State education agencies are investing new federal relief funds in initiatives such as technology, broadband, summer programming, virtual tutoring, and teacher professional development for e-learning. Research suggests that one of the most significant impacts of the pandemic is exacerbating existing inequality and widening achievement gaps. A…

Federal and state governments -- as well as philanthropists and foundations -- are being called upon to invest millions of dollars in the public-school system to help schools and districts navigate the impact of the pandemic on student success. The challenges facing education leaders are immense and complex. The learning loss for students is…

When it comes to social mobility, the goalposts are always moving. As access to any given level of education becomes more common, inequalities tend to move upwards, with those from better-off backgrounds seeking to keep their advantages. While access to undergraduate degrees has been improving, with more and more young people going onto…

Between 2020 and 2021, Congress appropriated nearly $190 billion in Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) funding for K-12 schools. Passed in three waves, ESSER is by far the largest federal infusion ever provided to K-12 schools--more than 11 times annual Title I spending and almost five times as large as total federal K-12…

In 2009, the federal government passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to combat the effects of the Great Recession and state revenue shortfalls, directing over $97 billion to school districts. In this chapter, we draw lessons from this distribution of fiscal stimulus funding to inform future federal intervention in school…

This report provides an analysis of future impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Australia's higher education sector. The main driver of these impacts is the closure of Australia's international border, preventing the movement of international students into Australia. This has had a significant impact on total enrolments across the sector, and…

Many community colleges receive performance-based funding; therefore, many of these colleges have implemented student success courses in an effort to increase persistence and completion. The purpose of this quantitative study was to examine the influence of the student success courses on persistence at Ivy Tech Community College. This study…

Over the last 30 years, college tuition has skyrocketed. From 1988 to 2018, tuition at public four-year institutions rose 213%. In response to the exponential surge in the cost of higher education, policymakers have focused increasingly on proposals to expand financial aid and loans, and canceling the vast sums of debt that college students have…

As schools transitioned to virtual learning during the COVID-19 pandemic, community-based organizations pivoted from providing afterschool programs to dealing with all manner of crises and basic needs. Some out-of-school time (OST) providers stayed open to provide full-day programs for the children of first responders and essential workers, while…

Student funding remains hotly contested. In this HEPI Debate Paper, Alan Roff examines the findings of the Office for Budget Responsibility, which regards the past treatment of student loans in the national accounts as a 'fiscal illusion'. Roff explores the consequences of this change of heart and pushes for an alternative approach to student…

New York City's public school system unraveled last year in the face of the COVID-19 crisis. Before the pandemic, criticisms of the public schools typically centered on performance measures: Were enough students meeting state benchmarks? Was success evident across all racial, socioeconomic, and ability groupings? Today, foundational concepts--such…

Hold-harmless provisions in state aid formulas are meant to restrict declines in revenues for school districts. They may take several forms, including limits on the changes in state aid from year to year, supplemental funding for districts with declining enrollment, alternatives for calculating the state aid amount, or use of past enrollments in…

The education system's purpose is to enable every student to have the knowledge and skills to reach their full potential -- which requires students are college and career ready. But for far too many students, the system is falling short. A recent report found 60 percent of high school graduates were not college or career ready. Closing this gap…

Higher education appropriations have been a widely studied topic by researchers and became more of a concern after the Great Recession. Assessing factors influencing appropriations to Research I institutions is of particular interest as they possess substantial enrollment capabilities but can create great inequities and access issues without state…

The U.S. Department of Education made recent technical changes reducing eligibility for the Rural and Low-Income School Program. Given smaller budgets and lower economies of scale, rural districts may be less able to absorb short-term funding cuts and experience stronger negative achievement effects. Kansas implemented a state-level finance change…