Americans collectively owe approximately $1.7 trillion in federal student loan debt, held by roughly 44 million borrowers. That total did not accumulate randomly. It reflects decades of policy decisions — about who pays for higher education, who profits from financing it, and who bears the risk when the system fails to deliver what it promises. … Read more
Data centers are being built faster than at any point in history. The demand driving that growth — cloud computing, AI model training, streaming, and the digital infrastructure underlying most of modern commercial and civic life — is not going to slow. What that means in practice is that large industrial facilities are being sited … Read more
Money has always been part of American political life. What has changed — through a series of court decisions, regulatory shifts, and statutory changes over the past fifty years — is the scale, the structure, and the degree to which large amounts of money can move through the system without public disclosure. This hub covers … Read more
The United States has no long-term plan. Not in the sense of a missing government document — but in the deeper sense: there is no durable, civilian-maintained framework for identifying the country’s most serious long-cycle problems, developing plans to address them, and holding institutions accountable across administrations. What exists instead is a cycle of short-term … Read more
Public school funding in the United States is tied primarily to local property taxes — which means the wealth of a community determines the resources available to its schools. This hub documents how that system works, what it produces for students and teachers, and what reform approaches are currently being debated. The hub is in … Read more
Americans pay two to three times more for prescription drugs than people in peer countries — not because they use more drugs or get better ones, but because of how the pricing system is structured. This hub documents how that system works, who bears the consequences, and what reform approaches are currently being debated. The … Read more
America’s media system — the infrastructure through which communities learn what their local institutions are doing, what public officials have promised, and what is actually happening in their neighborhoods — has been deteriorating for two decades. The collapse of local journalism, the concentration of platform power, and the hollowing out of public media have created … Read more
America’s Plan organizes civic work around specific issues. The Issue Pipeline describes how that process works. But this project is new and there is little real progress at the moment. These hubs are blocked out with information and are waiting for interested parties to take charge. Healthcare and the Profit System: These nine hubs are grouped together … Read more