The student loan crisis has become a buzz topic that presidential candidates frequently discuss in debates and town halls. Today, accumulated student loan debt equals $1.6 trillion, exceeding total accumulated car loans and credit card debt. What makes this a crisis is the fact that approximately 22 percent of student loan borrowers default on…

The proposed College Affordability Act calls for a massive uptick in federal spending on higher education and increased access to federal student aid (which has been shown to inflate tuition), while easing the criteria for federal loan forgiveness, leaving the bill to American taxpayers. Americans need solutions that will drive down the price of…

The issue of the price and cost of distance education courses has been discussed in the past in numerous publications including the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher Education. There is a long-held belief among legislators, governors, and other leaders that distance courses should cost less to produce and deliver. To evaluate the…

The National Association of Scholars believes that higher education should gather scholars and students to cultivate excellence and pursue the truth, transmit the heritage of Western civilization to a new generation, prepare cultured and virtuous citizens, and train students for vocational success. American colleges and universities should embody…

Chapter 1: In response to tightened budgets and concerns about higher education costs, governments have introduced rules to limit the use of publicly funded aid, particularly at for-profit colleges. In this paper, we use an event study framework to estimate how tuition, enrollments, and loan use changed at for-profit colleges that became…

This study examines the labor market gains for students who enrolled at for-profit colleges after beginning their post-secondary education in community college. We use student-level administrative record data from college transcripts, Unemployment Insurance earnings data, and progression data from the National Student Clearinghouse across full…

The problem facing American colleges and universities is larger than even the term "bubble" implies. A bursting bubble would force change on the more than four thousand postsecondary institutions in the United States, but something even more destructive is going to hit higher education, probably at the same time. The major sign that a…

This article traces recent policy developments relating to full-time undergraduate student retention within the English higher education system. It focuses specifically on the changing government policies and strategies designed to influence institutional behavior to promote widening participation while attending to the student experience and…

We use administrative data from five states to provide the first comprehensive estimates of the size of the for-profit higher education sector in the U.S. Our estimates include schools that are not currently eligible to participate in federal student aid programs under Title IV of the Higher Education Act and are therefore missed in official…

This year's "Tennessee Higher Education Fact Book" consists of four sections and an appendix of additional resources and terminology. The four main sections of the report provide data on Student Participation, Student Success, Academic and Fiscal Trends, and Outcomes-Based Funding. Relative to the previous Fact Book, Quality Assurance…

This year's "Tennessee Higher Education Fact Book" consists of five sections and an appendix of additional resources and terminology. The five main sections of the report provide data on Student Participation, Student Success, Academic and Fiscal Trends, Quality Assurance Funding, and Outcomes-Based Funding. Each section begins with…

This year's "Tennessee Higher Education Fact Book" consists of five sections and an appendix of additional resources and terminology. The five main sections of the report include: (1) Student Participation, Fall 2020; (2) Student Success, Academic Year 2019-20; (3) Academic and Fiscal Trends, Academic Year 2019-20; (4) Quality Assurance…

In January 2010, the General Assembly passed the Complete College Tennessee Act (CCTA), a comprehensive reform agenda seeking to transform public higher education through changes in academic, fiscal, and administrative policies at the state and institutional levels. While the higher education landscape has been shaped by the CCTA, it is also…

To understand why tuitions are increasing at institutions of higher education, policymakers need to look at the relationships between and among cost, price and subsidy. This brief explains how to understand those relationships, what the trend data show at a national level, places to go for more information, and questions to ask. (Contains 3…

In January 2010, the General Assembly passed the Complete College Tennessee Act (CCTA), a comprehensive reform agenda seeking to transform public higher education through changes in academic, fiscal, and administrative policies at the state and institutional levels. While the higher education landscape has been shaped by the CCTA, it is also…