Enrollment managers will be watching to see how recruitment strategies change when higher education's sleeping giant--net price calculators (NPCs)--wakes in the fall of 2011. Some predict yield projections may be more difficult and reputations will be challenged as prospective students, their families, high school counselors, and independent…

Since Georgia's "Helping Outstanding Pupils Educationally" (HOPE) Scholarship was initiated in 1993, more than a dozen states have adopted similar state-sponsored merit-based financial aid programs. One recent concern on merit-based programs has focused on their unintended adverse effect on students' choosing science and engineering as…

Parents with dependent children were nearly one quarter of students enrolled for credit at American postsecondary institutions in 2008. These students face significant challenges to remaining enrolled and graduating, including limited access to affordable child care, difficulty balancing the demands of school with the demands of work and family,…

The Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) has long collected and reported data on tuition, required fees, and room and board charges for first-time, full-time undergraduate (FTFTUG) students. These charges, along with other miscellaneous expenses, constitute what is known as the "published price of attendance" or the…

The federal government provides billions of dollars in assistance each year to students and families through federal student aid programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 and through tax expenditures, such as credits and deductions. GAO was asked to (1) describe the size and distribution of Title IV student aid and tax…

The Department of Education (Department) is required to use negotiated rulemaking to develop proposed regulations for programs authorized under Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended (HEA). Under negotiated rulemaking, the Department works to develop the proposed regulations in collaboration with representatives of the parties…

Through the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, the federal government provides more financial aid for higher education than any other institution. But because of discriminatory laws the FAFSA treats families headed by two mothers or two fathers differently than families headed by a mother and a father. This treatment distributes…

In the first chapter, I measure the impact of student loan debt on young, college-educated workers' decisions regarding labor supply and enrollment in graduate school. I exploit variation in student loan debt driven by the formulas that determine Federal Student Aid in order to identify these effects. Instrumental variable estimates indicate…

"Creating a Financial Stake in College" is a four-part series of reports that focuses on the relationship between children's savings and improving college success. This series examines: (1) why policymakers should care about savings, (2) the relationship between inequality and bank account ownership, (3) the connections between savings and college…

New evidence on how students' choice of postsecondary institution is sensitive to grant aid offers from the colleges and universities. Institutional aid sensitivity is largest for students from the least wealthy families but does not vary by race/ethnicity or measured academic ability. A technical appendix is included.

In this adaptation of my keynote address at the 2011 NACADA Annual Conference in Denver, Colorado, I outline the level of increase in college attainment that must occur between now and 2025 for the United States to remain internationally competitive and meet its changing economic and social challenges. After making the case for why achieving Goal…

A 2011 survey of young adults conducted by Public Agenda found that a cluster of obstacles have prevented many of them from competing college. The author describes the opportunity, college awareness, and funding gaps that put a postsecondary degree out of the reach of so many young people. For example, just 3 in 10 non-college-completers are aware…

More than three in four college financial aid offices reported an increase in the number of cases where they must verify information on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), according to the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators' (NASFAA's) latest Quick-Scan Survey. The increase in the number of verification…

This year's "Tennessee Higher Education Fact Book" consists of five sections and an appendix of additional resources and terminology. The five main sections of the report provide data on Student Participation, Student Success, Academic and Fiscal Trends, Quality Assurance Funding, and Outcomes-Based Funding. Each section begins with…

This quantitative study examined how social capital and finances influenced community college students' intent to transfer to a four-year institution within STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) fields. Focusing on the community college students enrolled in a rural midwestern state, the authors employed a structural equation modeling…