Equity Effects of Higher Education Finance and Tuition Grants in New York State

Abstract

In the present fiscal environment of increasingly scarce higher education resources, the development of equitable higher education financing programs has been given special emphasis. A 1973 Carnegie Commission study contained numerous recommendations for improving equity in postsecondary education finance, and the State of New York has implemented several of these recommendations. This paper estimates redistributional effects of the state's programs for the State University of New York system, as well as providing some preliminary estimates of public-private enrollment effects. The state's programs redistribute some current income toward lower- and middleincome families, and they appear to be providing disproportionate benefits to the private institutions, at least in terms of preliminary relative enrollment patterns. The decade of the 1970s has been an uneasy period for higher education, and this uneasiness is expected to intensify in future years. The period has been characterized by continuously rising higher education costs, increased emphasis on providing equal educational opportunities, projections of stabilizing and declining enrollments, and growing demands for public funds from other groups and institutions. In this environment, the equity and