Recognizing the crisis the COVID-19 pandemic represents to the Home- and Community-Based Services (HCBS) service system and the health, safety, and quality of life of people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), states temporarily amended their HCBS programs to strengthen service delivery. States are able to temporarily amend…

In recent decades, education leaders and researchers have increasingly sought to disaggregate key higher education outcome data--graduation rates, attainment, employment, and income--by race and ethnicity in order to uncover and narrow equity gaps. The same is true, recently, for affordability, especially as it relates to the differential impact…

After being sued for inequity and inadequacy in school funding, many states in the US have reformed their education aid formulas but have still faced many criticisms. Using Connecticut as an example, this paper shows how to design a more equitable and adequate aid formula with tools to win broad support from communities and lawmakers. It develops…

This study is the first to empirically examine how school districts allocate resources in response to capital investment revenue from statewide penny sales taxes (called SAVE funds), and whether SAVE funds affect student outputs (i.e., educational achievement). We found evidence that school districts do not use SAVE funds to increase capital…

The 2020 General Assembly directed the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) to develop a plan for implementing a statewide survey of institutional expenditures by program and academic discipline at Virginia's public higher education institutions, and submit a report and recommendations to the Governor and the Chairs of the House…

This dissertation investigates several topics in state merit-based financial aid research. The main research content includes three separate studies, primarily using the administrative datasets from the Missouri Department of Higher Education. The first study is an empirical paper that examines the effects of the Missouri Bright Flight Scholarship…

Despite substantial federal, state, and local investments in improving early care and education (ECE), we know little about whether ECE program quality has improved over time. The lack of data tracking the quality of publicly funded ECE programs at scale creates a substantial evidence gap for policymakers attempting to weigh the returns on, and…

Many states struggle with collecting reliable and valid state-level data that can be leveraged to maximize the use of funds. This is particularly challenging when providing early intervention services in states where Medicaid uses clinic rates that are lower than the natural environment rates covered by state or federal Part C funds. This state…

The expectation in this country is that all students should be able to succeed in school. Yet new data and accountability agendas have heightened attention to performance disparities between students with different identifiable needs--needs that stem from poverty, disability, or limited English proficiency. Educators and policymakers know that…

A rich interdisciplinary literature exists exploring the determinants of state higher education funding policies. However, that work has collectively ignored an important finding from political economy literature: namely, that citizens' preferences regarding public spending are strongly influenced by the state's ethnic and racial context. Drawing…

Most public colleges and universities rely heavily on state financial support. As state budgets have tightened in recent decades, appropriations for higher education have declined substantially. Despite concerns expressed by policymakers and scholars that the declines in state support have reduced the return to education investment for public…

This study aims to develop a list of technological enhancements to a financial aid analytics application (F3A) designed to assist higher education leaders in gaining actionable insights for decision-making with grants optimization. This research utilizes the Design Science Research framework which highlights the design and evaluation of an IT…

Objective: We investigate whether performance funding--an increasingly prevalent state policy that allocates appropriations based on outcomes that prioritize retention and completion--places minority-serving institutions (MSIs) at a financial disadvantage due to these institutions serving a greater proportion of historically underrepresented…

This issue brief describes the programs and systems of the MDRC Center for Data Insights. Ranging from simple descriptive summaries to advanced machine learning algorithms, the Center's eight current projects aim to use institutions' increasingly rich data to provide new insights that can help refine and target their client's services: (1)…

How to finance higher education remains controversial among policy makers and constituencies across the United States. Texas is not exempt from the controversy. With increasingly strained state finances, institutions of higher education and the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) have come under pressure to increase performance…