This article looks at the opportunities and barriers paraprofessionals face on their journey to becoming teachers and makes some recommendations for ways that colleges and universities, districts, and accrediting bodies may better serve, retain, and promote this unique population of educators. The article identifies shifts in higher education like…

This report explores the higher education financial aid workforce, including pay and pay equity, staffing, representation, and retention. Taken together, the results in this report suggest the need for colleges and universities to implement strategies to better retain people of color within the financial aid employee pipeline and to ensure…

A growing amount of research examines the personal and financial burden of students in healthcare programs who graduate with large amounts of student loan debt. However, a paucity of literature addresses occupational therapists' student loan debt burden. This study was conducted to describe the context of occupational therapists who have…

Based on combined data from Baccalaureate & Beyond (B&B:16/17), Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), and Barron's Profiles of American Colleges, this study utilizes zero-inflated beta regression methods and analyzes individual and institutional factors that predict debt burden by gender. Results show that women are less…

I use rich administrative data and several quasi-experiments in Texas to study which students benefit most from college grant aid and why. For "extensive-margin" students, grant aid causes enrollment in college, and therefore has potentially large benefits relative to these students' no-college counterfactual. In contrast,…

Five years after our 2019 analysis of student borrowing rates across the University of California (UC) system, TICAS partnered with the University of California Student Association (UCSA) again to evaluate the state of affordability and student debt for undergraduates at the UC, and their implications for student success. While our analysis finds…

We conducted a comprehensive survey of the educational measurement profession to assist recruiting to the measurement profession in the United States. Specifically, in April and May 2019, we surveyed measurement professionals and graduate students by targeting six areas to assist recruitment efforts: demographics of the field, compensation for…

The federal government now offers a multitude of complicated income-driven repayment (IDR) plans that are difficult to understand, enroll in, and stay in. Many students who would benefit from IDR do not enroll, and others will have large amounts of debt forgiven despite earning high wages. The current problems with IDR are not an indictment of the…

Background: The number of engineering PhDs pursuing postdoctoral research scholar (postdoc) positions has steadily increased in the last 30 years. Postdoc positions are commonly thought of as a step toward academic careers. However, engineering PhDs are more likely to work in industry, which leaves open the question of the role of postdocs in the…

Given the facts that women still earn significantly less than men, that most American students rely on loans to attend college, that tuition in higher education has increased, and that women have to take more students loans than men, can we still claim that we are closing the gender gap? Do females have more burdens to pay off their student loans…

A college degree or credential is a crucial stepping-stone to the middle class, and American colleges and universities play an essential role in building a more prosperous, equitable country. However, too many colleges routinely and disproportionately enroll students who end up struggling to repay or, worse, default on their student debt. "A…

The Biden administration is developing regulations around gainful employment (GE) that would protect students from career-oriented college programs that don't adequately serve their students. A draft GE rule released earlier this year would require that graduates of certificate programs at public and nonprofit colleges and nearly all programs at…

With enrollments rising in recent years, more than half of all graduate level students in US institutions take on educational loans. Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS), this study examined educational debt for graduate and professional students in 2000 and 2016 and explored whether significant predictors of debt…

The objective of this review was to evaluate the results of Federal Student Aid's (FSA) process for suspending involuntary collection and refunding payments involuntarily collected on defaulted Department-held loans in response to the Coronavirus pandemic. The information presented in this report was obtained and analyzed through interviews,…

This paper examines indicators related to earnings and student loan debt for evaluating return on investment (ROI) for postsecondary education. It first considers four different options for measuring earnings, arguing that measures of postsecondary value should include investment-to-earnings and earnings growth metrics. The paper then discusses…