Millions of immigrants reside in the United States without legal authorisation to do so. This paper examines the educational opportunities available to those brought to the country illegally as children. While the 1982 landmark Supreme Court decision in "Plyler v. Doe" protects access to K-12 education, in the past 25 years, legislation…

Over the years, there has been a tremendous increase in enrollment in higher education as well as the cost of attendance. This article comparatively analyzes the higher education finance between the United States of America (U.S.A.) and Ghana, taking into consideration the goals of higher education, enrollment and expenditure, and the various…

The provision of grant aid is important to students' postsecondary opportunities and success. It is well established that grant aid increases the probability of enrollment in postsecondary education. A slate of studies in recent years has extended this research to examine whether grant aid also has an impact on persistence and degree attainment.…

In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, the nation's community colleges and students are facing a host of concerns about the upcoming 2020 fall semester. Many students are reconsidering whether they will pursue higher education full time, take online courses, or enroll at all. Students who have lost their jobs or have family members facing…

State need-based financial aid programs are a key driver of college access and completion for lower-income students and racially marginalized students in California, most of whom attend public two- and four-year colleges and universities and come from families with annual incomes of less than $40,000. As the state's largest need-based financial…

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…

A strategy for allocating merit-based awards and need-based aid is critical to a university. Such a strategy, however, must address multiple, sometimes competing objectives. We introduce an approach that couples a gradient boosting classifier for predicting outcomes from an allocation strategy with a local search optimization algorithm, which…

This study explores the college choice process and experiences of California Latinx students applying to selective, four-year institutions. The literature review reveals existing disparities in outcomes for California Latinx students attending open-access institutions, highlighting the potential for private, selective colleges to increase…

Since the fall of 2017, New York has offered free tuition to eligible residents attending its state-funded two-year and four-year colleges under its unique Excelsior Scholarship program. We use the difference-in-differences and generalized synthetic control estimators to document that institution-level enrollment effects are negligible. Our study…

This study examines the impact of "Promise" programs on postsecondary institutions' decision-making. Promise programs have garnered widespread attention in the U.S., especially after the announcement of the Kalamazoo Promise, but relatively little scholarly research. Promise programs provide grant aid to all students from a particular…

Decisions about whether and where to go to college can make a difference in students' later success. However, many students from low-income families--"undermatch"--they do not enroll at all or do not enroll in the most selective college they likely could attend. The full study to these study highlights examined whether promising advising…

Postsecondary education is one of the largest investments that students and their families make, with average yearly cost of attendance--including tuition, fees, room and board--of just under $17,000 to attend a public institution in the 2015-16 academic year. In the context of increasing college costs, aid dollars have failed to keep pace with…

This digest provides descriptive, aggregated statistics related to the experiences of 10 cohorts of graduates of City Schools from school years 2010-11 through 2019-20. The compilers use multiple indicators of college access, including the process of applying for college and financial aid, enrollment in the fall following high school graduation,…

Background/Context: The transition from high school to college marks a critical juncture for students planning to pursue higher education, particularly those from historically marginalized backgrounds. Unfortunately, many of these students are left to navigate complex financial aid requirements, registration processes, and academic placement with…

Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) verification and its role in summer melt is examined in this brief. "Summer melt" is when high school seniors who appear ready to go to college the fall following graduation do not enroll. The study revealed one-third of Houston Independent School District (HISD) college-intending students…