The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of public policy decisions in each state that contribute to public higher education funding levels and funding distributions across states and…

In July 2022, the University of California (UC) permanently eliminated the standardized tests requirement for its freshman admissions in order to alleviate the severed socioeconomic gap and college access barriers that were heightened by the COVID-19 pandemic. This critical policy analysis research explored the immediate effects of UC's policy…

The State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) report is produced annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) to broaden understanding of the context and consequences of public policy decisions in each state that contribute to public higher education funding levels and funding distributions across states and…

Policy implementation research suggests that the likelihood of policy success, i.e. matching policy outcomes with expectations, can be best assessed by engaging the bottom-up perspectives of those who will implement the policy. This paper works from this premise and examines the views of university leaders in Kazakhstan on the potential impact of…

In an era of increased accountability for colleges and concerns about an affordable education, it is useful to understand whether students can adequately manage the debt burden they hold after leaving higher education. In 2015, Texas called for cumulative undergraduate debt to be 60% or less of public institution graduates' first-year earnings by…

We investigate relationships between several financial aid policies and student enrollment behavior. Chapters 1 and 2 (co-authored with Robert Rosenman) use proprietary data from a public research university to address institution level policies affecting enrollment. Chapter 3 (co-authored with Benjamin Cowan) utilizes government data address a…

This study considered the impact of state-level guaranteed tuition programs on alternative student-based revenue streams. It used a quasi-experimental, difference-in-difference methodology with a panel dataset of public four-year institutions from 2000-2012. Illinois' 2004 "Truth-in-Tuition" law was used as the policy of interest and the…

State-level performance-based funding (PBF) policies are an increasingly common way to allocate funds to public colleges and universities. While a growing body of research has examined whether these policies are effective in improving student outcomes, little is known about how colleges respond to PBF policies. In this paper, we examine whether…

California needs 1.1 million more workers with bachelor's degrees by 2030 to keep up with economic demand. More college graduates would mean higher incomes, greater economic mobility, more tax revenue, and less demand for social services. In addressing this projected shortfall, three regions will play an especially critical role: Los Angeles…

Using Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) figures on the 96 Research Extensive Institution in academic year 2007-2008, we employ panel data from academic year 1984-1985 to 2007-2008 to identify revenue-expenditure relationships. Although we consider a wide range of functional expenditure categories, we focus our analysis on…

With an exogenous public subsidy and a break-even restriction on university net revenue, tuition discrimination supports a quasi-efficient departure from marginal-cost pricing. In contrast, when the legislature and university interact in their subsidy and tuition decisions, the public subsidy becomes endogenous. With an endogenous public subsidy,…

In recent years, growing numbers of four-year institutions have implemented a new type of need-based financial aid policy directed toward low- and middle-income students. These initiatives--referred to here as Loan Replacement Grant (LRG) programs--greatly reduce or eliminate loans in student aid awards and replace them with grants. This paper…

"Degrees of Freedom" challenges California to include currently and formerly incarcerated students in the vision set by the state's 1964 Master Plan for Higher Education--a vision of college access for all, for the benefit of the entire state. A college education strengthens economies, changes lives and renews communities, and yet, for…

"Degrees of Freedom" finds that California has not been adequately providing effective college opportunities for criminal justice-involved students, despite the fact that such access will help California build safer and more economically viable communities. This report is part of a larger initiative--Renewing Communities--to expand…

In this paper, we examine the role of e-learning enrolments in revenue functions for four-year public universities. Many universities have moved into e-learning as a resource to overcome the funding shortfall which has been an outcome of the recent economic climate. It is hypothesised that an e-learning presence will enhance revenues for…