In the nearly fifty years since the adoption of the Higher Education Act of 1965, financial aid programs have grown in scale, expanded in scope, and multiplied in form. As a result, financial aid has become the norm among college enrollees. The increasing size and complexity of the nation's student aid system has generated questions about…

Special education is under fire from within and without. Full inclusionists and detracking advocates want to abolish all "separatist" special education settings and "unjust" disability categories, tests, and placements; politicians and school administrators deplore special education's high costs. However, mainstreaming efficacy…

The paper examines the assumptions, historical developments of the federal service delivery system for developmentally disabled persons. Services for the disabled are seen to have evolved from criteria oriented programs to entitlements with accompanying guarantees of due process. Major federal programs are traced from the 1918 Vocational…

Describes the practice of federal evaluation of research impact through three approaches: retrospective methods; qualitative methods, including peer review; and quantitative methods. Recommended areas for study in federal research impact assessment are suggested, including predictive reliability, comparative studies, time and cost estimates,…

Increasing numbers of American adults are engaged in many types of learning activities; a significant part of these learning activities are organized and structured. Record-keeping about institutionalized adult learning is often scanty, however, or even non-existent. As the social goal of a "learning society" has been articulated, it has…