Education Sector Welcomes Stephen Burd as Senior Policy Analyst on Higher Education

Washington, D.C. – Education Sector, a nonprofit, nonpartisan education policy think tank, is pleased to announce that Stephen Burd has joined the organization as a senior policy analyst on higher education.

Burd most recently worked at the New America Foundation, where he edited the Higher Ed Watch blog, leading its award-winning coverage of the student loan industry and for-profit higher education. Burd’s posts, which exposed waste, inefficiencies, and abuses in the bank-based federal student loan program, helped pave the way for the largest reforms in the federal student loan program in nearly 20 years. The posts were widely cited in the months before Congress and the Obama Administration eliminated banks from the student loan program entirely in 2010.

Previously, Burd worked for 15 years as a reporter and senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he primarily focused on federal higher education policy and the inner workings of student loan and financial aid policy. “Stephen Burd brings a reputation as a tough but fair reporter, a deep knowledge of higher education, and a thoughtful approach to improving higher education in this country,” said Richard Lee Colvin, Education Sector’s executive director. “We are delighted to have him join our staff.”

Education Sector is an independent think tank that challenges conventional thinking in education policy. We are a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization committed to achieving measurable impact in education, both through improving existing reform initiatives and by developing new, innovative solutions to our nation’s most pressing education problems.

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