
Stephen Burd
Stephen Burd is a senior policy analyst in the Education Policy Program at the New America Foundation, a non-partisan public policy institute in Washington, DC. He is on his second stint at New America, following a brief stop at Education Sector, an education think tank in DC, where he also served as a senior policy analyst. At New America, he has helped shape the foundation’s work on higher education policy and on student financial aid issues. He is the author of two volumes of “Undermining Pell,” which examines how colleges’ pursuit of prestige and revenue is hurting low-income students. Burd has received multiple national reporting awards from the Education Writers Association for his coverage of federal higher education policy and his investigative work on the student loan industry. He has also published articles and op-eds in The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and Washington Monthly, and provided expert commentary for media outlets including America Public Media’s Marketplace, the CBS Evening News, CNN, C-SPAN, and National Public Radio. Before coming to New America in 2007, Burd worked for 15 years as a reporter and senior writer at The Chronicle of Higher Education, where he primarily reported on student aid policy and the inner-workings of the U.S. Department of Education. Burd holds a bachelor’s degree in history from Swarthmore College. He lives with his wife and daughters in Silver Spring, Md.