Growing concerns over student debt have led to a series of sweeping policy proposals from higher education associations, think tanks, and policymakers over the last decade to align state and federal higher education financing policy. The existing framework, in which states primarily subsidize institutions and the federal government primarily supports students, is increasingly seen as an inadequate, outdated approach to making college affordable. The most prominent proposal was the tuition-free community college plan advanced by President Biden in 2021, a measure undergirded by a state-federal partnership that received substantial but not sufficient support from Congress. Despite this setback, more partnership proposals are expected in the years ahead. State higher education executive officers (SHEEOs) play a key role in state policy leadership and would be central to the implementation of a state-federal higher education financing partnership. However, most state-federal partnership proposals have been crafted at the federal level, with limited input from the SHEEOs. This study used interviews with SHEEOs and a survey of the membership of the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association to better understand the views of the SHEEOs on factors influencing college affordability, the appropriate role of states and the federal government in higher education financing, and their perspectives on tuition-free public higher education proposals.