In 2010, Congress reauthorized the Post-9/11 GI Bill by changing reimbursement rates from by-state maximums to a nationwide limit. This policy created exogenous variation in financial aid for veterans at private universities. We detect changes in tuition only for for-profit colleges, where we estimate a 1 percent pass-through rate. This response…

We develop two formal competitive models of the private higher education market focusing on quality and tuition where informational asymmetry is present: one consisting of for-profit universities only, and the other including also private non-profit universities. For both models, we characterize the competitive equilibrium to gain insights into…

Between 2000 and 2010, U.S. public colleges and universities experienced widespread and uneven changes in funding from state and local appropriations. We find that over this period annual decreases in statewide appropriations led to lower public enrollment and higher for-profit enrollment (with no effect on enrollment overall), as well as…

The student loan crisis has become a buzz topic that presidential candidates frequently discuss in debates and town halls. Today, accumulated student loan debt equals $1.6 trillion, exceeding total accumulated car loans and credit card debt. What makes this a crisis is the fact that approximately 22 percent of student loan borrowers default on…

The proximity of proprietary institutions to working-class urban areas is rarely explored as a factor in Latina student college choice. Utilizing Chicana Feminism as a conceptual lens, this study explores the path of proprietary college choice for Latina high school students. Qualitative interviews and geographic data reveal how factors of race,…

The purpose of this analysis is to compare current guidelines of the American Bar Association (ABA) for law schools to those of the U.S. Department of Education's Gainful Employment-Debt Measures regulations in order to assess their transparency and accountability. This analysis is relevant in a time of increasing tuition costs and record…

In this paper I investigate whether students self-select into the U.S. for-profit colleges or whether the choice of for-profit sector is accidental or due to the reasons external to the students (geographic exposure to for-profit providers, tuition pricing, or random circumstances). The main student-level data samples come from the National…

The problem facing American colleges and universities is larger than even the term "bubble" implies. A bursting bubble would force change on the more than four thousand postsecondary institutions in the United States, but something even more destructive is going to hit higher education, probably at the same time. The major sign that a…

This article traces recent policy developments relating to full-time undergraduate student retention within the English higher education system. It focuses specifically on the changing government policies and strategies designed to influence institutional behavior to promote widening participation while attending to the student experience and…

It took five years, dozens of drafts, and a total of 14 extensions, but Congress last week was finally on the verge of passing a bill to renew the Higher Education Act, the major law governing federal student aid. The bill, after approval by the U.S. House of Representatives, was headed to the Senate, where a final vote was planned for late last…

Globalization and the revolution in technological communications are major forces of change in higher education. This environment, when coupled with the needs of adult learners and the rising costs of tuition at traditional colleges and universities, has stimulated the emergence of for-profit, degree-granting higher education in the United States.…

Data from the 1987 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study were used to assess the influence of prices and price subsidies on within-year persistence by proprietary school students. African Americans, Hispanics, and students without high school degrees were more likely to persist although tuition charges had a substantial negative influence. (SLD)

Discusses (1) characteristics distinguishing independent schools from public and other private schools (self-governance, self-support, self-defined curriculum, self-selected students and faculty, and small size); (2) self-imposed and environmental challenges confronting independent schools (demographic change, commitment to diversity, and public…