Historically, states' child care subsidy programs have used market rates, or tuition charged by providers, to set subsidy rates that support income-eligible families in accessing child care services. However, the market rate is often based on what families in a specific community can afford to pay, not necessarily what it actually costs to provide…

Pursuant to Assembly Bill 132 Section (89)(e), the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office and the Board of Governors for California Community Colleges are pleased to release the 2024-2025 LGBTQ+ Program Legislative report. In accordance with the reporting requirements, the California Community Colleges Chancellor's Office is required to…

Twenty-two times, state courts have ruled that legislatures are inadequately funding K-12 schools based on constitutional rights to public education. When states implemented court-ordered financing reforms, the poorest school districts increased per-student spending by 11.5% to 12.1%. Those districts then showed increased graduation rates by…

State funding for higher education in the United States has long followed the broader economic cycle--expanding during periods of growth and contracting during downturns. State fiscal health and political priorities have further amplified this financial volatility, resulting in uneven and unpredictable funding landscapes across the country. These…

In June 2023, the Oklahoma Virtual Charter School Board approved the establishment of a charter school by the Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City. This amounts to state funding of a religious school. Robert Kim discusses how this decision goes against Oklahoma's constitutional and legislative history, why allowing religious charters is not the…

Public funding to higher education has declined over the years and many states have experimented with policies to encourage private sector donations to public universities. Building on research that examines the intersection of state policy and philanthropy, we examine the influence of a state policy on endowment gifts to the University of Wyoming…

The resources that federal financial aid, state financial aid, and federal public benefits programs provide, when they operate effectively, are critical to older students and students with children. This report seeks to shed light on how these programs are functioning by analyzing data and policies across four states--Colorado, Missouri, North…

The purpose of this quantitative, non-experimental study was to explore the relationship between the implementation of the Tennessee Promise scholarship program and the two-year Tennessee community college retention rates and graduation rates of first-time, full-time Tennessee students from rural Appalachian counties. Results from this study may…

Over the past four years, Florida has seen tremendous growth in the amount of public funds being spent on private education. This report finds that in 2022-23, an estimated $1.3 billion in funding will be redirected from public school districts to private education, representing 10% of state K-12 education funds allocated through the Florida…

A.C.A. §6-61-234 (Act 148 of 2017) directs the Arkansas Higher Education Coordinating Board (AHECB) to adopt polices developed by the Arkansas Division of Higher Education (ADHE) necessary to implement a productivity-based funding model for state-supported institutions of higher education. At its October 27, 2017 meeting, the AHECB approved the…

In the 2022-23 school year, Arizona began implementation of a "universal voucher" program through which all school-age students are eligible for a voucher, and families can use public funding to underwrite private or homeschool education for their children. Universal vouchers in Arizona are an expansion of the existing Empowerment…

This study explored foundation giving in the field of higher education philanthropy in Texas. Utilizing Fligstein and McAdam's conceptual framework, I found that a field-level analysis at the state level uncovered distinct profiles or groups of foundations hidden in the observed data over time. Texas was an interesting case because of its legal…

In November 2022, California established the Arts and Music in Schools Act to fund arts education programs in TK-12 public schools. With funding from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, SRI Education led an inquiry to estimate the number of new arts teachers required to fulfill the promise of the act. This brief presents funding allocations…

Wisconsin's technical colleges appear to receive unusually high funding levels per student compared to other public two-year colleges nationally. Yet our review has found more than 100,000 technical college students being served in Wisconsin are absent in national data, likely inflating the funding figures. Accounting for the missing students…

Background: The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA; 2015) constituted a reauthorization of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) and replaced the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) of 2001. ESSA, although still recognizing the need of standardized testing, diverged from NCLB by transferring a significant amount of power over…