Conventional wisdom suggests that a field of striving compels US public master's institutions (PMIs) to pursue prestige in the academic hierarchy. We posit that, due to their unique histories of democratizing college opportunity, PMIs face conflicting imperatives from two fields: an origin one of equity and another of striving. Our hypotheses are…

As schools of choice, charter schools typically have the flexibility to enroll students from across an area, rather than being bound to a neighborhood attendance zone. And as schools usually created from scratch, charters can build diversity into their design, choosing educational models designed to appeal to a wide range of families. In practice,…

Most of the nation's bachelor's students attend what are often called "comprehensive universities," public institutions that primarily enroll students who live near the school and educate their students chiefly for jobs in the local economy. Relatively little research focuses on these institutions as a group, and therefore not much is…

Public universities typically charge students less than the full cost of education, using funds from state and local government and other sources to cover the difference. This indirect subsidy is one of the largest forms of aid in America's higher education system but is less understood in the policy community than grants and loans, which are…

Researchers from the Georgetown University Center on Education and Workforce, Anthony Carnevale and Nicole Smith, examine the challenges working students face and the impacts of these challenges on completion and debt. Working and paying tuition and fees "as you go" is no longer an option for the majority of America's college students;…

Both the published tuition and fee prices of colleges and universities and the net prices students pay after subtracting grant aid and tax credits and deductions continued to rise between 2016-17 and 2017-18, even after adjusting for inflation. Average net prices in 2017-18 remain lower at public two-year and private nonprofit four-year…

Students from low-income families are underrepresented in higher education, despite the fact that many of them are well qualified to enroll. When low-income students do enroll in college, they tend to be overrepresented in public community colleges and for-profit institutions, or if they attend four-year institutions, tend to attend regional state…

One sees various efforts in developed as well as in developing economies to seek a greater participation of lower-income students in their nation's leading universities. Once lower-income students do enroll in a highly selective institution, what happens to them? How well do they do academically when compared to their more wealthy counterparts?…

When The Goldman Sachs Foundation (GSF) made its first strategic social investment decision in 1999, it took note of one of Goldman Sachs' core corporate values: People are its greatest asset. The program's objective was--and is--clear and simple: to increase the number of high-potential young adults from historically underrepresented backgrounds…

This paper assesses the effectiveness of financial aid in promoting the persistence of black and Hispanic students admitted to the most selective colleges and universities in the United States to complete their college education. To explore whether more dollars of aid enhance graduation, the analysis separates two constructs--aid eligibility and…

Previous reports by the Center for Evaluation & Education Policy (CEEP) on higher education have dealt with topics such as trends in college remediation courses (Plucker, Wongsarpigoon, & Houser, 2003), post-secondary credit-based transition programs (Plucker, Chieu, & Zaman, 2006), university sponsorship of charter schools (Plucker et…