Making college accessible to all includes making it affordable to lower-income families. A growing policy strategy at the state level is to provide individual students with need-based financial aid to offset tuition and living expenses. This strategy inherently presents challenges in choosing which income levels are eligible to receive aid,…

At the end of 2019, 43 million Americans owed over $1.5 trillion in federal student loans. The rapid increase in these balances over the past decade has led many to deem student debt a "crisis." Now, there is growing support among Democratic policymakers, and even some Republicans, to immediately cancel all or most of the federal…

The passage of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act as reauthorized by the Every Student Succeeds Act have afforded opportunities to close achievement gaps for historically underserved students. The purpose of this study is to examine the need for Local Education Agencies to receive final approval for K-12 public education federal funding…

Although workers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields earn above-average wages, the number of college graduates prepared for STEM jobs lags behind employer demand. A key question is how to recruit and retain college students in STEM majors. We offer new evidence on the role of financial aid in supporting STEM attainment.…

This article describes how, generally, the majority of inmates will recidivate again within five years of being released from incarceration. Recidivism represents cyclical criminality that affects all American communities. Despite substantial expenditures toward the warehousing of inmates within the corrections system, less emphasisis directed…

Using data from two freshmen cohorts at a public research university (N = 3730), this study examines the relationship between loan aid and second-year enrollment persistence. Applying a counterfactual analytical framework that relies on propensity score (PS) weighting and matching to address selection bias associated with treatment status, the…

This multi-institutional study examined the giving patterns of alumni of online degree programs as compared to alumni of campus-based degree programs. Similarities and differences were statistically examined relative to the act of giving as well as the amount given to the respective institution by alumni within three years of the most recent…

Despite the important role that replication studies play in building scientific evidence, recent reports show that few replications have been conducted in education. The goal of the current study was to examine how many efficacy and effectiveness research grants funded by the Institute of Education Sciences (IES) were replications, what types of…

This article analyses recent World Bank interventions aimed at improving higher education and local research capacity in low-income countries. Our empirical entry point is a critical analysis of the Development and Innovation Grant (DIG) scheme the Bank rolled out in Cambodia (2010-2015), a virtual carbon copy export of its Academic Initiative…

The market-based funding model more commonly known as direct student aid, which was adopted by the federal government during the late 1960s and early 1970s, has created a series of unintended consequences that threaten educational equity and the future of public higher education. The economic and societal impacts of the privatization of US public…

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 Accountability Plan is an annual report that is closely aligned with the Board of Governors' 2025 System Strategic Plan. This report enhances the System's commitment to accountability and strategic planning by fostering greater coordination between institutional administrators, University Boards of Trustees and the Board of Governors regarding…

This is the second of three annual reports evaluating the implementation and effects of two Delaware weighted funding programs for disadvantaged K-12 schools during the 2019-2020 to 2021-2022 school years: Opportunity Funding and the Student Success Block Grant (SSBG). The authors also examined best practices and coronavirus pandemic adaptations…

Black students are more likely to take on debt, borrow higher amounts, and struggle with repayment than their peers, because they generally have fewer resources to pay for college, thanks to the ongoing generational effects of systemic racism. This debt burden has far-reaching financial consequences, and many Black borrowers are unable to afford…

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to explore how first-generation Latino and African American Pell grant recipients, who attended a large urban community college located in New York City, described their understanding of and experiences with satisfactory academic progress (SAP) policy and its influence on academic persistence…