This edition was written by Tara Watson and Sasha Snyder.
💡 New from us: College cost and value transparency, ACA subsidies expiring, and K-12 pandemic learning losses.
While higher education promotes economic mobility, opaque and individualized financial aid practices often leave students making major financial decisions without clear information about the true cost of earning a degree. In a comment letter responding to a request for information from the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, Sarah Reber and Katherine Meyer propose solutions to this major issue. They call for improved data infrastructure and analytic capacity, including the development of simpler, universal net price calculators, standardized reporting requirements for colleges, and greater collaboration between institutions and the federal government. Reber and Meyer emphasize that comprehensive, accessible information is critical not only for students, but also for the advisors who guide them through these complex decisions.
Expanded premium subsidies for Affordable Care Act (ACA) marketplace plans are set to expire at the close of 2025. Matthew Friedler and Fred Dews discuss how this change will directly translate into higher out-of-pocket costs for subsidized enrollees. Fiedler notes that as premiums rise, healthier individuals are likely to drop coverage, leaving a sicker risk pool and prompting insurers to increase sticker prices even further. Combined with stricter Medicaid and marketplace eligibility requirements implemented through the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, these changes are estimated to result in a reduction in insurance coverage for around 15 million people.
Students have yet to fully recover from the COVID-19 pandemic; the 2024 National Assessment of Educational Progress found historic lows in math and English scores for twelfth grade students and declines in both subjects for fourth and eighth graders relative to 2019. While the pandemic was universal, the effects on learning varied greatly depending on individual factors like home life and technology, as well as variation in school closures and hybrid learning models. Lauren Bauer and Eileen Powell investigate whether a student’s grade level during the pandemic influenced the extent of learning loss. They find that students who were closer to middle school during the 2019-2020 school year struggled more to recover than younger students who were closer to kindergarten. The authors note that this difference is particularly pronounced in math, where older students continue to lag behind, whereas their scores in English have largely rebounded to typical levels.
📖 What we’re reading
What are the effects of the current surge in interior immigration enforcement on student outcomes in the U.S.?David Figlio and Umut Özek investigate this question by exploring middle and high school student performance in Florida. They find that both U.S.-born and foreign-born Spanish-speaking students who are more exposed to immigration enforcement score worse on tests. These students are also less likely to be involved in disciplinary incidents. The effects are more pronounced in higher-poverty school settings and show that the risk of deportation—for students themselves, their parents, or community members—has the potential to disrupt educational trajectories and widen existing achievement gaps.
Why do high-income students have an admissions advantage at so-called “Ivy-Plus” colleges, and what effect does attending these schools have on students’ post-college outcomes? In a recent study published in The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Raj Chetty, David Deming, and John Friedman show that it is easier for high-income students to get into Ivy-Plus schools than equivalently qualified lower-income students. There are three main reasons: schools confer an advantage to children of alumni, place weight on non-academic credentials, and recruit for athletic teams. Attending these top colleges has a profound effect on economic mobility; students at Ivy-Plus schools will make on average $101,000 more per year than students graduating from flagship public colleges. They will also have double the chance of enrolling in an elite graduate school and triple the chance of working at a prestigious firm.
What are the key drivers of food insecurity among older adults, and how can policy interventions mitigate them? In their new book Food for Thought, policy scholar Colleen Heflin and sociologist Madonna Meyer examine the increasingly rampant issue of food insecurity among older adults. In 2023, more than nine percent of Americans aged sixty and older lacked sufficient resources to afford food. Existing support—such as SNAP and community-based programs like food pantries or home-delivered meals—are insufficient to address the needs of this population. Heflin and Meyer outline targeted updates to SNAP and income support policies that would help better combat food security among older adults.
📊 Top chart: These US counties stand to benefit the most from migration.
This month’s top chart is from the Niskanen Center’s Migration Match Index, a tool designed to identify communities most likely to benefit from an influx of migrants and highlight where opportunities for migrants are greatest. Many areas in the country—for example, Grand Forks County, North Dakota or Madison County, Nebraska—face business closures or slowed growth that could be alleviated by additional migrant labor. This map shows all the counties in the U.S. that Niskanen predicts will need labor from outside their borders to fill shortages.
➡️ Worth a click
Check out this interactive calculator from KFF to estimate how much you would pay in premiums with and without the ACA’s enhanced premium tax credits.
Read this newsletter by The Atlantic on the different immigration enforcement strategies deployed by ICE and Border Patrol.
Listen to this podcast from NPR on caregiving services for seniors, and how caregivers should take care of themselves too.
🌟Happy Holidays from CESO!
Thank you for reading and engaging with us throughout the year. We wish you a joyful holiday season and a bright start to the new year.
Before we head into 2026, take a look back at three of our most-read pieces from this year:
About the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at Brookings
The Center for Economic Security and Opportunity (CESO) produces data-driven, nonpartisan analysis to address the United States’ most challenging social policy questions. In a noisy and polarized world, the Center is a trustworthy source for the information and tools policymakers need to build an economy that works for everyone.
The Brookings Institution, 1775 Massachusetts Ave NW, Washington,DC, 20036
