From March 2020 through March 2021, three laws providing federal funding for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education were enacted in response to the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020. The second of these laws provided a higher amount of funding than the first, and the third…

From March 2020 through March 2021, three laws provided increasing levels of federal funding for elementary, secondary, and postsecondary education primarily through the Education Stabilization Fund (ESF) in response to the national emergency related to the COVID-19 pandemic as declared by President Trump on March 13, 2020. On March 27, 2020,…

Many college students struggle to make ends meet while enrolled and sometimes must turn to a wide variety of safety net resources, including official government programs, borrowing from family, and selling belongings. This brief examines data from 63,751 undergraduate students who responded to Trellis' Fall 2021 Student Financial Wellness Survey…

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) is the nation's most important anti-hunger program, providing food assistance to people with low incomes, including postsecondary students, workers, children, people with disabilities, seniors, and many more. The needs of college students have changed drastically over time, requiring more…

"Student Debt and the Class of 2018" is the fourteenth annual report produced by The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) on the student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges, documenting the changes in student loan debt and variation among states as well as colleges. This report includes federal policy…

"Student Debt and the Class of 2019" is The Institute for College Access & Success' (TICAS') fifteenth annual report on the student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges, documenting changes and variation in student debt across states and colleges. This report includes federal policy recommendations to reduce debt…

Many college students, especially students from low-income backgrounds, face significant structural barriers that make it challenging to persist and complete a degree or certificate. These barriers include substantial financial challenges. Student financial aid at the federal and state levels has not kept up with rising college costs, resulting in…

"Student Debt and the Class of 2017" is the thirteenth annual report produced by The Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) on the student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges, documenting the changes in student loan debt and variation among states as well as colleges. [For "Student Debt and the Class of…

Income-share agreements (ISAs) are an emerging idea for helping students pay for college. Under an ISA, investors provide upfront sums of money toward students' college tuition and other associated costs in exchange for a fixed percentage of the recipients' earnings after graduation. This paper--the first in a series examining private financing in…

The policy agenda provides a robust and compressive vision for Latino success in higher education; it outlines recommendations for how to make high-quality colleges and universities more affordable, increase access to financial aid, increase degree attainment, improve degree quality, and much more. The state of higher education today fails to…

Student Debt and the Class of 2016 is the Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS') twelfth annual report on the student loan debt of recent graduates from four-year colleges, documenting the rise in student loan debt and variation among states as well as colleges. State averages for debt at graduation ranged from a low of $20,000 (Utah)…

Many states are passing "free" college plans, and policymakers at both the state and federal level continue to debate the merits of national "free college" or "debt-free college" proposals, also known as Promise programs. Both federal and state "free" college proposals are geared toward a policy objective of…

This report provides a detailed look at the sources and distribution of grants, loans, and other student aid for the most recent academic year and how this funding has changed over time. The federal government provided two-thirds of all student aid in 2016-17, but only one-third of the grant aid. In the context of uncertainty about the timing of…

Financial aid programs are supposed to improve access and affordability in higher education (Gillen, 2009). The effectiveness of these programs is increasingly being questioned as college attainment figures stagnate and the financial burden on students and families continues to climb year after year. The purpose of this study was to examine the…

Data on student aid for 2015-16 confirm that the dramatic increases in aid awarded in 2009-10 and 2010-11 were products of extreme economic circumstances, not harbingers of long-run changes in financing for postsecondary education. Both total federal education loans and federal loans per full-time equivalent (FTE) student declined for the fifth…