consensus that schools are responsible for fostering students' social and emotional development and their cognitive skills. Social-emotional learning (SEL) focuses on helping students develop the abilities to identify their strengths, manage their emotions, set goals, show empathy, make responsible decisions, and build and maintain healthy relationships. Research has shown that such skills play a key role in reducing anti-social behavior, boosting academic achievement, and improving long-term health.

Every state has developed SEL competencies at the preschool level. The number of states with such competencies for higher grades is growing.

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Is College Worth It?

1. labor market and economic trends for young adults, table of contents.

• Labor force trends and economic outcomes for young adults
• Economic outcomes for young men
• Economic outcomes for young women
• Wealth trends for households headed by a young adult
• The importance of a four-year college degree
• Getting a high-paying job without a college degree
• Do Americans think their education prepared them for the workplace?
• Is college worth the cost?
• Acknowledgments
• The American Trends Panel survey methodology
• Current Population Survey methodology
• Survey of Consumer Finances methodology

A majority of the nation’s 36 million workers ages 25 to 34 have not completed a four-year college degree. In 2023, there were 19 million young workers who had some college or less education, including those who had not finished high school.

The overall number of employed young adults has grown over the decades as more young women joined the workforce. The number of employed young adults without a college degree peaked around 1990 at 25 million and then started to fall, as more young people began finishing college .

This chapter looks at the following key labor market and economic trends separately for young men and young women by their level of education:

Labor force participation

• Individual earnings

Household income

• Net worth 1

When looking at how young adults are doing in the job market, it generally makes the most sense to analyze men and women separately. They tend to work in different occupations and have different career patterns, and their educational paths have diverged in recent decades.

In 1970, almost all young men whose highest educational attainment was a high school diploma (98%) were in the labor force, meaning they were working or looking for work. By 2013, only 88% of high school-educated young men were in the labor force. Today, that share is 87%.

Similarly, 96% of young men whose highest attainment was some college education were in the labor force in 1970. Today, the share is 89%.

By comparison, labor force participation among young men with at least a bachelor’s degree has remained relatively stable these past few decades. Today, 94% of young men with at least a bachelor’s degree are in the labor force.

The long-running decline in the labor force participation of young men without a bachelor’s degree may be due to several factors, including declining wages , the types of jobs available to this group becoming less desirable, rising incarceration rates and the opioid epidemic . 2

Looking at labor force and earnings trends over the past several decades, it’s important to keep in mind broader forces shaping the national job market.

The Great Recession officially ended in June 2009, but the national job market recovered slowly . At the beginning of the Great Recession in the fourth quarter of 2007, the national unemployment rate was 4.6%. Unemployment peaked at 10.4% in the first quarter of 2010. It was not until the fourth quarter of 2016 that unemployment finally returned to its prerecession level (4.5%).

Studies suggest that things started to look up for less-skilled workers around 2014. Among men with less education, hourly earnings began rising in 2014 after a decade of stagnation. Wage growth for low-wage workers also picked up in 2014. The tightening labor markets in the last five years of the expansion after the Great Recession improved the labor market prospects of “vulnerable workers” considerably.

The COVID-19 pandemic interrupted the tight labor market, but the COVID-19 recession and recovery were quite different from the Great Recession in their job market impact. The more recent recession was arguably more severe, as the national unemployment rate reached 12.9% in the second quarter of 2020. But it was short – officially lasting two months, compared with the 18-month Great Recession – and the labor market bounced back much quicker. Unemployment was 3.3% before the COVID-19 recession; three years later, unemployment had once again returned to that level.

Full-time, full-year employment

Since the Great Recession of 2007-09, young men without a four-year college degree have seen a significant increase in the average number of hours they work.

• Today, 77% of young workers with a high school education work full time, full year, compared with 69% in 2011.
• 83% of young workers with some college education work full time, full year, compared with 70% in 2011.

The share of young men with a college degree who work full time, year-round has remained fairly steady in recent decades – at about 80% – and hasn’t fluctuated with good or bad economic cycles.

Annual earnings

Annual earnings for young men without a college degree were on a mostly downward path from 1973 until roughly 10 years ago (with the exception of a bump in the late 1990s). 3

Earnings have been increasing modestly over the past decade for these groups.

• Young men with a high school education who are working full time, full year have median earnings of $45,000 today, up from $39,300 in 2014. (All figures are in 2022 dollars.)
• The median earnings of young men with some college education who are working full time, full year are $50,000 today, similar to their median earnings in 2014 ($49,100).

It’s important to note that median annual earnings for both groups of noncollege men remain below their 1973 levels.

Median earnings for young men with a four-year college degree have increased over the past 10 years, from $67,500 in 2014 to $77,000 today.

Unlike young men without a college degree, the earnings of college-educated young men are now above what they were in the early 1970s. The gap in median earnings between young men with and without a college degree grew significantly from the late 1970s to 2014. In 1973, the typical young man with a degree earned 23% more than his high school-educated counterpart. By 2014, it was 72% more. Today, that gap stands at 71%. 4

Household income has also trended up for young men in the past 10 years, regardless of educational attainment.

This measure takes into account the contributions of everyone in the household. For this analysis, we excluded young men who are living in their parents’ home (about 20% of 25- to 34-year-old men in 2023).

• The median household income of young men with a high school education is $75,200 today, up from $63,800 in 2014. This is slightly lower than the highpoint reached around 2019.
• The median household income of young men with some college education is $92,200 today, up from $81,100 in 2014. This is close to the 2022 peak of $93,800.

The median household income of young men with at least a bachelor’s degree has also increased from a low point of $118,700 in 2014 after the Great Recession to $145,000 today.

The gap in household income between young men with and without a college degree grew significantly between 1980 and 2014. In 1980, the median household income of young men with at least a bachelor’s degree was about 38% more than that of high school graduates. By 2014, that gap had widened to 86%.

Over the past 10 years, the income gap has fluctuated. In 2023, the typical college graduate’s household income was 93% more than that of the typical high school graduate.

The 2001 recession and Great Recession resulted in a large increase in poverty among young men without a college degree.

• In 2000, among young men living independently of their parents, 8% of those with a high school education were in poverty. Poverty peaked for this group at 17% around 2011 and has since declined to 12% in 2023.
• Among young men with some college education, poverty peaked at 12% around 2014, up from 4% in 2000. Poverty has fallen for this group since 2014 and stands at 8% as of 2023.
• Young men with a four-year college degree also experienced a slight uptick in poverty during the 2001 recession and Great Recession. In 2014, 6% of young college graduates were in poverty, up from 4% in 2000. Poverty among college graduates stands at 5% in 2023.

Labor force trends for young women are very different than for young men. There are occupational and educational differences between young women and men, and their earnings have followed different patterns.

Unlike the long-running decline for noncollege young men, young women without a college degree saw their labor force participation increase steadily from 1970 to about 1990.

By 2000, about three-quarters of young women with a high school diploma and 79% of those with some college education were in the labor force.

Labor force participation has also trended upward for college-educated young women and has consistently been higher than for those with less education.

After rising for decades, labor force participation for young women without a college degree fell during the 2001 recession and the Great Recession. Their labor force participation has increased slightly since 2014.

As of 2023, 69% of young women with a high school education were in the labor force, as were 78% of young women with some college education. Today’s level of labor force participation for young women without a college degree is slightly lower than the level seen around 2000.

The decline in labor force participation for noncollege women partly reflects the declining labor force participation for mothers with children under 18 years of age . Other research has suggested that without federal paid parental and family leave benefits for parents, some women with less education may leave the labor force after having a baby.

In contrast, labor force participation for young women with a college degree has fully recovered from the recessions of the early 2000s. Today, 87% of college-educated young women are in the labor force, the highest estimate on record.

Young women without a college degree have steadily increased their work hours over the decades. The past 10 years in particular have seen a significant increase in the share of employed noncollege women working full time, full year (with the exception of 2021).

• In 2023, 69% of employed young women with a high school education worked full time, full year, up from 56% in 2014. This share is the highest it’s ever been.
• In 2023, 65% of employed women with some college worked full time, full year, up from 58% in 2014. This is among the highest levels ever.

The trend in the share working full time, full year has been similar for young women with college degrees. By 2023, 78% of these women worked full time, full year, the highest share it’s ever been.

Unlike young men, young women without a college education did not see their earnings fall between 1970 and 2000.

The 2001 recession and Great Recession also did not significantly impact the earnings of noncollege young women. In the past 10 years, their median earnings have trended upward.

• For young women with a high school diploma, median earnings reached $36,000 in 2023, up from $30,900 in 2014.
• For those with some college, median earnings rose to $40,000 in 2023 from $37,700 in 2014.

For young women with a college degree, median earnings rose steadily from the mid-1980s until the early 2000s. By 2003, they reached $62,100, but this declined to $55,200 by 2014. In the past 10 years, the median earnings of college-educated young women have risen, reaching $65,000 in 2023.

In the mid-1980s, the typical young woman with a college degree earned about 48% more than her counterpart with a high school diploma. The pay gap among women has widened since then, and by 2014, the typical college graduate earned 79% more than the typical high school graduate. The gap has changed little over the past 10 years.

Noncollege young women living independently from their parents have experienced large household income gains over the past 10 years, measured at the median.

• In 2023, young women with a high school diploma had a median household income of $61,600, up from $48,100 in 2014.
• The pattern is similar for young women with some college education. Their median income rose to $75,200 in 2023 from $64,600 in 2014.

The median household income for young women with a four-year college degree is significantly higher than it is for their counterparts without a degree. College-educated young women have made substantial gains in the past 10 years.

The income gap between young women with and without a college degree has widened over the decades. In 1980, the median household income of young women with a college degree was 50% higher than that of high school-educated women. By 2014, the income gap had grown to 139%. Today, the household income advantage of college-educated women stands at 121% ($136,000 vs. $61,600).

Poverty trends for young women mirror those for young men, although young women are overall more likely to be in poverty than young men. The past 10 years have resulted in a steep reduction in the share of noncollege women in poverty.

• Today, 21% of young women with a high school diploma are living in poverty. This is down from 31% in 2014.
• 15% of young women with some college education live in poverty, compared with 21% in 2014.
• Young women with a college degree are consistently far less likely than either group to be living in poverty (5% in 2023).

Along with young adults’ rising incomes over the past 10 years, there’s been a substantial increase in their wealth. This part of our analysis does not look at men and women separately due to limitations in sample size.

In 2022, households headed by a young high school graduate had a median net worth of $30,700, up from $12,700 in 2013. Those headed by a young adult with some college education had a median net worth of $52,900, up from $15,700 in 2013.

The typical wealth level of households headed by a young college graduate was $120,200 in 2022, up from $46,600 in 2013.

There has not been any significant narrowing of the wealth gap between young high school graduate and young college graduate households since 2013.

Wealth increased for Americans across age groups over this period due to several factors. Many were able to save money during the pandemic lockdowns. In addition, home values increased, and the stock market surged.

• Most of the analysis in this chapter is based on the Annual Social and Economic Supplement collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. Information on net worth is based on a Federal Reserve survey, which interviews fewer households. Due to this smaller sample size, the net worth of households headed by a young adult cannot be broken out by gender and education. ↩
• Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicates that the labor force participation rate for men ages 25 to 54 has been declining since 1953. ↩
• This analysis looks at the earnings of employed adults working full time, full year. This measure of earnings is not uncommon. For example, the National Center for Education Statistics publishes a series on the annual earnings of 25- to 34-year-olds working full time, full year. ↩
• Other studies using hourly wages rather than annual earnings find that the college wage premium has narrowed. For example, researchers at the San Francisco Federal Reserve report that the college wage gap peaked in the mid-2010s but declined by just 4 percentage points to about 75% in 2022. ↩

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Top Education Officials Were Warned of FAFSA Overhaul Hurdles in 2020

Documents obtained by The Times show the department’s troubled FAFSA rollout this year came in spite of early warnings that the project required sustained attention.

By Zach Montague

Reporting from Washington

Long before the Education Department’s overhaul of the federal student aid application fell apart this year, officials who now lead the department were warned of a complex and time-consuming effort and its potential pitfalls in 2020, according to internal emails and documents obtained by The New York Times.

The documents anticipated a demanding timetable that would require the department to closely manage its priorities over several years to revamp the application form in time for students’ fall 2022 applications. The documents were prepared by the department’s staff and circulated among soon-to-be top officials after the 2020 election but before President Biden took office, including James Kvaal, the under secretary of education, and Benjamin Miller, a deputy under secretary.

The revelation that the officials were advised to prepare for an arduous process yet still failed to deliver a working form three years later is likely to add to the intense scrutiny the department has faced over the handling of the project, which threw the college application season into chaos earlier this year.

The documents were all distributed in December 2020, as Congress was about to pass a law requiring the department to overhaul the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, known as FAFSA. The law, which mandated changes that included whittling the unwieldy 108-question form down to a more manageable 36, originally envisioned the new form being ready for students by the fall of 2022.

In the weeks before Mr. Biden was inaugurated, officials overseeing the presidential transition approached the Education Department to take stock of pending challenges as they began to sketch out the new administration’s priorities among federal agencies.

In several instances, members of the transition team were told by the staff at the department’s Federal Student Aid office that the 2022 deadline mandated by Congress was too aggressive. They also warned that overhauling the form and the system used to calculate student aid offers would be a major undertaking that required collaboration with other agencies and deft project management.

“Do you have any issues around the proposals for FAFSA reform that have been floating around the hill that you think are worth flagging in case the permanent team needs it on its radar?” the transition team asked the office in one questionnaire.

“This bill would rebuild the FAFSA and the need analysis formula from the ground up,” the office replied in its written answers, adding, “FSA believes that a more realistic implementation time frame would be the 2024-2025 cycle.”

In another instance, the office advised that even a routine launch of the form incorporating “typical, annual changes” could require at least 15 months, and that getting the form ready by the 2022 deadline would be “next to impossible.”

In light of those warnings, the department sought a one-year extension, which Congress granted in March 2022 to move the deadline to Oct. 1, 2023.

Even with the extra time, however, the Education Department repeatedly fell behind.

A string of errors and last-minute tweaks forced officials to push the release of the simplified form from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31. And even once the new form had launched, a maddening array of bugs affected both applicants and college administrators waiting to receive student aid data.

Current and former officials who worked on the FAFSA simplification once the scale of the problems became clear have said that the department’s leaders often failed to check in on the project along the way, and were overly focused on other priorities such as the Biden administration’s flagship student loan forgiveness plans.

A spokesman for the Education Department said that including the FAFSA form, the agency was forced to work through three major initiatives as mandated by Congress within six months of one another — also endeavoring to restart student loan repayments after the pandemic and approving new student loan servicing contracts. Despite the tight deadlines, the spokesman said, Congress provided the department no new funding.

The documents indicate that although top officials were alerted early on that the law would require substantial action, they were still unable to stave off the troubled rollout this year.

The Government Accountability Office documented concerns about the department’s progress in a report in June , which highlighted questions about management of contractors on the project and called on the department to stay on schedule. The office is also pursuing an investigation of the department’s overall management of the project.

After an agencywide scramble to fix the form this spring , the department has since shifted its attention to reaching out to students who may have been derailed or failed to apply for aid. Since February, the department has allocated $100 million to support students and colleges and bolster applications — nearly 30 percent of the total $336 million it spent on the simplification project.

Since problems with the form came into public view in 2023, Education Secretary Miguel A. Cardona has repeatedly said that the agency’s hands were tied by the congressional deadline, and that the department has done everything in its power to meet its deadlines despite limited resources.

Mr. Cardona has said that the department expects the form to work normally for students applying to college this fall, and that the changes will benefit future applicants.

“FAFSA has been a priority since Day 1 when we got into these positions, and it will continue to be a priority until we deliver for these students,” Mr. Cardona told lawmakers in April.

Zach Montague is based in Washington. He covers breaking news and developments around the district. More about Zach Montague

Inside the Biden Administration

Here’s the latest news and analysis from washington..

War in Ukraine:  President Biden barred Ukraine from firing U.S. weapons into Russia to “avoid World War III.” After a sobering trip to Kyiv, Secretary of State Antony Blinken wants to ease that rule .

Live Nation:  The Justice Department is suing Live Nation Entertainment , the owner of Ticketmaster, asking a court to break up the company over claims it illegally maintained a monopoly in the live entertainment industry.

Relations With Kenya:  During the Kenyan president’s state visit , Biden will designate the East African nation as a “major non-NATO ally.”

Hidden Fees:  Biden’s effort to crack down on “junk fees”  from airlines and credit-card companies is doubling as a war against inflation.

Student Loans:  Biden announced the cancellation of another $7.7 billion in student loans , building on his strategy of chipping away at college debt by tweaking existing programs.

Some colleges are scrambling to get financial aid to students enrolled in the summer term

As the process for colleges to appeal government financial aid calculations remains in limbo, some low-income students enrolled in summer classes could fall through the cracks..

Enrolling in college has been especially fraught this year, and financial aid experts are raising new concerns about the unforgiving timeline students could face if they rely on federal dollars to attend school this summer.

While most college-goers register solely for the fall and spring terms, some, especially nontraditional and low-income students, depend on summer school to finish their degrees as quickly as possible and save money. Under changes made by the U.S. Education Department in 2017 , those students are eligible for year-round government assistance.

But this year, a congressional mandate to streamline the process of applying for college financial aid threw the whole system into disarray. Students across the country reported widespread troubles filling out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, while the government botched crucial data that colleges needed to make aid offers.

The FAFSA crisis, explained: How changes to college financial aid turned Decision Day into chaos

Though the situation has improved over the last month – FAFSAs are now being processed in one to three days, the Education Department says – many colleges are still far behind their typical schedules. The disorder has forced schools, in some cases, to rely on their own systems to calculate costs for certain students who want to enroll this summer and are eligible for Pell Grants, a need-based federal financial aid program.

What is a Pell Grant? Who qualifies? What to know after Biden announces student loan plan

But the timetable leaves little room for error, some experts say. 

“We are extremely worried about anyone who wants to enroll in college starting in the summer term and beyond,” said MorraLee Keller, the senior director of strategic programming at the National College Attainment Network. “The FAFSA fiasco has not left any part of higher education untouched.” 

In a statement to USA TODAY, the Education Department said the technicalities over when colleges choose to access Pell money will not change the amount of federal financial aid for which students are ultimately eligible. The agency said Friday it had processed over 10 million FAFSA forms.

Richard Cordray is out: Top Education Department official steps down amid crisis over college financial aid

How a small Kansas college is faring

For people like Brenda Hicks, making sure Pell funding comes through this summer for students without a financial cushion has been frenetic.

Southwestern College, a small private school in Winfield, Kansas, where she serves as the director of financial aid, is one of a minority of higher education institutions that bases its summer aid on students’ next-year FAFSA data. It’s always a scramble to make sure those students get the money they qualify for, she said. Summer students at Southwestern are often older and have other responsibilities – jobs and kids, for instance – which can distract them from filling out all the necessary paperwork on time. 

“I was very concerned,” Hicks told USA TODAY. 

Southwestern’s incoming Pell-eligible class is relatively small – about 100 students. Disbursing aid to them last week went mostly smoothly, Hicks said, though a few students have had trouble filling out their FAFSAs from the start. After lots of back and forth with the Education Department, one summer-enrolled student just received a federal financial aid estimate Friday. Summer classes already started earlier this month.

Because of problems with his FAFSA, another student at Southwestern still doesn’t have an idea of how much federal financial aid he could get. Though her office can’t disburse aid to him yet, Hicks said she is working closely with the billing staff to make sure he isn’t penalized for unpaid tuition or fees while his situation is pending.

“All the things that are happening this year are making it harder for me to stay on top of that, and make sure summer people are getting the attention they are due,” she said. “We’re just trying to hug him through it.” 

Hicks said she worries about similar situations at larger schools, where there's a greater chance some students could fall through the cracks this summer. 

Colleges' financial aid appeals still in limbo

It’s unclear to experts precisely how many colleges are working on a tighter timetable for summer financial aid this year. Thankfully, the majority of schools award their summer aid based on the prior year’s FAFSA, according to Jill Desjean, a senior policy analyst at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

The Education Department did not provide USA TODAY an estimate of how many students received Pell Grants starting in the summer term of a comparable year. In the 2021-22 school year, approximately 700,000 students in total received the grants on a year-round basis, according to the agency. Much of that aid likely began in the fall term.

Students with special financial circumstances could be most at risk of having to forgo school this summer, Desjean said. That’s because colleges still don’t have the ability to appeal the government’s financial aid calculations – a decision schools make in unusual circumstances, such as when a student is facing a major medical condition.

That corrected information won’t be processed in large quantities by the feds until July, the Education Department has said. Until then, some schools are making their own unofficial calculations for students enrolled for the summer term. The Education Department is allowing them to disburse preliminary aid based on those estimates.

Later this summer, schools will have to compare the amount of money they already started giving students with the government's official numbers. 

“Hopefully, they are the same,” Desjean said.

Zachary Schermele covers education and breaking news for   USA TODAY. You can reach him by email at [email protected]. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele .

Using Trauma-Informed Teaching to Handle Sensitive Topics in Online Teaching: A Case Study from Divinity

How can Christian faith influence the practice of mental health care? How do we define mental health and mental illness — and what are the limitations of these concepts? How can Christian theology provide us with tools to ethically engage with challenges related to mental health care? When developing their new graduate-level course, Christian Approaches to Mental Health Care , Professors Warren Kinghorn and John Swinton created a course where students could explore these questions.

“Theology provides us with a language, a worldview and a set of practices that are vital for mental health care,” Swinton said. “The intention of this course is to help people to think theologically and provide people with other ideas and tools to help them care more fully and more faithfully.”

A hybrid, nine-week course, Christian Approaches to Mental Health Care is part of a new mental health track in the Divinity School’s Certificate in Theology and Health Care . Students attended an immersive week on Duke’s campus where they were introduced to key concepts; they attended course sessions the following eight weeks via Zoom.

“In the Theology, Medicine, and Culture Initiative, we invite students into deep engagement with the practices of health care in light of Christian theology and practice,” Kinghorn said. “This class is a natural extension of that aim, but now focused specifically on the practices of mental health care.” 

This Divinity course was aimed at both professionals who work in any context related to mental health care (e.g., counselors, social workers) and those who may have a personal interest in the material. First taught in Spring 2024 to over 30 students, the course covered a wide-range of topics that needed to be handled with care, including trauma, anxiety, and dementia. 

Challenges and Affordances of Teaching Online

How does one approach teaching sensitive topics online? Are there challenges unique to this environment? 

Swinton noted that the structure of a course using a web conferencing software like Zoom can present challenges.

“When you are in a standard class situation and difficult issues come up, people have the opportunity to find immediate support either from us as tutors or from classmates,” he said. “When you are doing a course online, that support is often not available. You switch off the camera and you are on your own.”

That being said, knowing this can be an issue without the buffer space at the beginning or end of the class session, Swinton and Kinghorn have worked to ensure their online sessions do offer support. Kinghorn noted that during his first foray into online teaching during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, he was concerned about engaging with sensitive topics in a virtual class setting.

“But I learned that if the class is structured in a way that leaves time and space for self-care, Zoom-based instruction has advantages,” he said. “Students generally join class from a space where they feel safe. They can titrate their own exposure in class, shifting position or even briefly turning off camera or microphone if necessary. If done well and in a trauma-informed way, I think that even the hardest topics can be addressed well through online pedagogy.”

Strategies to Teach a Trauma-Informed Course

What does it mean to be a trauma-informed instructor? How can Kinghorn and Swinton’s course act as an example for other courses?

“Adopting a trauma-informed approach is not accomplished through any single particular technique or checklist,” the CDC’s 6 Guiding Principles To A Trauma-Informed Approach reminds us, “It requires constant attention, caring awareness, sensitivity, and possibly a cultural change at an organizational level.”

Kinghorn and Swinton, however, do have specific strategies that worked for the specific context of their course. Given that this course covered topics such as depression, suicide, substance use issues, and more during the online weeks, the instructors informed students about upcoming content and encouraged them to approach these topics with care for themselves and for others. While there are different approaches to creating a trauma-informed environment, Kinghorn and Swinton focused on harm reduction in suggesting how instructors can think about this during a live course.

“My belief (as others have argued in the trauma-informed teaching literature) is that it should be a last resort for professors to invite students to opt out of a class due to difficult past experiences, as this kind of approach (if made systematic) can compound educational differences and marginalization— effectively giving educational access to those fortunate not to have particular trauma histories and excluding (even if student-driven) those who do,” Kinghorn said.  “I would much rather structure courses (as I think we did this semester) with the goal that every student, including those with recent loss or difficult trauma histories, feels a sense of welcome and belonging that enables them to participate in the good, hard work of the course.”

Swinton shared that choice is important to him in thinking about student participation.

“For example, if an online student has had someone close to them die by suicide either recently or historically and they feel that a class on this subject could be problematic for them, we would want to make sure that the person involved does not feel compelled to participate in the class if it is going to be harmful,” Swinton said of a hypothetical scenario. “It’s always going to be difficult with sensitive issues online, but we do the best we can to minimize the possibility of harm.”

Other strategies to help students feel like the course was a safe place for student learning included:

• Focusing on helping students create a connected community, which included putting them in consistent breakout room groups of 5-6 students for the semester
• Modelling honesty and humility as instructors  when receiving difficult questions during the immersive week
• Starting each class session with grounding practices (e.g., reading a psalm and pausing in silent reflection)
• Staying after class in Zoom to be available to students and ensuring presence and privacy by turning off recording features
• Providing clear guidelines about evaluations and deadlines, as well as sharing how students should communicate with faculty and teaching assistants
• Granting structured flexibility (e.g., offering a no-questions-asked 72-hour extension for one assignment over the semester)
• Respecting students’ privacy (e.g., not asking students to disclose why they need to turn in late work)

Teaching with Care

How might you begin to integrate trauma-informed practices into your own teaching? 

The first step, Swinton said, is to recognize that this is an issue instructors should take note of in all of their teaching.

Using Duke as an example, Kinghorn elaborated that while instructors should not be asking students to disclose their trauma, they can assume “that a majority or near-majority of every class of Duke students have survived trauma of some sort (recognizing the challenges of defining that term).”

“Assume that all students, including trauma survivors, are at Duke because they want to learn, want to engage difficult material well, and generally want to do good, hard work together,” he said. “Then ask: how specific to my subject matter can I invite students to do good, hard work in a way that respects their lived experience? That’s going to differ by class and by student but is the place to start.”

If you’d like to learn more about trauma-informed teaching, here are a few resources where you could start are:

• Trauma-Informed Teaching – University of Wisconsin, Lacrosse
• Trauma-Informed Pedagogy, Montclair State University
• Karen Costa’s Trauma Informed Pedagogy Course
• A feature of a recent Coursera course that integrated trauma-informed frameworks into its design
• SAMHSA, Trauma and Violence
• The Missouri Model: A Developmental Framework for Trauma-Informed Approaches
• CDC, 6 Guiding Principles to a Trauma-Informed Approach
• Potentially Perilous Pedagogies: Teaching Trauma Is Not the Same as Trauma-Informed Teaching

If you’d like to learn more about Warren Kinghorn and John Swinton’s work, here are a few places to start are:

• Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of Christians with Mental Health Challenges (2020)
• Wayfaring: A Christian Approach to Mental Health Care by Warren Kinghorn (July 2024)
• Developing Best Practices for Trauma-Informed Teaching and Learning

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• Tools and Resources
• Clinical Overview
• Clinical Signs and Symptoms
• Clinical Testing and Screening
• Clinical Care and Treatment
• Guidelines for Health Care Personnel Exposed to Hepatitis C Virus
• Viral Hepatitis
• Hepatitis A
• Hepatitis B
• Viral Hepatitis Statistics & Surveillance

Clinical Screening and Diagnosis for Hepatitis C

• CDC recommends universal hepatitis C screening for all adults 18 and older and all pregnant people during each pregnancy.
• CDC recommends testing people in certain high-risk groups more frequently.
• Testing, diagnosis, and timely treatment can prevent hepatitis C complications and interrupt transmission.

Why it's important

Nearly half of people with hepatitis C are unaware of their infection status, and approximately 75%–85% of people with hepatitis C don’t have symptoms. 1 2 3 4 Without testing, they can unknowingly transmit the virus to others.

There is no vaccine to prevent hepatitis C. Therefore, the best way to prevent infection is by avoiding behaviors that can transmit the virus.

For the public‎

How to make decisions on whether to test or screen.

Clinicians should universally screen:

• All adults 18 and older at least once in their lifetime, except in settings where the prevalence of hepatitis C virus (HCV) infection (HCV RNA-positivity) is under 0.1%.
• All pregnant people during each pregnancy, except in settings where the prevalence of HCV infection (HCV RNA-positivity) is under 0.1%.

CDC recommends one-time hepatitis C testing for people with recognized risk factors or exposures, including:

• People who currently or have previously injected drugs and shared needles, syringes, or other drug preparation equipment.
• People with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).
• People with selected medical conditions, including people who have ever received maintenance hemodialysis and persons with persistently abnormal alanine aminotransferase (ALT) levels.
• People who received clotting factor concentrates produced before 1987.
• People who received a transfusion of blood or blood components before July 1992.
• People who received an organ transplant before July 1992.
• People who were notified that they received blood from a donor who later tested positive for HCV infection.
• Health care, emergency medical, and public safety personnel after needle sticks, sharps, or mucosal exposures to HCV-positive blood.
• Infants born to people with known hepatitis C.

CDC also recommends routine periodic testing for patients with ongoing risk factors (regardless of setting prevalence), including:

• People who currently inject drugs and share needles, syringes, or other drug preparation equipment.
• People with selected medical conditions, including people who receive maintenance hemodialysis.

Clinicians should test anyone who requests a hepatitis C test, regardless of stated risk factors, because patients may be hesitant to share stigmatizing risks.

Screening and testing guidelines

Clinicians should initiate hepatitis C testing with an HCV antibody test with reflex to NAT for HCV RNA if the antibody test is positive/reactive. See the complete testing sequence .

If a patient’s antibody test is positive/reactive and they also have detectable HCV RNA, they have a current HCV infection and you should counsel the patient, evaluate for treatment, and initiate an appropriate direct-acting antiviral (DAA) regimen.

Operational guidance for complete hepatitis C testing

It is important to reduce time to diagnosis, evaluation, and treatment initiation. CDC recommends that clinicians collect all samples needed to diagnose hepatitis C in a single visit and order HCV RNA testing automatically when the HCV antibody is reactive. 5 When the HCV antibody test is reactive, the laboratories should automatically perform NAT testing for HCV RNA detection. This automatic testing streamlines the process because it occurs without any additional action on the part of the patient or the clinician. See complete recommendations .

Possibility of false negatives

During acute HCV infection, antibody becomes detectable at 8–11 weeks. Therefore, a patient who thinks they may have been recently exposed might not have antibody levels high enough for a positive HCV antibody test. In addition, some people might lack the immune response necessary to develop detectable antibodies within this time range. In cases like these, clinicians should consider virologic testing. 6 7

HCV RNA testing for recent infection

HCV RNA testing is recommended for the diagnosis of current HCV infection among people who might have been exposed to HCV within the past 6 months, regardless of HCV antibody result. 10 HCV RNA becomes detectable approximately 1 – 2 weeks after infection with HCV. Suspected exposure may be inferred from the patient's history or the context and setting of the patient encounter (e.g., inferred potential exposure among people who inject drugs presenting to a syringe service program).

Recommended tests

Clinicians should use an FDA-approved HCV antibody test followed by a NAT for HCV RNA test when antibody is positive/reactive. Tests include:

• HCV antibody test (anti-HCV) (e.g., enzyme immunoassay [EIA]).
• Nucleic acid test (NAT) to detect presence of HCV RNA (qualitative RNA test).
• NAT to detect levels of HCV RNA (quantitative RNA test).

A reactive HCV antibody test result indicates a history of past or current HCV infection. A detectable HCV RNA test result indicates current infection.

NAT for detection of HCV RNA should be used among people with suspected HCV exposure within the past 6 months.

Perinatally exposed infants

Clinicians should test all perinatally exposed infants for HCV RNA using a NAT at 2–6 months. Care for infants with detectable HCV RNA should be coordinated in consultation with a provider who has expertise in pediatric hepatitis C management. Infants with undetectable HCV RNA do not require further follow-up unless clinically warranted.

How to interpret screening results

Interpretation of Results of Tests for HCV Infection and Further Actions

Test Outcome

Interpretation  

Further A ctions  

HCV antibody nonreactive  

No HCV antibody detected  

Sample can be reported as nonreactive for HCV antibody. No further action required . If recent exposure is suspected, test for HCV RNA. *  

HCV antibody reactive  

Presumptive HCV infection  

A repeatedly reactive result could be consistent with current HCV infection, past HCV infection that has resolved, or biologic false positivity for HCV antibody. Test for HCV RNA to identify current infection.  

HCV antibody reactive, HCV RNA detected  

Current HCV infection  

Provide person tested with appropriate counseling and link to care and treatment. †  

HCV antibody reactive, HCV RNA not detected  

No current HCV infection  

No further action required in most cases. If distinction between true positivity and biologic false positivity for HCV antibody is desired, and if sample is repeatedly reactive in the initial test, test with another HCV antibody assay. In certain situations, follow up with HCV RNA testing and appropriate counseling. §  

* If HCV RNA testing is not feasible and person tested is not immunocompromised, do follow-up testing for HCV antibody to demonstrate seroconversion. If the patient tested is immunocompromised, consider testing for HCV RNA.

† It is recommended before initiating antiviral therapy to retest for HCV RNA in a subsequent blood sample to confirm HCV RNA positivity.

§ If the patient is suspected of having HCV exposure within the past 6 months, or has clinical evidence of HCV disease, or if there is concern regarding the handling or storage of the test specimen, the clinician should follow up with the patient.

Testing sequence flow chart

Other resources:

CDC Hepatitis C Serology Online Training

How to diagnose Hepatitis C

If an HCV antibody test is not reactive/positive, the patient has not been exposed and you can rule out infection.

For acute HCV infection, it usually takes 8–11 weeks before antibodies are detectable.

If the antibody test is reactive/positive, you will still need to test for HCV RNA to diagnose the patient and start treatment.

It usually takes 1–2 weeks after exposure to the virus for detectable HCV RNA levels to appear. 8

New guidance from CDC in July 2023 recommends complete, automatic HCV RNA testing on all HCV antibody reactive samples to minimize patient visits and increase the number of patients diagnosed and treated.

What to do next

CDC recommends that clinicians offer the following services to people who are diagnosed with HCV infection:

• Medical evaluation (by either a primary care clinician or specialist for chronic liver disease, including treatment and monitoring).
• Hepatitis A and hepatitis B vaccination.
• Screening and brief intervention for alcohol consumption.
• HIV risk assessment and testing.

More information on recommendations for testing, management, and treating hepatitis C are available from CDC and the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) .

Reporting cases

The National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) lists acute, chronic, and perinatal hepatitis C as nationally notifiable conditions. 9

You should report cases of suspected health care-associated HCV infection to state and local public health authorities for prompt investigation and response.

When you report a case, you will use an event code that corresponds to the hepatitis C condition. You can reclassify cases if needed, as long as the changes occur before surveillance data are finalized each year.

National Event codes are:

• Updated Operational Guidance for Implementing CDC's Recommendations on Testing for Hepatitis C Virus Infection | MMWR
• CDC Recommendations for Hepatitis C Testing Among Perinatally Exposed Infants and Children — United States, 2023 | MMWR
• CDC Recommendations for Hepatitis C Screening Among Adults | MMWR
• Recommendations for Testing, Managing, and Treating Hepatitis C | HCV Guidance
• Interpretation of Test Results for Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) Infection (Graph)
• Recommended HCV Testing Sequence Flow Chart (Flow Chart)
• Algorithm for Health Care Personnel Exposed to HCV (Flow Chart)
• Updated HCV Testing Guidance for Clinicians and Laboratorians | MMWR
• Kim Hs, Yang JD, El‐Serag HB, Kanwal F. Awareness of chronic viral hepatitis in the United States: An update from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey. J of Viral Hep 2019;26:596-602.
• Busch MP, Shafer KA. Acute-phase hepatitis C virus infection: implications for research, diagnosis, and treatment. Clin Infect Dis 2005;40:959-961.
• Maheshwari A, Ray S, Thuluvath PJ. Acute hepatitis C. Lancet 2008;372:321-332.
• Grebely J, Matthews GV, Dore GJ. Treatment of acute HCV infection. Nat Rev Gastroenterol Hepatol 2011;8:265–274.
• Cartwright EJ, Patel P, Kamili S, Wester C. Updated Operational Guidance for Implementing CDC’s Recommendations on Testing for Hepatitis C Virus Infection. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep 2023;72:766–768. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.15585/mmwr.mm7228a2.
• Thomson EC, et al. Delayed anti-HCV antibody response in HIV-positive men acutely infected with HCV. AIDS, 2009. 23(1): p. 89-93.
• Vanhommerig, JW, et al. Hepatitis C virus (HCV) antibody dynamics following acute HCV infection and reinfection among HIV-infected men who have sex with men. Clin Infect Dis, 2014. 59(12): p. 1678-85.
• Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL). Infectious Diseases, January 2019. Interpretation of Hepatitis C Virus Test Results: Guidance for Laboratories [cited 2019 June 25]; Available at: https://www.aphl.org/aboutAPHL/publications/Documents/ID-2019Jan-HCV-Test-Result-Interpretation-Guide.pdf .
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Lesson 5: Public health surveillance. Appendix A. Characteristics of well-conducted surveillance. In: Dicker RC, Coronado F, Koo D, Parrish RG, eds. Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice, Third Edition: An Introduction to Applied Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Atlanta, Georgia, 2006.
• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Testing for HCV infection: an update of guidance for clinicians and laboratorians. MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2013 May 10;62(18):362-5. PMID: 23657112; PMCID: PMC4605020.

Hepatitis C

Hepatitis C is a liver infection caused by the hepatitis C virus (HCV). HCV information for both the public and health professionals.

For Everyone

Health care providers.