Law Commons^™

Redesigning Education Finance: How Student Loans Outgrew The “Debt” Paradigm, John R. Brooks, Adam J. Levitin

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This Article argues that the student loan crisis is due not to the scale of student loan debt, but to the federal education finance system’s failure to utilize its existing mechanisms for progressive, income-based payments and debt cancellation. These mechanisms can make investment in higher education affordable to both individuals and the government, but they have not been fully utilized because of the mismatch between the current system’s economic reality and its legal, financial, and institutional apparatus.

The current economic structure of federal student loans does not resemble a true credit product, but a government grant program coupled with a …

Governing Board Accountability: Competition, Regulation And Accreditation, Judith C. Areen

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

This article examines the three primary ways in which the governing boards of American colleges and universities are held to account: (1) competition; (2) regulation, including state nonprofit corporation laws, tax laws, and licensing laws; and (3) accreditation. It begins by tracing how lay (meaning nonfaculty) governing boards became the dominant form of governance in American higher education. It argues that governing boards provide American institutions of higher education with an exceptional degree of autonomy from state control and that, together with the shared governance approach that gives faculties primary responsibility for academic matters, they have been a vital factor …

Doctrinal Dilemma, Girardeau A. Spann

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

In response to Kimberly West-Faulcon, The River Runs Dry: When Title VI Trumps State Anti–Affirmative Action Laws, 157 U. PA. L. REV. 1075 (2009).

Professor Kimberly West-Faulcon has identified a tension between state anti-affirmative action laws and the continued enrollment of minority students in public universities, and the author argues the tension is not surprising, because the voter initiatives that led to those state anti-affirmative action laws were transparently motivated by white majoritarian desires to reduce minority student enrollment in public universities. He feels what is surprising, however, is Professor West-Faulcon’s suggestion that state anti-affirmative action laws can themselves …