Discover how one public higher education institution was able to succeed despite the many obstacles and challenges that it faced. This is the story of how and why Baruch College of The City University of New York became a "positive outlier," overcoming serious financial constraints, physical space limitations, and other difficulties to…

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…

This analytical report responds to the current policy interest in some states in offering "tuition-free college" to income-eligible students attending certain public colleges and universities. In most cases only public two-year colleges are covered, although New York State's Excelsior Scholarship program also covers public four-year…

Governor Cuomo expanded the state's commitment to college affordability, announcing a new Excelsior Scholarship for New Yorkers attending the state's public colleges, and an Enhanced Tuition Awards Program (ETAP) for nonprofit colleges. Now, as New York implements its expansion of aid to students at public and nonprofit institutions, and considers…

College plays a critical role in providing opportunities for economic mobility, yet degree attainment by race is inequitable. Currently, more than half of young white adults hold at least a two-year college degree, compared to 37 percent of Black young adults. Less than a third of Hispanic, American Indian, and Hawaiian or Pacific Islander young…

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…

Immigration to the United States has been a major catalyst for population growth and is the significant factor in the changing racial/ethnic composition of our population. The specific changes in the racial/ethnic mix in United States in recent times are due in large part to a surge in immigration from diverse sending countries. However, much of…

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…

Why does tuition increase faster than inflation? And why does tuition continue to increase even when states increase their investments in public colleges and universities? These questions have perplexed policymakers and higher education consumers alike. Though tuition setting can be very complicated, one of the drivers for rising costs is price…

This brief provides a comparison of the performance of undocumented students to that of U.S. citizens and other legal migrants using restricted-access data from one of the largest urban public university systems in the U.S. where many undocumented students are eligible for in-state tuition. Overall, undocumented students perform well in the…

The 2013 study, "Interactive Learning Online at Public Universities: Evidence From a Six-Campus Randomized Trial," examined the impact of interactive learning online (ILO) on the pass rates of 605 students enrolled in introductory statistics courses at six public universities. ILO is a form of online course instruction in which…

Neoliberal values and ideology, which have broadly undermined social justice ideals, have been inserted into a range of public spheres both in the U.S.A. and internationally. Public higher education institutions have increasingly acquiesced to neoliberal strategies, which restrict access to public services, commodify the public sphere and…

State support for public colleges and universities is based on a historic relationship; these institutions were established to perform the public service mission of predominantly educating residents from local and state-wide communities at a lower price than private, independent colleges and universities. In return, the states appropriated funds…

This report portrays various performance indicators that are intended to facilitate an assessment of the postsecondary education system in Illinois. Descriptive statistics are presented for Illinois and five other comparison states as well as the nation. Comparison states were selected according to the degree of similarity of population…

This State Profile from the Delta Cost Project presents data on key Delta metrics for public research, master's, bachelor's, and community college sectors in the state of New York. The data are limited to a five-year period, showing data for the most recent year, and the five-year change.