Federal financial aid serves as a crucial tool to support both access and success for students in higher education. This is especially true at community colleges. Whether they are seeking job training, a certificate, or an associate degree, our students rely on consistent and meaningful sources of support to advance their educational aspirations.…

Building a more accurate, reliable and consistent method of analyzing how states fund public education starts with a critical question: What is fair school funding? In this report, "fair" school funding is defined as a state finance system that ensures equal educational opportunity by providing a sufficient level of funding distributed…

No issue in higher education is as salient, or as controversial, as finance. As demand for higher education around the world grows, so do the costs associated with it, especially as governments shoulder less of the burden. Tuition fees rise and student loan debt grows. Who pays for these surging costs? Who "should" pay? D. Bruce Johnstone and…

A Task Group was created to consider the financial sustainability of research undertaken in universities and other institutions of higher education in the United Kingdom. The UK has a very successful Higher Education sector across all key areas of activity, but it is vital that the sector reinvests for the future and is transparent in the use of…

Community colleges are enjoying a rare moment in the limelight right now. But part of what is being revealed by that light is just how much scrambling two-year institutions must do to keep up with increasing demands and decreasing budgets. With the recession sending many laid-off workers back to school for job retraining, and with President Barack…

In education, economic impact studies have been largely the product of higher education institutions. Colleges and universities have recognized that they can cultivate public, political and financial support by effectively demonstrating their high return-on-investment value. For more than a decade, all types of higher education institutions have…

Across the nation, a surprising number of both critics and advocates of urban schools demonstrate a naivete about the limits and possibilities of funding in relationship to the academic success of urban students. On one hand, critics often argue, without solid evidence or informed analysis, that urban school districts have sufficient funds to…

In January 2009, every day brought another piece of discouraging economic news: Rising unemployment. New stock market lows. More layoffs. Retailer liquidations. Urgent company requests for government stimulus money. The recession has created a radical shift in traditional fundraising. The shift is due to a simple case of supply and demand. Faced…

Jose Lopez is an assistant professor of physics at Saint Peter's College, a Catholic school in Jersey City, New Jersey, where he has been on the tenure track since receiving his Ph.D. from Stevens Institute of Technology in 2005. Essential to the completion of his doctoral work was a fellowship from the state designed to increase faculty diversity…

America is facing what many have called the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, with one in ten Americans unemployed. It's no surprise, then, that the 2010 book-buying survey of public libraries is on the dark side. Representing some 100 institutions nationwide distributed equitably by size, type, and location, "LJ"'s annual survey…

The author talks about a recent report from the nonprofit group "Grantmakers for Education" which finds that philanthropies nationwide are increasingly getting engaged with education policy matters at the local, state, and federal levels through a range of activities, in recognition of the powerful reach of government in setting…

This article profiles Craig Buthod, director of the Louisville Free Public Library (LFPL) who is named "LJ"'s 2010 Librarian of the Year. An ability to convert setbacks into opportunities is the key to the successful career of Craig Buthod. Buthod possesses a unique combination of optimism, managerial talent, political savvy, and a…

It's no surprise that libraries in "LJ"'s annual budget survey reported an overall downward trend, with the expected decline in total budgets some 2.6% and the change in materials budgets 3.5%. Per capita funding is nudging down after years of steady if sometimes modest increases, with a projected decline of 1.6% in FY10. After all, the country…

Not so long ago, alongside the splendid edifice of full-time university education, there was a thriving array of university degree-level programmes, offered part-time in local settings, which was world-leading in its availability and in its ambitions. One could access it as part of a career-change need, a professional accreditation or for the…

The "Daily Telegraph" recently carried an attack on the Union Learning Fund (ULF) as part of its ongoing criticism of unions following the industrial action by cabin crew at British Airways. This included a quote from Conservative MP Francis Maude suggesting that the fund was a form of "money laundering." The article, which was…