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,…

Student parents face many challenges to accessing, persisting, and completing postsecondary education. While some of these challenges are unique to student parents--such as finding quality child care during class and work hours and juggling studying and academic assignments with parenting duties--others are typical of low-income and underserved…

The purpose of "Focus" is to provide coverage of poverty-related research, events, and issues, and to acquaint a large audience with the work of the Institute for Research on Poverty by means of short essays on selected pieces of research. This issue contains the following articles: (1) The new global labor market (Richard B. Freeman);…

Maine's Parents as Scholars (PaS) program provides parents who are eligible for Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) with cash assistance and support services while they attend a two-year or four-year postsecondary degree program. PaS participants receive the same cash benefits and access to support services as TANF recipients receive.…