As students pursue undergraduate degrees, many are challenged with paying for college. Costs include direct charges for tuition, fees, books, room and board, and meal plans, as well as indirect costs such as transportation, utilities, insurance, cell phone, internet, and more. Many students borrow loans to cover these costs, but their…

This study explores high school families' understanding of college financing. The research examines what college-bound students and parents know about financial aid, the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA®), scholarships, and student loans. The report evaluates perceptions, exposes common misconceptions, and gauges how prepared high…

At no other time in American history has the need for post-secondary educational attainment been so pervasively necessary. Since 2007, three in every four jobs created has required a bachelor's degree or higher. Such a prerequisite to fiscal viability occurs parallel with rising costs of college attendance, a nebulous financial aid process,…

Most students finish high school with low levels of financial knowledge, yet they are months away from important decisions about how to finance college. Students may not know about family finances, even though parental income is a key determinant of financial aid for college. This study measures the financial knowledge of high school students by…

Few subjects have suffered as much as the liberal arts from the power of stale rhetoric, hollow appeals to tradition, and journalistic misrepresentation. Leon Botstein, begins this article by saying that together, these three factors have generated and legitimated public skepticism about the liberal arts. A liberal arts education (which is rarely…

Previous research has demonstrated that most low-income students who do not apply for aid--despite a large percentage of these students being eligible to receive aid--believe that they are ineligible. According to the 2011-12 National Postsecondary Student Aid Survey (NPSAS) where students were given a choice of five reasons why they did not apply…

Latin@ is a minority group that has grown rapidly in the last twenty years in the United States. However, Latin@s have low participation in higher education, placing the group in a disadvantaged position compared with other ethnic groups. Therefore, it is important for the United States to educate and appropriately employ this group. This…

In April 2013, "NEJHE" launched its "New Directions for Higher Education series" to examine emerging issues, trends and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs and practices. In this installment, DiSalvio interviews Richard Ekman, president of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC), an association of…

Objective: The purpose of this study was to understand how community college students assess the risks and rewards of using personal loans to achieve their higher education goals. Method: Interviews were conducted with 12 federal loan borrowers attending a large, urban community college in Texas during the Spring 2013 semester. Results: Findings…

In the United States there are significant gaps in college-going between high-income and low-income students and between White students and African American and Latino/a students. A number of factors contribute to this persistent gap. Among these factors are the rising cost of college attendance and the complexity of the financial aid process. The…

The purpose of this paper was to examine the experiences of a Hispanic undocumented high school graduate in Texas (USA) that did not attend a higher education institution in spite of her desire to do. Using qualitative research and narrative analysis, the researcher conducted three interview levels with the participant and developed an emplotted…

In this article, the author profiles Dolores E. Cross, who, during her more than 30-year academic career, has advocated for multicultural education, championed equal education access for all students, and blazed trails as the first African-American female president of Chicago State University and the first female president of Morris Brown College.…

Passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA) represented a landmark effort by the federal government to minimize the cost of college as a barrier to postsecondary access for low-income students and their families. Since then, a myriad of financial aid programs have been designed to equalize educational opportunity. Most recently, the Health…

The Advisory Committee was created by Congress in the "Higher Education Amendments of 1986" to be an independent and nonpartisan source of knowledge, advice, and counsel to Congress and the Secretary of Education on federal, state, and institutional postsecondary student assistance. One of the most important analytical directives in the…

Native American students in Washington attend more than 40 postsecondary institutions and participate in college at a rate greater than their proportional presence in the population. They are just as likely to apply for and receive financial aid as other groups, a little less likely to borrow to attend college, and experience a greater gap than…