Black and Latino adolescent boys and young men from low-income communities face numerous perceived and actual barriers to achieving their postsecondary educational goals. To advocate for more precise interventions, this study investigated how black and Latino eleventh grade boys' college ambitions were shaped by their school's college-going…

While college costs have risen significantly in the past few decades, some of those cost increases can be partially mitigated by financial aid for low-income families. But many low- and moderate-income families vastly overestimate the cost of college, leading them to assume that enrolling their children in college, particularly a four-year school,…

Drawing on theories of student retention and campus climate for diversity, this study examines differences in Black and White students' consideration of transferring or dropping-out of college. It expands the current state of retention research by: (1) testing whether there are different antecedents for considering different types of withdrawal;…

Objective: Increasing rural community college degree attainment is very important to foster rural areas' economic and social well-being. Rural community colleges differ greatly from their suburban and urban counterparts in financial aid patterns and student bodies. However, existing literature is vacant with respect to student financial aid and…

With the 2020 presidential election campaign now underway, education-policy proposals previously at the edge of the political debate are entering the mainstream. Support for increasing teacher pay is higher now than at any point since 2008, and a majority of the public favors more federal funding for local schools. Free college commands the…

This qualitative study investigated the challenges experienced by first-generation community college students as they navigated the process of transferring to a four-year university. Participants were from a pool of first-generation students who were in the process of completing steps to transferring. These participants all completed specific…

The Federal Student Aid's (FSA's) Five-Year Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2020-24 (Five-Year Plan) establishes ambitious goals and objectives to ensure that FSA continues to provide access to higher education regardless of one's past educational experiences or socioeconomic status. This Five-Year Plan was informed by public comments; focus…

In this paper I argue that in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009 young people, certain populations of young people in particular, are being made to bear a heavy burden, carry significant responsibilities for re-imagining their lives as a enterprise--an enterprise in which an "investment" in education and training…

This paper presents an exploratory analysis of young people's perceptions and attitudes towards their potential progression to higher education in rural areas of Scotland. These young people belonged to three state secondary schools whose catchment areas were mainly rural. All were in S5/Year 12 or S6/Year 13 and aged 16 years and over. They…

The state of Kansas created the Child Support Savings Initiative (CSSI) in 2013 to help parents who owe child support pay off debt that is owed to the state while also saving for their children's future higher education. The program aims to encourage parents to make qualifying deposits into tax-advantaged college savings plans--529…

This study examined rural-nonrural differences in postsecondary educational expectations and the attainment of expectations for grade 10 students attending rural and nonrural high schools in the Regional Educational Laboratory (REL) Midwest region and how these differences compare with rural-nonrural differences in the rest of the nation. For…

The federal government and the states each invested more than $70 billion in higher education-related spending programs, excluding loans, in academic year 2014, the latest year for which data are available. But that figure, as substantial as it is, does not paint a full picture of federal and state investments in higher education. It excludes the…

As the lowest-priced higher education institutions serving the greatest share of students in New England, public institutions are a crucial access point for the region's students who may not have other opportunities to enroll in college. Maintaining the cost of attending a public institution in New England is imperative for students, families,…

This white paper encourages board members to take a step back and think about long-term strategies for ensuring that financial aid policies are consistent with institutional mission at the same time that they serve fiscal and enrollment goals. While board members can determine financial aid and enrollment policies only at the broadest level, it is…

Income-share agreements (ISAs) are an emerging idea for helping students pay for college. Under an ISA, investors provide upfront sums of money toward students' college tuition and other associated costs in exchange for a fixed percentage of the recipients' earnings after graduation. This paper--the first in a series examining private financing in…