LOCATION

George Washington University School of Business
Duquès Hall, Room 652
2201 G Street NW (main entrance on 22nd Street between G and H Streets)
Metro: Foggy Bottom Station

Bio: Beth Akers

Beth Akers is a fellow in the Brookings Institution’s Brown Center on Education Policy. She is an expert on the economics of education, with a focus on higher education policy. Akers’s recent writing has been on the topics of student loan debt, information in higher education, and extended time-to-degree. She previously held the position of staff economist with the President’s Council of Economic Advisors, where she worked on federal student lending policy as well as other education and labor issues. Akers received a B.S. in Mathematics and Economics from SUNY Albany and a Ph.D. in Economics from Columbia University. She is often cited by major media outlets and has briefed policy makers on the topic of student loans.

---

Bio: Alvaro Mezza

Alvaro Mezza is an economist at the Federal Reserve Board. He works at the Consumer Finance Section in the Research & Statistics Department. Before joining the Board in 2011, he pursued his Ph.D. in Economics at UCLA. Previously, he worked as a Research Assistant in the Research Department at the Inter-American Development Bank in Washington, D.C., and obtained his undergraduate degree in Economics from the University of La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina. One of his research interests is student loans. He is currently investigating who defaults on student loans and the effect of student loans on home ownership. His other research interests are consumer credit, human capital accumulation, and applied microeconomics.

---