Suchergebnisse

Free college is unlikely to see the light of day in todays divided political environment, but is frequently in the news as a point of contention between the two leading contenders for the Democratic nomination for president. Bernie Sanders supports eliminating tuition and fees at public colleges, whereas Hillary Clinton favors increases in student aid targeted at low- and middle-income students. This report provides new evidence on which groups of students are likely to benefit the most from a policy that eliminates tuition and fees at public colleges and universities. Using nationally representative data on in-state students at public institutions, I find that students from higher income families would receive a disproportionate share of the benefits of free college, largely because they tend to attend more expensive institutions. ; Economic Studies at Brookings

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 highlighting some of the most critical issues in higher education and recommending policy solutions. This report proposes a new system of income-driven loan repayment designed to address some of the problems with the current repayment options. ; Urban Institute

While many bemoan the increasingly large role rankings play in
American higher education, their prominence and importance are
indisputable. Such rankings have many different audiences, ranging
from prospective undergraduates or graduate students, to foundations
and government funders, to university administrators identifying
strengths and weaknesses of their school. This diverse audience
necessarily has varying hopes for what "quality" is measured in
school rankings, and different uses for the rankings themselves. But
although there are currently a wide variety of ways to assess
graduate school quality, most existing surveys have recognized
failings that compromise their usefulness to at least one of these
different constituencies. The authors
extend their thanks to William Bowen, Derek Bruff, Jonathan
Cole, Philip Katz, Gary King, Robert Townsend, Harriet
Zuckerman, and two anonymous PS reviewers for
their valuable comments on and criticisms of earlier drafts of
this paper.

The federal government released earnings data on U.S. colleges and universities for the first-time last month. The new College Scorecard adds an important new dimension to previous government data collections on colleges and universities, which focused on inputs such as number of faculty and student characteristics and the immediate outcomes of retention and graduation rather than longer term outcomes including earnings in the labor market. The authors examine the extent to which the Scorecard provides reliable and valid data, discuss whether it should be used by students and the general public to identify schools that provide the biggest bang for the buck, and identify actions that this or a future administration could take to improve the functions that Scorecard is intended to serve. ; Economic Studies at Brookings

Providing better information on college quality to potential students and their families is a major focus of bipartisan higher education policy efforts. These efforts have focused on labor market outcomes, such as employment rates and average earnings, as indicators of college quality. Several state governments have published data on labor market outcomes by program of study (e.g., engineering) at different institutions within the state. This report summarizes the results of a three-year effort aimed at assessing the demand for and impact of program-level information on labor market outcomes. The authors developed an informational tool that displays academic major-level earnings and other key data points (including the average price charged, customized based on the users family income), piloted the tool at a set of Virginia high schools, and collected data to assess the tools impact on high school students college-going behavior. ; Urban Institute

From the Publisher: Long revered for their dedication to equal opportunity and affordability, public universities play a crucial role in building our country's human capital. And yet-a sobering fact-less than 60 percent of the students entering four-year colleges in America today are graduating. Why is this happening and what can be done? Crossing the Finish Line, the most important book on higher education to appear since The Shape of the River, provides the most detailed exploration ever of the crisis of college completion at America's public universities. This groundbreaking book sheds light on such serious issues as dropout rates linked to race, gender, and socioeconomic status. Probing graduation rates at twenty-one flagship public universities and four statewide systems of public higher education, the authors focus on the progress of students in the entering class of 1999-from entry to graduation, transfer, or withdrawal. They examine the effects of parental education, family income, race and gender, high school grades, test scores, financial aid, and characteristics of universities attended (especially their selectivity). The conclusions are compelling: minority students and students from poor families have markedly lower graduation rates-and take longer to earn degrees-even when other variables are taken into account. Noting the strong performance of transfer students and the effects of financial constraints on student retention, the authors call for improved transfer and financial aid policies, and suggest ways of improving the sorting processes that match students to institutions. An outstanding combination of evidence and analysis, Crossing the Finish Line should be read by everyone who cares about the nation's higher education system.