According to "The Future of Undergraduate Education" report, about 17 million students are enrolled in 4,700 college and university programs every fall. Forty-nine percent of all credentials earned are bachelor's degrees, 26 percent are associate degrees and another 25 percent are certificates. In the U.S., students can tap several…

This report provides a cost estimate for the first ten years of a Promise scholarship program for the Evart Public Schools (EPS) (Michigan) that would provide a flat rate ($2,500 per year for up to four years) middle dollar scholarship that covers remaining costs after Pell and TIP [Michigan Tuition Incentive Program] are awarded. The program…

Working has become commonplace among college students in the United States; however, this activity can have unexpected financial consequences. Federal formulas implicitly tax the amount of financial aid some students are eligible to receive by as much as 50 cents for each marginal dollar of income. In this article, I document this college…

This poll was conducted between January 23-February 7, 2023 among a sample of 1,311 Black parents. The interviews were conducted online and the data were weighted to approximate a target sample of Black school parents based on gender, educational attainment, age, race, and region. Results based on the full survey have a measure of precision of…

With more than 38% of all 2015-16 undergraduates taking out student loans, total student loan debt of over $1.3 trillion, and a projected cumulative student loan default rate of nearly 40 percent by 2023, Income Share Agreements (ISAs) have gained traction, emerging as an alternative financial aid mechanism. This study utilizes nationally…

Financial stress and student loan debt are on the rise among today's college students. This study examined the associations between financial factors and students' college goal commitment. A multi-institutional survey was used to assess students' financial stress, estimated student loan debt, and the perceived importance of career, economic,…

Federal Work-Study (FWS) funding provides opportunities for campus-based employment to students as a way to pay for their college expenses. This issue of "DataPoints" finds community colleges receive only 18 percent of Federal Work-Study funds from the $1 billion appropriated to the program.

The higher education system in America is in need of significant reform. Twin challenges of high cost and low quality require attention from federal policymakers--who oversee tens of billions in federal aid to colleges and universities annually. In recent years, some policymakers, most notably during the Obama Administration, have singled out…

This updated TICAS (The Institute for College Access & Success) analysis finds that low-income students and families actually pay less to attend each of the nine University of California (UC) campuses than they would at Cal State (CSU) or California Community Colleges (CCC) in the same region.

The federal Pell Grant was designed to help low-income students pay for college. But over the past two decades, a growing share of middle-income students have become eligible for the program. This was not policymakers' explicit goal. This report examines how the program came to increasingly provide students from middle-income families with grants,…

Community colleges are an important, yet understudied, tier of the higher education system in the United States. Community colleges serve students from all socio-economic backgrounds. As such, community college students face challenges to their educations not seen in those attending more traditional schools. This dissertation recognizes these…

State-level postsecondary policymaking is daunting. Policymakers navigate through myriad fiscal, political, and ideological constraints and opportunities as they strive to address pressing state concerns or goals. While researchers and advocates may point to "perfect" policy models, in reality perfect policy does not exist. All…

Purpose: The purpose of this article is to describe the speech-language pathology master's program experience for two groups of students: students with former speech-language pathology assistant (SLPA) experience (fSLPA) and students without SLPA experience (nSLPA). Results are relevant to current SLPAs who are considering attending graduate…

The Tuition and Fee Report is produced annually by the Colorado Department of Higher Education to provide detailed information on the tuition and fee rates at Colorado's public institutions, as well as to give context regarding the state funding environment in which tuition and fee rate-setting occurs. Colorado has mirrored national trends over…

Approximately 4.2 million youth and young adults experience homelessness on their own every year. These young people -- referred to as "unaccompanied homeless youth" under federal education law -- face unique barriers to accessing and completing higher education. Unaccompanied homeless youth are not living with, or supported by, a parent…