This study found that the MATC Promise increased college attainment by encouraging Milwaukee high school students to access state and federal aid, and to consider matriculating to their local two-year college. The MATC Promise exemplifies the last-dollar model of college aid. If seniors at Milwaukee area public high schools complete academic…

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, going to college has become increasingly financially difficult in the United States. Tuition prices continued to rise, state funding for higher education declined, and the mean family income declined or stagnated for all but the top 20 percent of families (Goldrick-Rab 2016). In a period where college…

Policymakers have been debating the Bennett Hypothesis--whether colleges increase tuition after the federal government increases access to student loans--for decades. Yet most of the prior research has focused on studying small changes to loan limits or Pell Grants for undergraduate students. In this study, I examine whether business schools (the…

The current studies test the hypothesis that the financial burden of college can initiate a psychological process that has a negative influence on academic performance for students at selective colleges and universities. Prior studies linking high college costs and student loans to academic outcomes have not been grounded within relevant social…

This study investigates the effects of adults' enrollment in and graduation from a two-year college on their hourly wages and occupational status in U.S. by employing a growth curve model and a piecewise model. College enrollment reduced hourly wages and occupational status by 13.8% and 2.74 points, respectively. Less-educated workers whose wages…

Which U.S. institutions of higher education offer the best value to consumers? To answer this question, we evaluate U.S. institutions relative to a data envelopment analysis (DEA) multi-factor frontier based on 2000-2001 data for 1,179 4-year institutions. The resulting DEA "best buy" scores allow the ranking of institutions by a…

This study employs the 2007-2008 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study and the National Research Center's survey data, "A Data-Based Assessment of Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States," to investigate the (1) the effects of debt in relation to tuition and fees paid and (2) the effects of teaching assistantships,…

This study shows that financial aspects of state higher education policies, particularly tuition, have an impact on the level of enrollment of adult undergraduates within a state. This study also demonstrates how stochastic frontier analysis (SFA) can be utilized to examine the "potential" maximum enrollment of adult learners in…

This article outlines a technique for analyzing segments of a college's market for students. Careful scrutiny of the segments in which the college has a limited appeal (programs for high-ability male students, or tuition schedules based on parental income) may suggest strategies for improving the college's performance in those segments. (Editor/PG)

A study of the relationship between student financial contribution to college costs and self-perceived intellectual development between the freshman and senior years found that students contributing over 75 percent of their costs were less dualistic, more committed to life goals, more stable, and better at expressing their values and thoughts.…

A study found (1) all forms of financial aid promoted enrollment; (2) $100 of any aid influenced enrollment more than similar tuition reduction; (3) low-income students were more responsive to grant than loan or work-study increases; and (4) high-income students were not responsive to aid changes. (Author/MSE)

Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study, this study examined the influence of finance-related reasons for college choice on persistence decisions. Finance-related choices were found to have direct and indirect influences on college persistence, and market-based, monetary measures of financial aid, tuition, housing costs, and…

Responses to questions on demography, knowledge about student fees, attitudes toward collection and distribution of fees, and utilization and satisfaction with eight specific fee-funded programs were collected by mail survey from a sample of 1,002 University of Boulder students stratified by class year, ethnic group, and school. Only one-third…

A cost analysis of educating foreign students is discussed in the context of a need for improved policy regarding the flow of foreign students through American institutions. (MSE)