This paper examines how private college and university endowments affect financial aid, admissions selectivity, and the economic and racial composition of incoming students. Because endowment levels are a function of expenditures and alumni giving, which are endogenous to the outcomes of interest, the design exploits changes in endowments stemming…

Education is the value proposition that provides individuals the opportunity to become meaningful contributors to society, their community, and their immediate families. It is the calling card of personal achievement and individual intrinsic benefits. Education is about access and opportunity. Institutions continue to navigate strategies of access…

Inequality in the United States has been rising in recent decades, while intergenerational mobility remains low. This means that absolute mobility--the extent to which children are economically better off than their parents--is declining, and intergenerational inequality is increasingly entrenched. A long literature suggests large returns to…

Adolescents with learning disabilities disproportionately come from lower socioeconomic status backgrounds, show normative deficits in academic skills, and attend 2-year, public colleges instead of 4-year institutions. However, students with learning disabilities are well represented at the United States' most expensive and selective postsecondary…

The overall number of undergraduates at U.S. colleges and universities has increased dramatically over the past 20 years, with growth fueled almost exclusively by an influx of students from low-income families and students of color. But these changes are not occurring uniformly across the postsecondary landscape. The rise of poor and minority…

Tuition discounting is a tactic deployed by many private four-year institutions as a means for enhancing either tuition revenue or institutional image. This study examines associations between "socioeconomic diversity" and two aspects of institutional grants--"freshman discount rate" and "freshman grant recipient discount…

While many selective and moderately selective schools have attempted to increase the numbers of low-income students and students of color in their student body, few have successfully done so. In this qualitative case study, I examine the efforts of an elite, private, liberal arts school, Amherst College, as it increased the socioeconomic diversity…

We report the results of a qualitative research study conducted with university students regarding their phenomenological perspectives of BlackBerry use. Three key themes inductively emerged throughout the interview and analysis process regarding self-perceptions college students reported regarding their own BlackBerry use. First, students offered…