affordability
May 23, 2012
Brookings State Grant Aid Study
Released last week by the Brown Center on Education Policy at Brookings, Beyond Need and Merit: Strengthening State Grant Programs describes the scope and type of state grant programs across the US, and provides recommendations for improvement. Such programs currently provide over $9 billion in aid to students each year and comprise, on average, approximately 12 percent…
April 16, 2012
Another Report on the Effect of Public Investment on Attainment
Demos, a research and advocacy organization, recently published a report entitled “The Great Cost Shift” discussing the effects of higher tuition and lower state investment on a growing and diverse college population. The report focuses on the Millennial generation, the group of students born in the 1980s and 90s and beginning to enter college in…
March 6, 2012
Majority of Americans Think College Is Beneficial, Though Disagreements Over its Primary Purpose Remain
According to the latest survey by the Pew Center for the People and the Press, conducted in late February, the majority of all Americans think higher education contributes positively to the country, while those identifying themselves as conservative were more likely to doubt its benefits. While 67 percent of Democrats believe college affects the country…
January 30, 2012
Obama’s Blueprint for Higher Education Affordablity
As reported on the UW Office of Federal Relations blog, President Obama made a splash in the higher education community last week when he outlined new proposals for higher education reform in his State of The Union Address and in a speech at the University of Michigan. Many are praising the President’s focus on the…
January 17, 2012
New OPB Brief
This week, UPenn’s Institute for Research on Higher Education (IRHE) released a report assessing the state of higher education policy in Washington State. While satisfactorily describing the key facts and long-term trends and potential future problems for higher education in Washington State, the report is somewhat unrealistic in its recommendations. It seems to assume that,…
January 13, 2012
Online Learning Still Plagued by Uncertainty
The Thomas B. Fordham Institute published an interesting paper recently called Creating Sound Policy for Digital Learning. While primarily focused on the role of technology in K-12 education, the paper provides perspective for higher education as well. This topic is especially important as the economic crisis continues to push universities to produce more with less…
January 10, 2012
Yes, College is Still Worth It
The New York Times Economix blog has some recent posts discussing new data that continue to illustrate the economic benefits of a college education. Check out all Economix posts that have been tagged with the topic Is College Worth it. These data and conclusions align with our recent OPB brief, Is Undergraduate Education America’s Next…
December 28, 2011
Tax Benefits Increasingly Key to College Affordability
Note that the report summarized in this post reflects data through 2007-08. We know from more recent data that 2009’s expansion of the American Opportunity Tax Credit (formerly the Hope tax credit) has more than doubled both benefit and participation rates, so we anticipate future reports to reflect similar but magnified findings. In its latest…
November 21, 2011
Californians Concerned About the Future of Higher Ed
A new telephone survey, conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, suggests that although Californians appreciate the quality of their higher education system, they are concerned about the direction in which it is headed. In fact, only 28 percent of Californians think that the system is headed in the right direction, while 62 percent…
November 2, 2011
Is Higher Education the Next Bubble?
As we continue to experience a very slow recovery from a deep recession, the ideas of long-time critics of modern, inclusive American higher education who question the value of college for many have gained traction and blossomed into widespread public speculation about whether undergraduate education might be the next economic bubble to threaten the US…
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