DMI

Our friend Tsedey Betru of DMI Scholars has two podcasts up on the DMI Blog.

In the first, she talks to Iara Peng, founder of Young People For. The two discuss how YPF got started and the future of the progressive youth movement. Listen here.

In the second, she talks to David Halperin of Campus Progress about the entrepreneurial spirit in today’s progressive youth movement, and how Campus Progress fits into the mix. Listen here.

Both are about 10 minutes long and worth a listen if you are curious about the work of these groups.

DMI Blog has a great post up about inequality and higher education costs:

In a nut shell: a person's access to higher education is becoming more and more unequal as a new report by the Education Trust points out. They are right when they say "That is bad for low-income and minority families and bad for America."

The report, Promise Abandoned: How Policy Choices and Institutional Practices Restrict College Opportunites, highlights two huge problems in achieving equality of access to higher education: college costs and student retention. The cost of four-year college has increased over the last twenty years faster than inflation or the family income. Funding impacts the number of low-income students going to college. If you are from a high-income family you have a 75% chance of getting a bachelor's degree by age 24; low-income fewer than 9% chance of a bachelor's by 24.

There's a lot of fantastic stuff coming out about student debt, predatory lending, and other financial/educational issues facing people in their 20's. I'm hoping to have a policy post up about it later this week.

Also hope to have a report from RootsCampDC as well.