Open Educational Resources (OER) have continued to gain traction in higher education, assisting with ever-rising costs of publisher textbooks and supporting pedagogical innovation. Starting in 2017, NY state legislature has allocated funds annually to be split between its two public university systems to support and incentivize the adoption of…

TICAS partnered with higher education researcher Dr. Donald E. Heller to examine the "affordability gap" that students are facing when paying for college. The report uses federal data to determine the so-called "college affordability gap" in three states--California, Michigan, and New York--with a focus on students who are…

As populist forces stretch apart higher education and government, colleges lobby in measurable ways to secure scarce funding and respond to accountability regulations. The non-profit and corporate lobbying literature provides a basis of comparison to ask if colleges lobby like corporations, which have been successful lobbyists under challenging…

College-in-prison programs are run by accredited universities and colleges, and allow participants to earn college degrees intended to facilitate positive real-world outcomes outside of the criminal justice system. Reduced rates of recidivism and increased employment opportunities are among the most cited benefits of providing higher education to…

In April 2017, the New York State Legislature approved Governor Andrew Cuomo's proposal to establish the Excelsior Scholarship program, which the governor described as the nation's first offer of "tuition-free" two- and four-year college to the middle-class. Excelsior Scholarships promised to eliminate tuition charged by the State…

Launched in 2017, New York's Excelsior Scholarship makes the state's public colleges tuition-free for low- and middle-income state residents who meet several conditions. The program, championed by New York Governor Andrew Cuomo, is billed as a middle-class program that aims to make City University of New York (CUNY) and State University of New…

This article discusses how federal and state governments can improve student access to private and public higher education institutions. Florida helps to achieve that with a common course-numbering system across community and four-year colleges, which permits students to easily transfer credits. Both the Senate and the House of Delegates in…

In the first decade of the 21st century, the nation, the states, and colleges and universities began to grapple with the challenges of globalization, changing demography, the implications of the digital era, and of a less expansive public sector. Although not a transformative period for higher education, the decade saw significant innovations in…

This report describes, in text and 20 tables of data, the status of student financial assistance programs in New York State in 1989-90. The report contains a complete accounting of all aid available to students enrolled in public, private nonprofit, and private for-profit postsecondary institutions in the State. The report also contains analyses…