This paper examines how financial aid reform based on postsecondary institutional performance impacts student choice. Federal and state regulations often reflect concerns about the private, for-profit sector's poor employment outcomes and high loan defaults, despite the sector's possible theoretical advantages. We use student level data to examine…

This dissertation consists of three chapters examining issues relevant to current higher education policy debates. In the first chapter, I use surveys, in-depth interviews, and administrative records from a sample of Wisconsin Pell Grant recipients who chose among Wisconsin public colleges and universities to explore whether students' initial…

This study examined (1) average distances traveled to attend college, (2) presumptive college eligibility, (3) differences between two-year and four-year college enrollment, (4) differences in enrollment related to differences in colleges' selectivity, and (5) degree of "undermatching" (i.e., enrolling in a college less selective than…

Recent studies have revealed how large shares of college-ready students "undermatch", or enroll in colleges with less competitive admissions processes than they are eligible to attend. Undermatch sits at the nexus of both college access and completion agendas, as undermatching to a less selective institution results in a decreased…

This guide to college selection for learning disabled (LD) students was based on questionnaire responses received from 255 colleges, junior colleges, and universities in Connecticut, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island. An initial chapter discusses decision making…

College is an investment in a student's future. Students who graduate from college earn, over the course of their working lives, on average a million dollars more than their peers who don't hold a college degree. A college education also provides students with an education that prepares them for civic participation in our democratic Republic.…