Policymakers, child care providers, and parents face tradeoffs in determining how much to spend on child care, including how many hours to purchase, and the features of programs that might influence quality. Given these tradeoffs, it is useful to understand what constitutes quality, the cost of care features associated with quality, the effects of…

In 2009, the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee (IACC) produced its first "Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder Research" (ED509368), providing a framework to guide the efforts of federal and private funders of autism research. The "IACC Strategic Plan," developed with extensive input from a broad array of federal…

Tuition fees and the use of student loans to complement government's allocations have become unavoidable because of increasing competing new priorities for funding. This article addresses the funding sources of public higher education through tuition and loans. We explore the effects of shifts from first-stream income (government appropriations)…

The purpose of "Focus" is to provide coverage of poverty-related research, events, and issues, and to acquaint a large audience with the work of the Institute for Research on Poverty by means of short essays on selected pieces of research. This issue contains the following articles: (1) Changing poverty and changing antipoverty policies…