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"The Department of Education has increased its surveillance of programs that get billions of dollars in federal aid but leave many students with crushing debt and credentials worth little on the job market. Under the new rules, programs would lose their eligibility to dispense federal student aid and as a practical matter, be shut down if, over the next four years, their graduates fail to meet new benchmarks for loan repayment and ratio of debt to income."

"When the Illinois income tax rate increased by 67 percent in January, taxpayers might have reasonably expected they would be getting a little more out of state government for their money."

"If a local developer gets his way - and $5 million from the federal government - the stately former Flint school, with its tall windows and arched entryways, could become low-income housing for senior citizens."

"As... college graduates [leave] school, burdened with high levels of debt and entering a severely depressed job market, they may be asking themselves a fundamental question: Was college worth it?. Large numbers of new graduates will face sustained periods of... low wages for years."

"Supporters say that the new proposal reflects a commitment to socio-economic diversity made by the board several years ago after a sometimes emotional public conversation about poor academic outcomes at two high-poverty grade schools in the Old North End."

"To prove that poverty doesn't matter, political leaders point to schools that have achieved stunning results in only a few years despite the poverty around them. But the accounts of miracle schools demand closer scrutiny. Usually, they are the result of statistical legerdemain."

"The school, where 97% of the students qualify for free or reduced-price lunch based on poverty, bought the equipment with grant money, officials said. There was no word on whether the stolen items would be replaced, given the city's budget cuts."

"Low-income students can take the tests free through a combination of waivers from the state and the College Board, which runs the AP program. But the district must apply for the waivers before it knows how many students will qualify, and therefore it must allot enough money..."

"The digital divide that has left nearly 40 percent of all Chicagoans with little or no access to the Internet is about to narrow for 330,000 needy students."

"Low-income students also lose more than two months in reading achievement, despite the fact that their middle-class peers make slight gains. By fifth grade, they can be nearly three years behind in reading."

"'Kids raised in a setting of poverty don't know as many words coming in, don't have the same resources in terms of books at home, and any parent is commonly working two jobs or three jobs,' he said."

"But tens of thousands of Illinois students remain shut out of Advanced Placement classes... because of a dearth of courses elsewhere in the state coupled with disparities in the Chicago region, where AP classes range from plentiful to meager, a Tribune analysis found."