While the direct impacts of minimum wage changes on employment have received considerable attention, these policy changes have the potential to impact skill attainment by changing the opportunity cost of college enrollment. Using institutional data on college enrollment and program completion, we find that enrollment falls markedly among students…

There is increasing evidence that tax benefits for college do not affect college enrollment. This may be because prospective students do not know about tax benefits for college or because the design of tax benefits is not conducive to affecting educational outcomes. We focus on changing awareness of tax benefits by providing information to…

Purpose: This paper aims to analyze the demand for mobility in higher education to understand the critical elements of students' mobility and the potential impact of accessing sustainable alternatives. The demand for different means of transportation accounts for socioeconomic variables such as household income and size, gender, age, among other…

This paper examines how colleges respond to the introduction of broad merit aid programs. Previous research has emphasized the impact of merit aid on enrollment, student choices, and post-matriculation outcomes. Yet much less is known about how state-implemented merit aid programs affect colleges' financial decisions. To explore impacts, college…

Mexico is often portrayed as a colorful country through its art, clothing, architecture and landscapes; but all that color carries in itself contrast. Education, as well as other aspects of public life in Mexico, has been a matter of contrasts since the settlement of the first civilizations. At the beginning of the modern era, as a result of the…

Paul LeBlanc has reimagined higher education, with a focus on the most fundamental of functions: student learning. In "Students First," he advocates for an entire higher education ecosystem in which students have the flexibility to gain, assess, and certify their knowledge on their own terms and timelines. In a perceptive analysis,…

This annual publication is designed to be a one-stop shop for all the existing research on private school choice in the United States. This year's edition is updated with the research published since the last edition. Since the first modern-day voucher program launched in Milwaukee in 1990, researchers have studied private school choice programs.…

The post-secondary educational system has undergone dramatic changes and experienced immense stress in the past two decades. Once regarded as the logical next step toward career opportunities and financial security, higher education is a subject of growing uncertainty for millions of people across the United States. It is more common than ever to…

Florida enacted legislation in 2008 for a statewide program known as the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), which was intended to reduce the need for postsecondary remediation. The FCCRI consisted of testing grade 11 students to determine their college readiness and offering math and English college readiness and success…

Florida enacted legislation in 2008 for a statewide program known as the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), which was intended to reduce the need for postsecondary remediation. The FCCRI consisted of testing grade 11 students to determine their college readiness and offering math and English college readiness and success…

Each year, the Rennie Center collects state-level indicators in our Data Dashboard to provide context on the condition of education in the Commonwealth. This data is collected from the MA Department of Early Education and Care; MA Department of Elementary and Secondary Education; MA Department of Higher Education; U.S Census Bureau; and U.S.…

As a knowledge-based workforce has transformed the American economy over the last several decades, few people have questioned the value of higher education. Enrollment has surged at all types of colleges--up by more than one-third in just the last decade--as the college credential has become the ticket to a better life. From a purely economic…

At a time of sustained unemployment and sluggish job growth, students and policymakers are increasingly asking tough questions about postsecondary education and training outcomes. Do graduates find jobs? What are they paid? What will they earn in the future? Despite growing national interest in this information, good answers are not widely…

The single most important step colleges and universities--especially public colleges and universities--can take to lower the student and family cost of college attendance is to improve retention, thereby increasing the four-year graduation rate. The author believes that institutions with high rates of retention to graduation have those high rates…

In this study, the authors examined the impact of two interventions related to the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) on postsecondary outcomes of low- to moderate-income individuals. The two interventions were included: (1) providing an estimate of need-based aid compared against tuition costs for nearby colleges and assistance in…