New America Turns 20

In 2019, New America celebrated 20 years of innovation and impact. Since our founding in 1999, we have promised to bring new ideas and new voices into America’s public discourse: big, bold ideas that anticipate the need for sweeping reform. Over the years, we’ve also made it clear that we don’t stop at just developing big ideas—we want to ensure that those ideas have impact, through law, policy, or technological and practical solutions that help Americans and people around the world.

Twenty years on, we are dedicated to renewing the promise of America by continuing the quest to realize our nation’s highest ideals, honestly confronting the challenges presented by rapid technological and social change, and seizing the opportunities those changes create to expand opportunity and equity for all. Here, we highlight some of the big ideas that demonstrate the breadth and impact of New America’s work.

Explore the below for retrospectives on our work of the last 20 years, and rewatch events that continue to build on our key issue areas.

NA20 in The Weekly

Remembering the Student Loan Scandal, Stephen Burd

"When I arrived at New America in 2007, the student loan industry’s dominance of the federal student loan program looked impenetrable. It may be difficult to believe that now, given that the government makes all federal loans, but to see how far we’ve come over the last decade, it’s worthwhile to revisit the recent past.

At the time, banks and other private for-profit and nonprofit lenders made the bulk of federal loans to college students and middlemen known as guarantee agencies, which insured debt on behalf of the government. The federal government paid substantial premiums to these entities to participate in the program and essentially covered all their losses when borrowers defaulted on these loans. With so many non-governmental players involved, the Federal Family Education Loan (FFEL) program was extremely complex and unnecessarily expensive for taxpayers." Keep reading.

NA20 Events

• Kochland: The Secret History of Koch Industries and Corporate Power in America (November 12, 2019)
• Empowering the Ghost Workers Who Power Silicon Valley (October 29, 2019)
• Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race (October 24, 2019)
• Can We Imagine Our Way to a Better Future? - D.C. (October, 22 2019)
• Redefining What a "Good" College Is (October 17, 2019)
• Felon: Poems (October 16, 2019)
• Can We Imagine Our Way to a Better Future? - New York (October 15, 2019)
• Can Ranked-Choice Voting Revive Our Democracy? (October 10, 2019)
• Community Colleges as Engines of Opportunity: Exploring the Impact of the TAACCCT Program (October 7, 2019)
• How Can We Be Better Ancestors? (September 24, 2019)
• Guest House for Young Widows (September 19, 2019)
• My Favorite Movie with Francis Fukuyama: Soylent Green (September 18, 2019)
• "What is the Future of Terrorism? A New America Assessment" Panel at Special Operations Forum 2019 (September 18, 2019)
• A Good Provider is One Who Leaves (September 10, 2019)
• Varying Degrees (September 10, 2019)
• The Optimist’s Telescope (September 9, 2019)
• SHIFTLABS: Northwest Arkansas (September 5, 2019)
• Amity and Prosperity (June 26, 2019)
• Say Nothing (June 20, 2019)
• Rice: The Changing Nature of the World's Most Important Food (June 12, 2019)
• Our Man: Richard Holbrooke and the End of the American Century (May 9, 2019)
• Will Slaughter-Free Meat Change the American Way of Eating? (May 8, 2019)
• How Will Climate Change Transform American Democracy? (April 10, 2019)
• Reniqua Allen: It Was All A Dream (April 10, 2019)
• The Uninhabitable Earth (February, 19, 2019)
• From Hitler’s Germany to Saddam’s Iraq (January 30, 2019)

Sponsorship

New America 20th Anniversary Campaign and Celebration Host Committee: New America Board Members David Bradley, Maxine Clark, Bill Gerrity, Sally Osberg, and Todd Park

New America’s 20th Anniversary Campaign is a year-long celebration culminating with a reception and party on November 13 that will bring together over 500 + friends and leaders in the public policy and media space including representatives from our board, staff, policymakers, civil society partners, government representatives, corporate partners, and fellows. We invite you to show your support through sponsorship of the NA20 year-long celebration and party. Please contact development@newamerica.org to learn more about sponsorships.

If you are unable to attend our celebration, but wish to support our efforts, individual donations are welcomed at newamerica.org/our-funding/donate/