In this article, Jackson Toby discusses President Biden's proposal for free community college and substantial subsidies at public four-year colleges. Toby points out that if Biden means to require the beneficiaries to demonstrate that they have enough aptitude to graduate if they choose to study, the idea would be in the tradition of Thomas…

Like many of her classmates, the author was a first-generation student, but that meant something quite different in the late 1960s than it does now. When she attended, college, the jobs parents had with high school degrees allowed them to provide considerable support for college educations. Paying for college was difficult but not as difficult as…

Making Pell Grants an entitlement and tying the maximum award to a measure of inflation, as President Obama has proposed, would probably yield larger awards and stop the cycle of shortfalls that have plagued the program. The president's plan, which would index the maximum award to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) plus one percentage point, probably…

American higher education absorbs a larger share of GDP than that of other countries, but it has not produced a particularly high proportion of college graduates. College graduation rates are actually worse than the very low benchmark of high school graduation rates, but higher education institutions are not held accountable. The author writes…

The strategy for financing public higher education of using high tuition and student aid assumes, erroneously, that targeting subsidies directly to the needy makes a more equitable system, that the public will support the high-aid end of the equation, and that current and future students can repay debt. (MSE)

Social and economic changes in recent decades have meant significant changes in the mission, quality, and cost of public colleges; and an elite public higher education structure is emerging. A major overhaul of public higher education's economic policies and financial strategies is needed if it is to become affordable again. (MSE)

Ten years ago, the state best known for its peaches launched a revolution that still reverberates in the halls of colleges and universities across the country. Faced with a plethora of poorly performing high-school students and a growing number of graduates fleeing the state for postsecondary study, Georgia unveiled its Helping Outstanding Pupils…

Washington State's Higher Education Coordinating Board undertook a review of the State Work Study (SWS) program requirements related to the classification and compensation of SWS positions at public colleges and universities. A task force studying wage rate comparability was convened to review statutory directives related to this issue and to…

Examines shifts in federal student aid and research and development policies over two decades, and argues that policy changes have converged on public research universities, making them exemplars of Reagan economics marked by privatization, deregulation, and commercialization. Patterns of institutional resource allocation to departments are…

Variable fees at the graduate and undergraduate levels are a topic of discussion in the US and in the EU as part of a larger movement towards increasing the role of fees in the funding of public universities. This essay describes this relatively new shift and its causes, outlines various funding models related to fee levels, and discusses the…

The crisis of affordability in higher education is intensifying. Illustrations of its resonance abound: from the frequent news articles describing and amplifying the crisis and its sources to legislators' and candidates' proposed responses. Republicans' responses tend to be mainly punitive toward institutions; Democrats' proposals are more…

Thirty years of federal student aid have increased the chances that low-income individuals will go to college, but the gap in college attendance between low- and high-income families has not changed much. Academic underpreparation among low-income groups, more federal student aid for the middle class, and rising tuition at state institutions…

A large and growing part of American postsecondary education, proprietary schools, offer lessons for traditional institutions in attracting new students in a career-oriented market. Effective marketing is important since proprietary schools compete not only with each other, but also with public community colleges. Specific schools and agencies are…

The California Postsecondary Education Commission adopted the following six priorities for the state budget for higher education during fiscal year 1989-90: (1) expanding funding for adult education programs in English as a second language and basic skills; (2) supporting enrollment growth in California's public universities; (3) implementing…

This document articulates the directives of the American Association of Colleges and Universities (AASCU) in achieving its major goal of providing citizens with equal opportunity for access to a college education. Based on the policy directives of the AASCU Board of Directors and the recommendations of the Council of State Representatives, the…