Surmounting a national--indeed global--recession in the wake of war is not new to America or its leaders. Born out of one of the nation's darkest moments of the 20th century were bold initiatives to empower those who served their country as well as all who sought to enter the American middle class. The GI Bill of Rights was one such measure, as…

The number of prisoners in the United States has accelerated over the past thirty years, giving it the highest incarceration rate in the world. The rise in the prison rate has coincided with the ascendancy of neoliberal policies of governance. These include, deregulation of markets, reduction of welfare services, and harsh punitive measures for…

Access to higher education in the United States is increasingly on the public policy agenda as funding constraints affect the realization of college attendance for many middle and low-income students. We use the Pell Grant as a proxy for low-income participation, and the percent of undergraduate students receiving a Pell Grant (Pell Prevalence…

Five years have passed since the U.S. Census Bureau published synthetic estimates of work-life earnings by educational attainment. This paper updates those figures with the most recent data from the U.S. Census Bureau's annual Current Population Surveys, and adds net present value analysis of the financial benefit of a college degree to the…

As Congress debates the reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA), it should heed Friedrich Hayek's warning that democracy is "peculiarly liable, if not guided by accepted common principles, to produce over-all results that nobody wanted." One result of the federal government's student financial aid programs is higher tuition…

The Hungarian government has recently been focusing on innovation policy as part of a wider campaign to improve the business environment. This paper first underscores the importance of a good general business climate in encouraging both formal and informal R&D activity as well as ensuring Hungary benefits from the international diffusion of…