In 2016, the North Carolina legislature implemented the North Carolina Fixed Tuition Program. This policy ensures that, once enrolled, an undergraduate student's tuition rate at any of the state's four-year public colleges will not increase for eight consecutive semesters of enrollment. While touted as an effort to increase affordability by…

How have changes in the price of enrolling full time at public 2- and 4-year colleges affected student decisions about whether and where to enroll in college? Using local differences in the growth of tuition at community colleges and public 4-year colleges, we study the impact of public higher education tuition prices on the post-secondary…

We evaluate whether the Bennett Hypothesis applies to local-level, single-institution promise programs and account for whether colleges have the authority to raise tuition, versus an external entity holding such authority. Using a sample of 29 community colleges affected by promise programs, we analyze changes in tuition across years 2001-02 to…

In 2015, 65 universities in National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I autonomous conferences changed their scholarship policy by allowing universities to give student-athletes cost of attendance stipends. While student-athletes welcomed this policy change, many people within the higher education community felt the policy change…

Using data from four waves of the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) in 2004, 2008, 2012, and 2016, this study examines the effect of the PGIB on veterans' student loans. Results indicate that the PGIB has significantly affected veteran students' borrowing behavior, with an average $1,100 reduction in Stafford Loans. Veteran students…

Low-income, first-generation (LIFG) students complete college at disproportionately low rates. This qualitative study examines this gap from the perspective of university actors who directly support LIFG students in two student support programs at one public university. Drawing on in-depth interviews and observations, this study investigates how…

This study considered the impact of state-level guaranteed tuition programs on alternative student-based revenue streams. It used a quasi-experimental, difference-in-difference methodology with a panel dataset of public four-year institutions from 2000-2012. Illinois' 2004 "Truth-in-Tuition" law was used as the policy of interest and the…

In order to explain the rising cost of higher education, economist Howard Bowen in 1980 proposed his "famous law" of institutional finance. Bowen based his "revenue theory of cost" on a study of aggregate quantitative data extending from 1929 to 1979. Neither he nor subsequent economists asked whether or how that…

Cost-related tuition can increase efficiency in higher education and in the labor markets it serves, and provide fiscal gains for individual institutions, depending on enrollment demands. Cost-related tuition and its possible effects are explained and the University of Minnesota's experience in implementing this policy are described. (Author/MLW)

The concept of differential pricing and its current application in undergraduate education are examined, particularly differentiating tuition by program at the upper-division level. Differential pricing is proposed as a policy that can benefit both students and institutions. (Author/MLW)

A variety of national data sources concerning proprietary schools was used to examine the general attributes of such schools, the kinds of training offered, student characteristics, amount and type of student financial aid available to the students, and student costs for training. (MSE)

This paper deals with the increasing tendency of government to finance higher education through students, a trend having important policy implications for higher education. This trend and numerous related governmental decisions have been based almost exclusively upon economic rationale. (Author)

Determinants of tuition prices in major state universities are identified in this study. Twenty-two variables accounted for 89 percent of the variation in 1976-77 tuition levels. Primary determinants were related to competition--tuition prices at institutions within the state or region--and to shortfalls in institutional income. (Author/LBH)

Questions about how student financial aid and the costs of attending college influence educational opportunity for diverse racial groups have lurked beneath the surface of the policy debates about higher education for decades. When the Higher Education Act (HEA) was passed in 1965, there was a general acceptance that the federal government had a…

Faculty, students, and others make choices that determine whether higher education resources are used efficiently or inefficiently. Prices affect these choices and current pricing leads to inefficiency. Although prices could be altered to enhance efficiency, government funders often lack incentives to make the necessary policy changes. (MSE)