California needs 2.3 million more people with postsecondary credentials by 2025, but that goal cannot be achieved at current college completion rates. Overall, only 32 percent of California college students complete credentials on time. Low-income students are much less likely than higher income students to enroll in or complete college, and these…

As college costs have soared and the U.S. economy struggles to move out of the recession, more and more Americans have relied on federal student financial assistance programs to help them meet their postsecondary expenses. Data from the Federal Student Aid (FSA), an office of the U.S. Department of Education (ED), show that the number of students…

Since 1964, the Federal Work-Study (FWS) program has provided funds to subsidize the wages of student employees, but it has never been studied directly. I use an instrumental variables difference-in-difference framework with administrative data from West Virginia to identify causal effects, comparing eligible and ineligible students across…

While much has been written about the increasing debt burden that college students incur, little research examines student's perceptions of debt. This study sought to determine if student loan debt literacy differs by generation status (first-generation and continuing-generation). The data for this study was collected from a sample of 156…

Lack of financial resources to pay for postsecondary education--perceived and actual--has been cited as a barrier to student access and persistence, particularly for Latino students. This study investigates the following question: "To what extent does financial aid affect the educational attainment of Latinos enrolled in Associate's degree…

The Southern Regional Education Board's (SREB) College and Career Counseling Training Initiative works to increase the knowledge and skills of counselors who advise students on their postsecondary aspirations. Membership in the initiative provides access to Strategies in College and Career Counseling, a series of online training modules that can…

International student enrollment continues to grow at a rapid pace in the United States. Given these increases, what can campuses do to engage international students and encourage them to enroll? What are the needs, concerns, and preferences of international students, and do they vary from undergraduate to graduate students? To answer those…

Illinois education policymakers have adopted the completion agenda that emphasizes increasing postsecondary credential attainment. Meeting completion agenda goals necessitates addressing the achievement gap. To aid in developing policy to support improved completion, this study analyzes a comprehensive statewide dataset of the 2003 Illinois high…

Since 1998, the Iowa Department of Education's Division of Community Colleges and Workforce Preparation has compiled and published "The Annual Condition of Iowa's Community Colleges." This report is designed to help Iowans understand the challenges and opportunities community colleges face in providing quality programs to meet the…

An increasingly prevalent type of program designed to address college attainment gaps are state-based financial aid programs that offer low-income middle school students a promise of funding for college in exchange for making a pledge to do well in high school, be a good citizen and not be convicted of a felony, and apply for financial aid to…

A quality education is the primary instrument of social and economic mobility in the United States. As open-access institutions, community colleges are the gateway to postsecondary education for millions of Americans. Many of these students would be unable to afford college without federal resources, such as student financial aid and tax credits.…

This report builds on the 2013 and 2014 Reports on Unmet Need and Student Success at Maryland Public Four-Year Institutions by providing data on six-year graduation rates for the students in the original 2008 entering cohort. For this report, both descriptive analysis and logistic regression were used to understand the relationship between…

Data on student aid for 2015-16 confirm that the dramatic increases in aid awarded in 2009-10 and 2010-11 were products of extreme economic circumstances, not harbingers of long-run changes in financing for postsecondary education. Both total federal education loans and federal loans per full-time equivalent (FTE) student declined for the fifth…

This paper provides an analysis of the intersection between education and immigration policies within a transnational context and explores the extent to which U.S. immigration law has caused a forced return migration to Mexico of the U.S. DREAMer population. My analysis includes a discussion of the social conditions and lack of policies in Mexico…

This Annual Plan presents the major initiatives and priorities the U.S. Department of Education (Department) Office of Inspector General (OIG) intends to undertake to assist the Department in fulfilling its responsibilities to America's taxpayers and students. The Department continues to face significant challenges in FY 2017 that impact its…