Among countless petitioners to the incoming president, higher-education leaders have sent Barack Obama position statements and requests for action that extol the strengths and accomplishments of this nation's higher-education enterprise but also warn of its increasingly dire financial situation. They have asked that a share of an impending…

This paper recommends that the federal government take steps to reassert the sense of partnership and common purpose that undergirds college finance in the United States by enacting an old idea that never had become a reality. The original authorizing legislation for the Pell grant program envisioned direct institutional grants to colleges that…

Since its inception in 1965, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), has directed billions of federal dollars toward low-income students. Title I, Part A of NCLB is designed to equalize educational opportunities and resources for disadvantaged children. This analysis examines whether the current…

This discussion of how the effectiveness of federal student aid can be evaluated is framed in terms of three questions: (1) Has federal student aid expanded educational opportunity; that is, has it encouraged the enrollment and broadened the educational choices of disadvantaged students? (2) Has federal student aid made the distribution of higher…