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Emergency responders searched through splintered wreckage Monday in parts of Texas and Arkansas after a line of tornadoes battered several small communities, killing at least five people, including a young couple who died trying to shield their daughter from the storm.By midday, eight people were still missing in a rural East Texas town, raising the possibility that the number of dead could climb. Scores of others were hurt, some critically.Tornado kills 1 in Texas as multiple twisters hit Colorado51 tornadoes plow through the Great PlainsU.S. tornado warning system far surpasses Canada'sThe couple, in their late 20s or early 30s, died when a twister hit their mobile home late Sunday in the Arkansas town of Nashville, Howard County Coroner John Gray said.Michael and Melissa Mooneyhan were trying to protect their daughter when the parents' trailer flipped over and "exploded," Gray said.Our house is flat. There is nothing left.- Stephanie Lunder, South Dakota resident"It's a miracle that little girl survived," the coroner said. The girl, who is about 18 months old, was taken to the hospital and later released to relatives.Once the word spreads, he added, the deaths will be a blow to the community."That's what it's like in a small town," Gray said. "You either know them or you know somebody who knows them."At least 42 injured in TexasIn neighbouring Texas, a likely tornado pummeled the small town of Van, damaging about 30 per cent of the community, according to Chuck Allen, fire marshal and emergency management coordinator for Van Zandt County.Authorities confirmed at least two deaths as they surveyed the damage. Eight people were still unaccounted for in Van, population 2,600, about 112 kilometres southeast of Dallas. Rescuers went door to door checking on neighbours. Damage appeared to be widespread, with trees uprooted and numerous homes and buildings flattened or ripped apart.At least 42 people were injured, according to two East Texas hospitals. Four patients were in critical condition.James Crawford and his wife, Thelma, rode out the storm in their mobile home in the area with some Van's worst damage.They were in bed and did not have time to run, she said. All she could do was roll over and give her husband a bear hug while they held on.Thelma Crawford said she believes their home lifted off the ground a bit, then came back down."We're like family in that neighbourhood," she said. "When one of them gets hurt, I hurt."Tornadoes, flooding, thunderstormsPreliminary reports indicate 20 to 25 tornadoes formed Sunday in South Dakota, Iowa, Oklahoma and Texas, according to meteorologist Greg Carbin of the Storm Prediction Center in Norman, Oklahoma.The storm system was expected to slowly move east, he said, with a low possibility of tornadoes in lower Michigan on Monday. Thunderstorms were forecast from Texas to the Great Lakes region."This is certainly not an atypical system for spring where you've got the remnants of winter but the onset of summer," Carbin said.Residents survey damage near an elementary school caused by severe weather on Monday in Van, Texas. About 30 per cent of the community was damaged from the storm late Sunday, according to Van Zandt County's fire marshal. (Todd Yates/Associated Press)The U.S. National Weather Service believes at least one tornado hit Van on Sunday night, senior meteorologist Eric Martello said. Weather service crews were surveying the area Monday.The same storm system dumped about 28 centimetres of rain in some places and caused widespread flooding.Firefighters in Corsicana, about 97 kilometres southwest of Van, recovered the body of a driver who had ventured into the floodwaters after his vehicle stalled in a swollen creek. The heavy rain caused a huge sinkhole to open up in Granbury, some 65 kilometres southwest of Fort Worth. The 12-metre-wide sinkhole swallowed the parking lot of a supermarket and damaged water and sewer lines beneath, WFAA-TV reported.Farther north, in Lake City, Iowa, a suspected tornado tore the roof from a high school as about 150 students, family and faculty attended an awards ceremony inside Sunday night.Dave Birks, girls' basketball coach at South Central Calhoun High School, said people were able to flee to the basement and locker room area about two minutes before the twister arrived. "The lights went off, and everyone's ears kind of popped," Birks said, adding that school windows were blown out and insulation was scattered nearby.Winter returned to parts of DakotasHe also said the high jump pit from the school's outdoor athletic complex was missing, and hurdles were scattered everywhere.Much earlier Sunday, storms struck the small town of Delmont in South Dakota, hurting nine people."Our house is flat. There is nothing left," said Stephanie Lunder, 34, who took shelter with her husband and four children in the basement.The town's 200-plus residents were asked to leave for safety reasons, state Department of Public Safety spokeswoman Kristi Turman said. They were to be allowed back on Monday to assess their property.Elsewhere, winter seemed to return briefly to parts of the Dakotas. Winter weather advisories and warnings were posted for southeastern North Dakota and north-central South Dakota, with about five centimetres of snow and strong winds expected.The same area experienced more than 20 centimetres of snow over the weekend, breaking snowfall records for those dates in Rapid City.On Sunday, another likely tornado ripped roofs off buildings and damaged trees near Denton, about 65 kilometres northwest of Dallas. There were no reports of injuries or fatalities.Two groups of people had to be taken by helicopter to safety, authorities said © The Associated Press, 2015 <img alt="The Canadian Press" src="/gfx/icon_cponline07.gif">

U.S. tornadoes leave path of destruction through Texas, Arkansas

Emergency responders searched through splintered wreckage Monday in parts of Texas and Arkansas after a line of tornadoes battered severa...

Issues » Higher EducationCollege for All: Improving College Access and Degree Attainment Through an Early Guarantee of Federal Financial AidSOURCE: AP/Gerry BroomeStudents on campus at The University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, April 2015.By David A. Bergeron & Antoinette Flores | Wednesday, May 6, 2015PRINT: <img alt="print icon" height="24" src="https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/themes/c3/images/print24.png" width="24">SHARE: <img alt="Facebook icon" height="24" src="https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/themes/c3/images/facebook24.png" width="24"><img alt="Twitter icon" height="24" src="https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/themes/c3/images/twitter24.png" width="24"><img alt="Share on Google+" src="https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/themes/c3/images/googleplus24.png"/><img alt="Email icon" src="https://www.americanprogress.org/wp-content/themes/c3/images/email24.png">Endnotes and citations are available in the PDF and Scribd versions.<img alt="Improving College Access and Degree Attainment Through an Early Guarantee of Federal Financial Aid" class="cover" src="https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FederalAidApplication-COVERPHOTO.jpg" width="150">Download the report: PDFDownload introduction & summary: PDFRead it in your browser: ScribdIn 2015, approximately 3.3 million students are expected to graduate from high schools throughout the United States. Many of them will pursue postsecondary education immediately after receiving their diploma but not nearly enough will complete their degree. Furthermore, high school graduates who do not enroll in a college or a postsecondary education program are more likely to come from lower-income families.While previous generations of Americans were considered to be among the world’s most educated, gains in postsecondary attainment in competitor countries have outpaced attainment among young people in the United States. U.S. adults between the ages of 55 and 64 are the third-most educated among the 34 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, or OECD, countries—nations that are in competition with the United States. In contrast, U.S. young adults currently rank 10th on OECD’s most-educated list. As the Baby Boomer generation retires from the workforce, these lower levels of postsecondary attainment among the current generation of Americans will become increasingly apparent in global economic performance.Among the current generation of students, family income plays a significant role in determining who will receive a college degree, which is a key component of the growing inequality in the United States. In 2013, students in the top income quartile were eight times more likely to receive a bachelor’s degree than students in the bottom quartile—up from 1970, when students from high-income families were five times more likely to earn a bachelor’s degree. While income level determines who enrolls in college after high school, it even more significantly determines who completes college and earns a degree. In the context of rising inequality in postsecondary education, it is no wonder that the United States has fallen behind its competitors. If the United States is to make gains in degree attainment and improve its ranking among its competitors, the solution needs to focus on degree attainment in families from the bottom half of the income scale.Each year, the federal government spends billions of dollars on federal student aid programs to help make college more affordable. In 2015, for example, the federal government spent approximately $28 billion on the Federal Pell Grant Program, which provides grants to low-income students so that they can attend college. But, as currently designed, the process of securing federal financial aid support is a series of mountains instead of open doors. In order to receive federal financial aid, students and families must complete the complex Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA. The Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance—a working group created by Congress to be an independent source of advice on financial aid policy—has frequently criticized the complexity of student aid and pointed out the barriers the process creates, particularly for the poorest students. The committee called for many simplifications that have since been implemented, including eliminating redundant questions; phasing out the paper FAFSA form; simplifying and streamlining the online application; and instituting a data retrieval tool for easy access to an aid applicant’s tax information from the Internal Revenue Service, or IRS. Despite all of these changes, the FAFSA still serves as a barrier to college access.Another barrier yet to be addressed is the inability of students and families to determine their eligibility for federal financial aid and the amount of aid available until after they have already applied to colleges and universities. For prospective first-generation college students and students from families struggling to make ends meet, a public college education with an average annual price tag—after federal, state, and institutional grants—of $12,000 for a four-year college or $7,500 for two-year college is not affordable or accessible and can discourage students from applying at all. For those who do choose to attend college, the lack of financial aid information—as well as the high costs—can lead to poor financial, academic, and college choice decisions.<img alt="FederalAidApplication_webfig1" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-112588" height="512" src="https://cdn.americanprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/FederalAidApplication_webfig1.png" width="310" />In 2015, the Center for American Progress announced College for All, a radically student-centric plan that would significantly boost college attainment rates among students from low- and moderate-income families by ensuring that students would be able to attend two- and four-year public institutions without having to incur any tuition or fees while enrolled. In order to remedy financial aid timeline inefficiencies, incentivize more students to earn postsecondary education credentials, and promote future economic success, CAP proposes improving the federal financial aid system by providing an early guarantee of financial aid eligibility through the federal tax system and eliminating the need for students to fill out additional forms in order to receive federal aid. The early guarantee of federal financial aid would increase transparency of both college costs and available aid, as well as incentivize students to enroll in and complete postsecondary education, encourage robust college academic preparation, and spur families to begin saving if possible.While early aid notification is proposed as a component of College for All, the recommendations in this report can and should be applied to the current financial aid system in order to effectively streamline the aid process and eliminate barriers such as the need for additional forms. This report also details how Congress, under the amended Higher Education Act of 1965, could pilot an early guarantee of aid through the previously authorized demonstration program. The pilot would allow for an early guarantee to be tested for impacts and outcomes on college access and completion rates, as well as troubleshoot delivering aid through the tax system. Through College for All, aid would be guaranteed, delivered, and repaid through the federal tax system in a more rational and organized manner. However, even without the additional reforms proposed under College for All, an early guarantee of aid would increase transparency and incentivize more students to aspire to and achieve postsecondary education.CAP proposes the following recommendations:Provide an early guarantee of federal financial aid: Students and families should receive an early guarantee of available aid when the student is in the eighth grade based on information from their federal income tax return. Receiving federal financial aid should not require students to fill out forms providing income data when this information is already collected and reported through the tax system. The IRS would notify families about their eligibility for federal financial aid before the student starts high school, and the U.S. Department of Education would develop and provide detailed information on the cost of college, net price, types of aid available, and repayment options.Build a financial aid calculator that works within the IRS income tax system to determine aid: Currently, financial aid eligibility is determined based on FAFSA information and the formula that determines expected family contribution, or EFC. Under College for All, students would not need to contribute anything upfront for tuition and fees. Instead, students would be guaranteed a mix of grants and loans depending on the family’s income history. Grant aid would target students with the greatest need in order to eliminate the psychological barriers of preparing for college, such as worrying about costs. A new calculator should be created that can work with IRS data points to determine the amount of available grant aid based on multiple years of income data. The balance of the aid would be provided in the form of loans.Permit states and institutions to use income data for families to make a more accurate assessment of financial need: Under the new aid system, students and families could elect to share income information with colleges and universities to help institutions make better and more informed decisions regarding what types and amounts of aid to provide students.Target and communicate tuition support and grant aid: In order for an early guarantee of federal financial aid to be most effective, tuition support and grant aid needs to be increased. Families need to know that the immediate cost of college is covered. For low- and moderate-income families, it is important to explicitly communicate how much federal aid they will receive in the form of grants that do not have to be repaid. Grant funding should be targeted in a way that incentivizes the most students to attend and complete a postsecondary degree or certificate. The program could be piloted by first targeting the neediest students who are eligible for the maximum Pell Grant award.Pilot an early guarantee of aid already granted under current law: The Higher Education Act of 1965, which authorized the federal student aid system, includes an authority for a demonstration program that would allow several states to award Pell Grants in conjunction with an information campaign targeting low-income students in the eighth grade. The Department of Education would then track these students through college and monitor their progress. The Obama administration should work with Congress to have funds appropriated in order to implement a pilot program as quickly as possible to take advantage of state tax and benefit information systems.The amount of financial aid available to students should be an incentive and make the decision to attend college easier, but the complicated process of applying for aid and a lack of information stand in the way. Together, these recommendations would simplify and streamline the federal aid system and ensure that it fulfills the goal of getting the students most in need to and through college.David A. Bergeron is the Vice President for Postsecondary Education at the Center for American Progress. Antoinette Flores is a Policy Analyst on the Postsecondary Education team at the Center.

Improving College Access and Degree Attainment Through an Early Guarantee of Federal Financial Aid

Issues » Higher Education College for All: Improving College Access and Degree Attainment Through an Early Guarantee of Federal Financial A...