Over the last forty years, non-elite private institutions have steadily increased listed tuition and institutional aid. This practice has continued even though the net tuition revenue gains from incoming students have become minimal. We present a new explanation for why these yearly increases continue: The pricing structure of non-elite privates…

The long-term financial viability of private higher education has been a topic of concern for some time, with experts predicting their decline. This concern has been exacerbated by declining enrollment, mounting deficits, and a wave of closures among small private institutions. Demographic changes, including declining high school graduate…

Private nonprofit four-year institutions have been increasing the amount of institutional aid provided to students, in the pursuit of enrollment and revenue management objectives and goals. Most of this aid is being funded using the institution's operating funds. This study investigated the relationship between unfunded institutional aid and net…

College typically pays off for low-income students, but not as much as it does for their peers. Low-income students, whose families earn $30,000 or less per year, comprise more than one-third of college students. "The Colleges Where Low-Income Students Get the Highest ROI" finds that low-income students have a lower return on investment…

This dissertation consists of three chapters on the industrial organization of higher education. Chapter 1 studies the impacts of mergers and acquisitions on students' outcomes. We explore a series of acquisitions of private higher education institutions in Brazil to conduct an ex-post analysis of the effects of mergers. Using detailed…

Higher Education is facing an increasingly competitive marketplace with high tuition prices, consumers are pushing back on rising tuition prices and choosing community and state colleges. A shortage in the traditional college age student population, has compounded the enrollment problem at small, private colleges. Most private colleges are…

Student loan debt continues to grow at a rapid pace (Scott-Clayton, 2018). The total debt burden for each student graduating from college is over $35,000, and that number is likely to gradually rise as tuition costs and fees at institutions of higher education increase (Friedman, 2018). The problem is not that students accrue debt but rather the…

College-provided scholarships, or tuition discounts, are in the news. The National Association of College and University Business Officers recently estimated that the average discount for full-time, first-year undergraduates at private nonprofit colleges and universities hit 50 percent in the fall of 2017. In other words, these institutions…

It has been two years since Mike DeWine was sworn in to serve as Ohio's 70th governor, joined by Jon Husted as lieutenant governor. From the very beginning, Governor DeWine requested that his Cabinet listen carefully to the people of the state and then proceed to act with a sense of urgency to change Ohio. In 2019, Chancellor Randy Gardner began…

In 2010, total student loan debt surpassed total credit card debt held by Americans. About two years later, total student debt broke the psychologically huge $1 trillion mark. These milestones brought to a boil long-simmering frustration with college price growth that has outstripped normal inflation, household income changes, and even…

Nebraska is committed to measuring its progress toward achieving the major statewide goals through national comparisons and institutional peer comparisons. It is the aim of the Comprehensive Plan that, when rank order is appropriate, Nebraska will rank among the ten best states in national comparisons, and individual public institutions will rank…

Tuition discounting (TD), a practice whereby institutional grants are used to subsidize a student's educational expense, has become a common practice at four-year institutions. TDs impact on enrollments, financial aid, and budgets continues to increase, raising concerns about the long-term sustainability of the practice. Drawing upon Breneman's…

We examine college affordability under the existing pricing and financial aid system that awards both non need-based and need-based aid. Using data of freshmen attending a large number of selective private and public colleges in the USA, we find that the prices students actually pay for college have increased over time. Need-based grant aid has…

When higher education goes wrong, once-hopeful students can be saddled with debt, no degree, fewer resources and less will to pursue education in the future. Costs, debt and earnings vary greatly depending on the type of institution running the program. Career training programs at for-profit institutions, also known as proprietary schools, have…

The constitution and statutes of Nebraska assign the Coordinating Commission for Postsecondary Education the responsibility for comprehensive planning for postsecondary education in Nebraska. The purpose of the "Comprehensive Statewide Plan for Postsecondary Education" is to provide direction for the future of postsecondary education in…