The Student Financial Services (SFS) Benchmarking Report examines student financial services operations, including: unpaid student account balances; student accounts in collections; payment channels and methods; student refunds; third-party billing; and staffing and financial services operating budget.

The Student Financial Services (SFS) Benchmarking Report examines student financial services operations, including: unpaid student account balances; student accounts in collections; payment channels and methods; student refunds; third-party billing; and staffing and financial services operating budget. [For the 2021 report, see ED615270.]

Increased college-going and attainment comes with a host of benefits for individuals and society. A college credential is associated with increased civic engagement, volunteering, happiness, life satisfaction, and better health and wellness, as well as lower incarceration rates and reliance on social services. In this paper, the authors examine…

This First Look report introduces new data for national and state-level public elementary and secondary revenues and expenditures for fiscal year (FY) 2016. Specifically, this report includes the following school finance data: (1) revenue and expenditure totals; (2) revenues by source; (3) expenditures by function and object; (4) current…

This paper examines the U.S. social insurance system, which we define broadly to include both programs supported by dedicated taxes and other federal programs that provide income support, assistance in meeting basic needs, or services to improve economic opportunity. The paper considers the social insurance system as a whole as well as its…

In this brief, authors Michael Ettlinger, Jordan Hensley, and Julia Vieira analyze how much the governments of different countries spend, and on what, to illuminate the range of fiscal policy options available and provide a basis for determining which approaches work best. They report that the United States ranks twenty-fourth in government…

This report provides an overview of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) programs, accomplishments, challenges, and Management's accountability for the resources. It provides fiscal and summary performance results that enable the President, Congress, and the American people to asses their accomplishments for the reporting period…

The Higher Education Price Index (HEPI) is an inflation index designed specifically for use by institutions of higher education. Compiled from data reported by government agencies and industry sources, HEPI measures the average relative level in the price of a fixed market basket of goods and services purchased by colleges and universities each…

The Department of Defense (DOD) spends hundreds of billions of dollars annually acquiring products and services. Since 1990, Congress and DOD have taken numerous steps to address issues related to the quality of DOD's acquisition workforce, which consists of contracting officers, cost estimators, and personnel in several other career fields. But…

Is income during children's earliest years a key determinant of long-term child and adult success in the longer run? The research to date, Christopher Wimer and Sharon Wolf write, suggests that it is. Wimer and Wolf review substantial descriptive evidence that income can enhance child development and later adult outcomes, and that it does so most…

Limited research has been done to date on the extent of public funding of Open Educational Resources (OER) within basic education (K-12 equivalent) in South Africa. As claims have been made about the potential cost reductions that come with using OER, this study aimed to establish a benchmark of public spending on educational resources, uncover…

The current Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), while enabling millions of students to apply for college aid, also presents significant barriers for low-income and first-generation students seeking to attend college. The application process is complicated, resulting in only a 44-percent completion rate for all high school seniors by…

"Children's Budget 2022" finds that the share of federal spending on children climbed to a historic 11.98% of the U.S. budget in FY 2022, producing remarkable declines in child poverty, hunger and the rate of children without health insurance. The report finds that the share of U.S. domestic and international spending on children rose…

Purpose: To quantify the monetary value of medications provided to rural Alabamians through provision of pharmaceutical manufacturer-sponsored prescription assistance programs (PAPs) provided by a clinical pharmacist in a private Black Belt family medicine clinic during 2007 and 2008. Methods: Patients struggling to afford prescription medications…

Public health insurance programs comprise a large share of federal and state government expenditure, and these programs are due to be expanded as part of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Despite a large literature on the effects of these programs on health care utilization and health outcomes, little prior work has examined the long-term effects of…