Merit-based financial aid awards have become increasingly prevalent in the pricing policies of higher education institutions. This study utilizes an experiment to estimate the efficacy of merit-aid awards in achieving the institutional objective of attracting the most academically desirable applicants. I find that merit aid has a statistically…

In January 2010, the General Assembly passed the Complete College Tennessee Act (CCTA), a comprehensive reform agenda seeking to transform public higher education through changes in academic, fiscal, and administrative policies at the state and institutional levels. While the higher education landscape has been shaped by the CCTA, it is also…

This primer is intended to provide college financial aid professionals with a background in fundamental areas of economics. Its goal is to provide a stronger understanding of the key principles that shape need analysis systems. Part 1 presents basic economic concepts and discusses their application to college enrollment and student aid. These…

Financial experts everywhere agree that the economy appears headed toward a recession. The question is how long it will last and how deep it will be. The last recession, in 2001, lasted less than a year. Most sectors, including higher education, shrugged it off. During lengthier downturns, colleges have often benefited from increased enrollments.…

Recent turbulence in the student-loan business has colleges scrambling to find new loan providers. Financial-aid offices at affected colleges are working hard to get the word out to students. Changes in the loan market have hit community colleges particularly hard because their students tend to have smaller loans and higher default rates than…

Goucher College's picturesque campus, on 290 leafy acres just north of Baltimore, plays well in college-admissions materials. Officials at this private liberal-arts institution, however, hope students will also be attracted by the opportunity to get away. Two years ago, Goucher began requiring all students to earn some academic credit abroad, one…

The topic of higher-education financing--particularly as it relates to the price of college and access for low-income and middle-income students--has been front-and-center with policy makers and opinion leaders and will undoubtedly remain so with the Obama administration and Congress. Recent discussion has focused on the role of university…

Community colleges serve a large proportion of low-income students each year, but nearly 40 percent of their full-time students don't even fill out a Free Application for Federal Student Aid. Students offer a number of reasons for not making the effort, according to a report, "Apply to Succeed: Ensuring Community College Students Benefit From…

The world of policymaking on the campuses of colleges and universities is messy, ambiguous, and contested. In this complex environment, which Kingdon (2003) has aptly called a "policy soup," the role of institutional research is often not only to provide answers to existing policy questions but to produce information to help transform…

In August, President Bush signed the Higher Education Opportunity Act into law and in doing so completed the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. The six-year effort spanned three Congresses and required 14 short-term extensions of the underlying law to ensure that student-aid benefits would remain available while deliberations continued.…

A recent flurry of announcements from some of the wealthiest and most competitive private colleges brought welcome news to lower- and middle-income families. Many Ivy League institutions, along with dozens of smaller colleges that also attract high-achieving students, unveiled student-aid plans that will significantly lower the cost of attendance…

Colleges and universities represent one of the most utilized sources of need-based financial aid information for students and families, and yet most research in access marketing is focused at the national and state levels. There is sparse published information about the effects of financial aid marketing observed through quantitative analysis, in…

Whereas community colleges and for-profit institutions both provide postsecondary educational opportunities, they are different in a host of dimensions. This brief describes some of those differences--not to win a debate or suggest public policy, but to show why comparisons made between the community colleges and for-profit institutions are more…

Issues surrounding social class are often overlooked and rarely discussed in higher education; however, they affect students and institutions in critical ways. Although research has demonstrated that social class is a predictor of access to college, retention, academic performance, overall undergraduate and graduate experience, and college…

In today's knowledge driven economy a college degree is critical to the success of a competitive workforce. Yet in 2008, only 19 percent of Latinos, 29 percent of blacks, and 39 percent of whites 25 and over had earned an associate degree or higher. At a time when all students will have to accelerate success to meet national degree completion…