The last comprehensive reauthorization of the Higher Education Act (HEA) occurred in 2008, and the law has been overdue for another reauthorization for nearly a decade. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) has worked on reauthorization for nearly a decade. In this report, NASFAA updates its recommendations to…

West Virginia's three state-funded medical schools enroll more medical students per capita than any other state in the country. Due to its large number of medical student slots, the state typically is able to offer all qualified West Virginians the opportunity to complete their medical education in the state. In the academic year of 2020-2021, 43…

Differences by race and ethnicity exist in student borrowing trends. Statistics about debt loads, repayment trends, default rates, and forgiveness opportunities routinely appear in research papers, policy briefs, talking points, and news reports. But real progress over time depends on setting up the right conversation and narrative. So far, too…

The authors have developed a visualization tool to assist higher education stakeholders in exploring options in higher education performance and accountability. The tool allows users to visualize quickly differences between programs and institutions along a number of dimensions. This report draws five insights from the visualization tool: (1)…

The federal role in higher education has grown over the past two decades, and now a new administration has the opportunity to strengthen policies that support students and their colleges and universities. To help inform these decisions, the Urban Institute convened a bipartisan group of scholars and policy advisers to write a series of memos…

This paper summarises the evolution of student contributions in Australia since 1989, exploring system redesigns that commenced in 1997, 2005 and 2021. Public and private benefits are recurring themes in setting student contributions, both as high-level justifications for government policy and in pricing specific disciplines. Professor Andrew…

All students deserve to attend programs and institutions that meet high quality standards. But different program goals, investments of time, and eligibility criteria make it difficult to set specific standards that will apply equally well to all types of programs and institutions. This report sets out principles for developing an accountability…

Postsecondary students face a myriad of complex financial decisions and tasks, such as financing their education, choosing a major with a return on investment, budgeting, and crafting repayment strategies for credit card and student loan debt(s). With respect to student loans, many borrowers feel "burdened by the repayment process" and…

This report looks at the education and work outcomes of a national sample of bachelor's degree recipients four years after they earned their degrees. The findings are based on data from the 2016/20 Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Study (B&B:16/20). B&B:16/20, which took place in 2020, is the second follow-up in a national study of…

Teachers of color have a positive impact on all students and make a particularly pronounced difference in the lives of students of color. For students of color, having a teacher of color can increase academic achievement and advanced course-taking, reduce discipline incidents, improve attendance, increase high school graduation and college-going,…

Student loans are like a dark cloud looming above 41 million Americans (Perna, Kvall, & Ruiz, 2017). Through young adults' personal accounts and relevant literature, we aimed to explore how student debt has altered the lives of college graduates and what can be done to educate students before they graduate with tens of thousands of dollars in…

College has become a risky proposition for students as well as taxpayers. Fewer than six in 10 students who start a degree will ever finish, which means that they won't see a return on the money they've spent to attend--and if they took out a loan from the federal government, they might be left with unaffordable debt. In the latter case, the…

For many students, the burden of student debt lingers years after leaving college, dragging down their finances and household security. New federal data find that, 12 years after enrollment, students with debt still owed, on average, two-thirds of what they had borrowed -- and as many as 27 percent had defaulted. Colleges, however, face no…

HEPI's response to the Review of Post-18 Education and Funding covers the following 10 areas: (1) Part-time learners; (2) Differential fees; (3) Maintenance grants; (4) Mixed funding model; (5) Uses of tuition fees; (6) Misunderstanding among applicants; (7) Outreach versus spending on bursaries; (8) Accounting treatment of student loans; (9)…

The Baccalaureate and Beyond (B&B) series of data collections allows researchers to address questions regarding bachelor's degree recipients' undergraduate experiences, including their participation in various financial aid programs, student loan debt and repayment of that debt; entrance into and progress through postbaccalaureate education;…