America's colleges and universities are at a crossroads. The number of schools closing their doors continues to grow driven by the declining number of students pursuing a bachelor's. This situation is expected to worsen because of a number of factors: (1) Starting in 2025 the U.S. will face the so-called "enrollment cliff," in which the…

This report shares Fall 2024 Student Financial Wellness survey (SFWS) results from more than 53,000 undergraduate students at 104 institutions across the country. It highlights student financial security, basic needs security, academic disruptions, personas as workers or parents, and perceptions of the return on investment. The findings presented…

The California Community Colleges (CCC) Attendance Decisions Survey was designed to understand the factors influencing prospective and previously enrolled community college students' decisions to attend a California community college in fall 2022. This survey was administered in late summer/early fall 2022 and included responses from all 116 CCC…

There is overwhelming evidence that pursuing a college education provides substantial economic and non-economic benefits to students. But how much a degree is worth depends heavily on the institution a student attends. Unfortunately, value also is still influenced by a student's race, income, and gender, due to inequities in our higher education…

Over the last two decades, prices in higher education have grown more quickly than prices in almost any other sector of the economy. Tuition inflation has been extensively examined. The examinations, however, have focused on a narrow set of explanations, none of which has revealed obvious opportunities for policy interventions that would slow this…

This report captures motivational data from students at the end of 2020--students who were in the thick of the pandemic and the pivot to online and hybrid learning, along with historic levels of social and economic upheaval. Starting strong is crucial to student retention. When entering students get off to a strong start, they are more likely to…

With grant and scholarship aid as well as family resources unable to keep pace with college costs, loans have become a fact of life for millions of college students each year. In deciding how and how much to borrow, these students are making highly consequential decisions that will impact their future in unknown ways. Policy should aim to reduce…

Adult students (age 25 and older) make up almost 40 percent of the national undergraduate population. Since they are often balancing their college experience with work, family, and other responsibilities, adult students may have different priorities and challenges. What can campuses do to serve these students better and help more of them succeed?…

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…

Higher education has seen significant changes in the student experience in the past 10 years. For the past decade, everything from student attitudes about college to the technology they use every day has impacted their satisfaction with, and perception of, the college experience. This report is a comparison of student satisfaction, separated by 10…

The Ruffalo Noel Levitz (RNL) Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys are the national standard for benchmarking student satisfaction in higher education. Since 1994, more than 2,900 colleges and universities have used the surveys to evaluate students' concerns that influence student success, college completion, student recruitment, strategic planning,…

For more than two decades, the national standard for benchmarking student satisfaction in higher education has been the Ruffalo Noel Levitz Satisfaction-Priorities Surveys. Since their beginning in 1994, these benchmark surveys have been used by more than 2,900 U.S. colleges and universities to evaluate students' concerns that correspond with…

High school students from disadvantaged high schools in Toronto were invited to take two surveys, about three weeks apart. Half of the students taking the first survey were also shown a 3 minute video about the benefits of post secondary education (PSE) and invited to try out a financial-aid calculator. Most students' perceived returns to PSE were…

The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) is an independent, nonprofit research center based in Washington, DC that is dedicated to researching public policy and economic issues relating to postsecondary education. CCAP aims to facilitate a broader dialogue that challenges conventional thinking about costs, efficiency and…

Almost everyone agrees that colleges have become costly to attend and are a growing burden on society to finance. Rising tuition costs threaten the ability and desire of students to attend college. Are there things that can be done to significantly reduce the cost of college? The answer is an emphatic "yes." The Center for College Affordability…