The Job

The Higher Ed Policy Scholar will work on projects that promote accountability, access, and quality in higher education, defined as the system of formal academic and career training programs that follow K-12 education. You will assist in documenting the ways that disadvantaged students are not served well by the laws that shape the current higher education system. This may include studying the growth of predatory for-profit colleges, the effects of student loan debt, an connections between higher education policies and racial and socioeconomic inequality. This is a fast-changing regulatory area with significant shifts happening at the federal, state and local levels and across advocacy platforms that include legislative change, administrative rule making, community organizing, and litigation. Applicants with advanced degrees or specialized skills would receive assignments that reflect those capacities.

You

A self-proclaimed policy nerd who lives for researching policy, writing about policy, organizing events around policy…you get the picture. You’re equally at home writing formal policy analysis and 600-word blog posts—-and you understand that these two things shouldn’t sound the same. You’ve already spent some time figuring out which TCF fellow you really want to work with this summer, and you have some ideas about how you can advance her/his research. You can’t wait to spend a summer in Manhattan with the smartest policy people in the business.

Qualifications

• Some college, perhaps more. You should be an undergrad, grad student, or recent graduate with a strong background in policy analysis or communications.
• Exceptional research skills. You need to be quick, thorough, and accurate. You should be able to work with complex data, and then present that data in engaging graphic formats.
• A good writer. Everyone thinks they write well. You actually do. If you can also communicate well in-person, that’s even better.
• A self-starter. You’re looking for the opportunity to own a project and work independently.
• A team player. TCF is highly collaborative. We want you to own your project, but we also want you to remember that your colleagues have some skills that you probably don’t.
• A multi-tasker. You’ll be working on a lot of different things on any given day. You’ll have to be organized, good with details, and have a knack for problem solving to succeed here.
• A progressive. TCF is a progressive public policy think tank. If you spend your evenings with Hannity and Breitbart, you’ll probably be pretty unhappy here.
• A sense of humor. Have you read these descriptions? This will be your life.