Policy Considerations regarding Student Loan Debt and Higher Education

Within the last 30 years, the policy considerations regarding student loan debt and higher education have become a series of strong opinions, heated debate, and partisan politics. Key stakeholders including the United States Government, both for-profit and traditional higher- educations institutions, financial organizations, special interest groups, and students all have interests. More so, all branches of Government, the Legislative, Judicial, and Executive, are areas where policy is both born and challenged. Some are aligned, and some are competing such that crafting sound policy regarding the lending and management of student loan debt has created a difficult situation that may well lead to disastrous consequences. Currently the outstanding student loan debt is at $1.56 trillion dollars and rising (Friedman, 2020). Next to outstanding mortgage debt, student loan debt is the next highest debt in the United States (Friedman, 2017). Comparisons in student debt have been made to the “housing bubble” of 2008, and the repercussions may be as equally devastating, if not worse, should default rates increase. From the Federal government’s perspective, balancing diversity and access to higher education with the risks of increased and unregulated student lending are key issues. From the students’ perspective, how can affected students and graduates address unfair lending practices and hold subpar higher-education institutions accountable? Legal remedies, including the Borrower Defense Rule and the statutory provisions of the bankruptcy statutes may be available to students and graduates to challenge student loan forgiveness and subpar higher-education institutions, but these are complex legal remedies. More so, changes in bankruptcy law have made this much more difficult (Dobson, 2019; Iluiano, 2012; Grant 2011). All of these issues affect society at large. Should the student-loan bubble burst, the effects on the economy may be tantamount to the Great Recession. According to the Federal Reserve, the Great Recession is known as a two-year economic downturn from 2007 to 2009 (Rich, 2013). It marked the longest recession since World War II, resulting in unemployment peaking at 10 percent (Rich, 2013). Notably, this played a part in triggering a housing crisis where 9.3 million homeowners lost their homes between 2006 and 2014 (Kusisto, 2015). The steady increase in student loan debt is remarkably similar to the outstanding debt in the housing bubble. This dissertation will analyze student loan debt while specifically focusing on the legal ramifications of the Borrower Default Rule and student loan debt defenses. These increasingly litigated issues provide a broad picture of evolving policy in higher education and will provide a means to highlight current issues and trends related to the policy considerations being debated amongst students, educators, and law makers

Dual-path state reconstruction scheme for propagating quantum microwaves and detector noise tomography

Quantum state reconstruction involves measurement devices that are usually described by idealized models, but not known in full detail in experiments. For weak propagating microwaves, the detection process requires linear amplifiers which obscure the signal with random noise. Here, we introduce a theory which nevertheless allows one to use these devices for measuring all quadrature moments of propagating quantum microwaves based on cross-correlations from a dual-path amplification setup. Simultaneously, the detector noise properties are determined, allowing for tomography. We demonstrate the feasibility of our novel concept by proof-of-principle experiments with classical mixtures of weak coherent microwaves.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Insights on the Atmospheric-Pressure Plasma-Induced Free-Radical Polymerization of Allyl Ether Cyclic Carbonate Liquid Layers

Plasma-induced free-radical polymerizations rely on the formation of radical species to initiate polymerization, leading to some extent of monomer fragmentation. In this work, the plasma-induced polymerization of an allyl ether-substituted six-membered cyclic carbonate (A6CC) is demonstrated and emphasizes the retention of the cyclic carbonate moieties. Taking advantage of the low polymerization tendency of allyl monomers, the characterization of the oligomeric species is studied to obtain insights into the effect of plasma exposure on inducing free-radical polymerization. In less than 5 min of plasma exposure, a monomer conversion close to 90% is obtained. The molecular analysis of the oligomers by gel permeation chromatography coupled with high-resolution mass spectrometry (GPC-HRMS) further confirms the high preservation of the cyclic structure and, based on the detected end groups, points to hydrogen abstraction as the main contributor to the initiation and termination of polymer chain growth. These results demonstrate that the elaboration of surfaces functionalized with cyclic carbonates could be readily elaborated by atmospheric-pressure plasmas, for instance, by copolymerization

Ohio Economic Insects and Related Anthropods

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Single shot cathode transverse momentum imaging in high brightness photoinjectors

In state of the art photoinjector electron sources, thermal emittance from photoemission dominates the final injector emittance. Therefore, low thermal emittance cathode developments and diagnostics are very important. Conventional thermal emittance measurements for the high gradient gun are time-consuming and thus thermal emittance is not measured as frequently as quantum efficiency during the lifetime of photocathodes, although both are important properties for the photoinjector optimizations. In this paper, a single shot measurement of photoemission transverse momentum, i.e., thermal emittance per rms laser spot size, is proposed for photocathode rf guns. By tuning the gun solenoid focusing, the electrons' transverse momenta at the cathode are imaged to a downstream screen, which enables a single shot measurement of both the rms value and the detailed spectra of the photoelectrons' transverse momenta. Both simulations and proof of principle experiments are reported

Beyond the Jaynes-Cummings model: circuit QED in the ultrastrong coupling regime

In cavity quantum electrodynamics (QED), light-matter interaction is probed at its most fundamental level, where individual atoms are coupled to single photons stored in three-dimensional cavities. This unique possibility to experimentally explore the foundations of quantum physics has greatly evolved with the advent of circuit QED, where on-chip superconducting qubits and oscillators play the roles of two-level atoms and cavities, respectively. In the strong coupling limit, atom and cavity can exchange a photon frequently before coherence is lost. This important regime has been reached both in cavity and circuit QED, but the design flexibility and engineering potential of the latter allowed for increasing the ratio between the atom-cavity coupling rate and the cavity transition frequency above the percent level. While these experiments are well described by the renowned Jaynes-Cummings model, novel physics is expected in the ultrastrong coupling limit. Here, we report on the first experimental realization of a superconducting circuit QED system in the ultrastrong coupling limit and present direct evidence for the breakdown of the Jaynes-Cummings model.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure

Quantum Simulation of Spin Chains Coupled to Bosonic Modes with Superconducting Circuits

We propose the implementation of a digital quantum simulation of spin chains coupled to bosonic field modes in superconducting circuits. Gates with high fidelities allows one to simulate a variety of Ising magnetic pairing interactions with transverse field, Tavis-Cummings interaction between spins and a bosonic mode, and a spin model with three-body terms. We analyze the feasibility of the implementation in realistic circuit quantum electrodynamics setups, where the interactions are either realized via capacitive couplings or mediated by microwave resonators.Comment: Chapter in R. S. Anderssen et al. (eds.), Mathematics for Industry 11 (Springer Japan, 2015