The College Bound Scholarship (CBS) program is a key state financial aid program that connects with low-income students in middle school, which is a critical stage in their education journey, to encourage and support them in continuing their education beyond high school. It combines financial aid with effective communication strategies to provide…

Decades of chronic underfunding and inequitable funding have been spiraling Pennsylvania's public school system into crisis--failing kids and threatening the future of the Commonwealth. The Commonwealth Court has ruled that the state's current funding system for K-12 schools is unconstitutional and the state must take action to adequately and…

State need-based financial aid programs are a key driver of college access and completion for lower-income students and racially marginalized students in California, most of whom attend public two- and four-year colleges and universities and come from families with annual incomes of less than $40,000. As the state's largest need-based financial…

The cost of attending college has risen steadily over the past 30 years, making financial aid an important determinant of college choice for many students and a subject of concern for colleges and state governments. In this paper, we estimate the effect of rule-based merit aid assignment on students' enrollment decisions at the University of Iowa.…

Our study adds to prior work on Indiana's Twenty-first Century Scholars(TFCS) program by focusing on whether participating in--rather than completing--the program affects the likelihood of students going to college and where they initially enrolled. We first employ binary and multinomial logistic regression to obtain estimates of the impact of the…

The expense of attending college is one factor that may explain why low-income students often drop out of school. In California, despite generous state aid and relatively low fees at community colleges, many low-income students still have substantial college-related costs that they cannot cover. To compound matters, federal support for students…

The passage of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which extended need-based financial assistance to the general population for the first time, has improved college access for American students, but more work remains to be done to improve college success. According to government statistics, in 2006, about one in six students had earned a degree or…

In the last 10 years student financial aid has been characterized by a surge of enormous growth that has been both rapid and largely uncoordinated. The current situation is classified into four major headings: student confusion; serious managerial problems; lack of conceptual clarity; and special problems in need analysis. The implications of the…

Scholarship programs are offered by 17 States and at least 13 offer a student loan assistance program. (Author/MF)

An earlier article evaluating Massachusetts' recent long-range plan for higher education is criticized. Aspects of the plan omitted in the first article are noted, including state financing improvements, incentives for institutional action, and increased local autonomy. (MSE)

This report presents the results of a review of all state student financial aid programs in Florida and presents recommendations concerning program consolidation. The review was designed to address a variety of aid-related issues, including unexpended financial aid resources, program consolidation, budget request and aid distribution procedures,…

The characteristics of California's Student Aid Commission grant program applicants and recipients were examined to assess the extent to which aid programs meet state goals. Attention is directed to major problems confronting the three Cal Grant programs and a range of possible policy and program options. The three programs are: Cal Grant A State…

This report examines performance evaluations of state loan/scholarship programs and direct support for medical education reform programs for the education and training of health care professionals. It is based on a survey of all administrators of state scholarship and loan repayment programs and a mail survey of officials in the 34 states which…

The annual report on the state of Missouri higher education provides information on system finance, operations, and planning at the state level. First, highlights are identified in the areas of: enhancements, a new state technical college, Missouri Student Loan Program innovations, performance funding, and a new blueprint for higher education. An…