College Affordability Research Articles

A Higher Power in Higher Education: An Exploration of Endowment Taxes, the Establishment Clause, and College Affordability

Institutions of higher education in the United States have enjoyed a broad tax exemption for hundreds of years. In 2017, however, Congress imposed an excise tax on certain colleges’ and universities’ endowment revenue as part of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (Act). The endowment excise tax is not scheduled to sunset in 2025 alongside other provisions of the Act, but members of Congress have begun to revisit the issue of whether and how to tax the nation’s educational institutions. This Note examines two endowment tax proposals’ attempts to exempt religious colleges and universities from heightened endowment excise taxes. It argues that although taxing college and university endowments is a possible legislative tool for making higher education more affordable for more Americans, exempting religious schools from such taxes both runs counter to this goal and violates the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution. If Congress chooses to expand college and university taxation, it should do so in a way that effectively addresses the college affordability crisis and treats religious and secular institutions alike.

Federal focus on education initiatives wins broad public support Findings from the 56th annual PDK Poll

Preparing students to enter the workforce and attracting and retaining good teachers are Americans’ top educational priorities for the next administration in Washington, regardless of who wins the upcoming presidential election, the 2024 PDK Poll finds. While eight in 10 or more Americans pick those two items as priorities, other policy priorities also win broad support. Seven in 10 — or more — favor an increased focus on addressing student mental health, helping students who have fallen behind academically, and college affordability. The survey was produced by Langer Research Associates for PDK International, with data collected June 21 to July 1, 2024, in English and Spanish, among a representative, random national sample of 1,009 adults.

Embedded Classed and Raced Academic Capitalism in an Innovative “Solution” to College Costs: Income Share Agreements at two Public AAU Research Universities

College affordability concerns have led to new “solutions’’ for financing college costs, such as income share agreements (ISAs). Drawing on a racialized understanding of academic capitalism, we explore the intersection of higher education, markets, and the state in how ISAs are marketed by two public universities. We find ISAs are advertised as market-based solutions, framing universities as altruistic problem-solvers and students as philanthropic investors. Yet, we also find that institutions’ website promotion of ISAs is raced and classed, targeting current “traditional,” White, upper-middle class students. Finally, we compare institutional narratives to federal guidance regarding ISAs, revealing further blurring between the public sector and private marketplace.

The Faculty Role in College Affordability: Syllabus Creation and Resource Affordability

The Faculty Role in College Affordability: Syllabus Creation and Resource Affordability

Financial Literacy and College Affordability: Integrating Transparent Budgeting Strategies\ into the FAFSA Process

Financial Literacy and College Affordability: Integrating Transparent Budgeting Strategies\ into the FAFSA Process

Student Loan Debt Response to Tuition Changes

Amid rising concerns regarding student loan debt, we examine the effect of Washington State’s College Affordability Program introduced in 2015 on undergraduate student loan debt to provide policy-makers with additional tools to help prevent another student loan debt crisis. The program reduced tuition for resident full-time undergraduate students at public colleges and universities for two consecutive academic years. This policy adoption created a natural experiment that we exploit to identify a causal link between tuition and loans. Using college-level data for the 2009–2010 through 2021–2022 academic years and employing a difference-in-differences model in conjunction with nearest-neighbor matching, we show that a decrease in college tuition following the adoption of the College Affordability Program caused a $637.96 (9 percentage-point) decline in average loans among first-time, full-time undergraduates in Washington State relative to undergraduates from matched U.S. schools. JEL Codes: G28, I22

Affording Degree Completion: An Experimental Study of Completion Grants at Accessible Public Universities

To improve college affordability and graduation rates, universities are increasingly allocating “completion grants” to students who are nearing the finish line but facing financial challenges. Using an experimental design and common program model across 11 broad-access public universities in ten states, we assessed the impact of a completion grants averaging $1,200 distributed among more than 14,000 students. We find that, despite university expectations that most students were near completion, only two-thirds of students eligible to receive a completion grant graduated within the academic year. Receiving a completion grant did not improve that rate. However, nearly all eligible students (95%) graduated within three years or were still working on their degrees. While completion grants are intended to enhance equity, we do not find evidence that they exerted positive impacts for marginalized groups as designed in this study. Moreover, while there was some program implementation variation across universities, it did not lead to differences in program impact.

“Piling on the stress”: Low‐income students' experiences in a neoliberal majoritarian university

The United States is experiencing state disinvestment from higher education and significant wealth inequality. This article documents how low‐income college students both experience and attempt to manage these contexts in their daily lives at a public flagship university in the American Midwest. We theorize these experiences as forms of precarity entailed by a culture and institutional form that we describe as the neoliberal majoritarian university (NMU). We argue that the concepts of precarity and of NMU provide a more robust framework for conceptualizing the consequences of college‐going for low‐income students than do conventional discourses of social mobility, college affordability, or student stress.

How Well Do Students Understand “Free Community College”? Promise Programs as Informational Interventions

Given the low price of community college relative to need-based aid, last-dollar “free community college” (i.e., Promise) programs often only marginally reduce students’ real costs. Given this reality, some claim that these programs impact students largely through “messaging”: information conveying the affordability of community college. However, it is unclear how such messaging works in concept or practice. Drawing on a case study, I document the paradoxical ways last-dollar community college Promise programs alter students’ understanding of college affordability. Reflecting program marketing, students typically understood the program as simply “free college,” with little grasp of last-dollar structure or eligibility criteria. Many believed the Promise program paid their tuition, but administrative data showed the program funded very few students. Student misunderstanding of the program is traceable to a baseline conception of college as “expensive” and to a tenuous grasp of need-based aid. Promise programs’ “messaging effects” are predicated upon such prevalent misconceptions. The “message” is a mixture of clarification and misdirection, revealing a factual situation (that community college is often “tuition-free”) through an equivocation (that the Promise program is making it free).

The user experience: Student perspectives on library course reserve

A group of researchers from an academic library surveyed students to understand how and why the members of their community use course reserve services. Students were happy with the service and used it as a replacement for purchasing textbooks. Frequent users requested more textbook offerings, and both users and nonusers indicated a need for increased promotion of the service. Users provided specific suggestions for improvement that should be examined. Findings illustrated the value of course reserve services as a way to help students with college affordability and to support instruction and learning.

OER State Policy Discourse: Adding Equity to the Cost Savings Conversation

In response to rising tuition, state disinvestment, and financial uncertainty over the years, open educational resources (OER) have been introduced as a solution to address the college affordability crisis (Colvard et al., 2018). The Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition (SPARC) sees OER as not just a way to lift the financial burden of educational materials, but also as a path to improving teaching and learning, strengthening the economy, advancing societal goals, and breaking down barriers to education (SPARC, n.d.-b). State policymakers have created grant programs or other initiatives to incentivize the creation, use, or expansion of OER in an effort to decrease costs associated with postsecondary education. This raises the question of how state policy discourse defines the problem that then informs the solutions addressed in OER legislation and how introducing an equity discourse into OER policy making can strengthen efforts to remove barriers to higher education.

Is the Early Promise of Money Enough? Examining High School Students’ College Knowledge and Choice in a Promise Scholarship Program

This study is part of a randomized control trial examining the results of a promise scholarship program, the Degree Project (TDP). Half of the ninth graders in one Midwestern urban school district were notified about a $12,000 promise scholarship offer if they met certain GPA and attendance requirements (2.5 GPA and 90% attendance). This analysis draws on interview data to understand students’ financial knowledge over four years (grades 9-12). The study examined how treatment students (those who were offered the scholarship) and control students (those who were not offered the scholarship) explained and understood the methods they intended to use to finance their college education. The analysis also investigated whether promise group students communicated different financial knowledge than non-promise students. Findings indicate the early promise of a scholarship had no bearing on whether students left high school feeling prepared to meet the financial demands of higher education. Despite the intervention, students had a very rudimentary understanding of how to pay for college and by senior year, college affordability was described as a significant barrier to postsecondary aspirations for most students. Findings raise concerns for the untimely and complicated financial aid process in the U.S. and emphasize the need to address the barriers to college that go beyond price.

Progressivity of pricing at US public universities

Substantial increases in public university tuition often raise concerns about college affordability. But assessment of the impacts on low- and moderate-income families requires consideration of whether net tuition—tuition less grant aid—has increased commensurately. This paper describes recent shifts in net tuition by family income and institution type and assesses the role of changes in state funding in generating these shifts. Using data reported by universities on net tuition paid by students from different family income levels, we find that public research universities have increasingly shifted to high-tuition, high-aid pricing. From 2012 to 2018, net tuition fell by far more than would have been predicted by the growth in state appropriations, while tuition levels continued to rise, albeit at a slower rate than in the prior years. The increased progressivity in pricing, particularly among research universities, cannot be explained by changes in state appropriations.

Encouraging impacts of an Open Education Resource Degree Initiative on college students’ progress to degree

Textbooks are traditional and useful learning resources for college students, but commercial texts books have been widely criticized for their high costs, restricted access, limited flexibility, and uninspiring learning experiences. Open Education Resources (OER) are an alternative to commercial textbooks that have the potential to increase college affordability, access, and instructional quality. The current study examined how an OER degree—or pathway of OER courses that meet the requirements for a degree program—impacted students’ progress to degree at 11 US community colleges. We conducted quasi-experimental impact studies and meta-analysis examining whether OER course enrollment was associated with differences in credit accumulation and cumulative GPA over multiple terms. Overall, we found a positive effect of OER degrees on credit accumulation and no significant difference on cumulative GPA. Taken together, these results suggest students are maintaining their GPAs despite taking more courses, on average. This suggests that students taking OER courses were making faster progress towards degrees than their peers who took no OER courses.

Student Financial Wellness Survey: Fall 2021 Semester Results

Trellis’ Student Financial Wellness Survey (SFWS) informs discussions about college affordability, student debt, and financial wellness at the campus level and among policymakers. This report details findings from more than 17,500 undergraduate student respondents from 58 colleges and universities in 12 states. Student respondents attended public universities, private colleges, and community colleges that range in size from fewer than 500 students to greater than 55,000 students.

Progressivity of Pricing at Us Public Universities

Substantial increases in public university tuition often raise concerns about college affordability. But assessment of the impacts on low- and moderate-income families requires consideration of whether net tuition—tuition less grant aid—has increased commensurately. This paper describes recent shifts in net tuition by family income and institution type and assesses the role of changes in state funding in generating these shifts. Using data reported by universities on net tuition paid by students from different family income levels, we find that public research universities have increasingly shifted to high-tuition, high-aid pricing. From 2012 to 2017, net tuition fell by far more than would have been predicted by the growth in state appropriations, while tuition levels continued to rise, albeit at a slower rate than in the prior years. The increased progressivity in pricing, particularly among research universities, cannot be explained by changes in state appropriations.

Tuition‐free promise programs: Implications and lessons learned

AbstractPromise programs are an increasing popular solution to improving college affordability, reducing educational inequities, and promoting economic development. Promise programs are distinct from other forms of financial aid because they emphasize residency in their eligibility criteria, where students must live and/or attend school in specific locations to be awarded the promise scholarship. In this chapter, we review extant literature on community college promise programs by discussing the prevalence of these programs, their variations in designs, and their funding sources. We also review studies on the effect of these programs on students and institutions. Based on our survey of the literature, we propose several practical recommendations for community college stakeholders that are aimed at improving student access and success.

Debt Stress, College Stress: Implications for Black and Latinx Students' Mental Health.

Educational debt is an economic stressor that is harmful to mental health and disproportionately experienced by African American and Latinx youth. In this paper, we use a daily diary design to explore the link between mental health, context specific factors like "college stress" and time use, and educational debt stress, or stress incurred from thinking about educational debt and college affordability. This paper utilizes data from a sample of predominately African American and Latinx college students who provided over 1,000 unique time observations. Results show that debt-induced stress is predictive of greater self-reported hostility, guilt, sadness, fatigue, and general negative emotion. Moreover, the relationship may be partly mediated by "college stress" reflecting course loads and post-graduation job expectations. For enrolled students then, educational debt may influence mental health directly through concerns over affordability, or indirectly by shaping facets of college life. The window that our granular data provides into college experiences suggest that the consequences of student debt are manifest and immediate. Further, the documented day-to-day mental health burden for minority students may contribute to downstream processes like matriculation.

Leveraging insights from behavioral science and administrative burden in free college program design: A typology

Amid concerns over college affordability, many communities and states have enacted free college programs, and the Biden administration has brought momentum to federal free college discussions. Today, hundreds of college promise programs exist in communities across the country, including at least 20 state-sponsored free college programs. While free college policies have the potential to increase enrollment by reducing college costs, substantial variation in program design likely shapes how effective these programs are at expanding college access and reducing racial and economic disparities. This paper leverages insights from administrative burden and behavioral science to develop a typology of statewide free college programs, offering a framework for examining how policy design reduces (or increases) the burden individuals are likely to incur in receiving free college benefits. To do so, we collected data on design features of free college programs (e.g., eligibility criteria, application procedures, maintenance requirements) and created indices capturing the extent to which each program imposes administrative burden and, conversely, offers behavioral supports to help students navigate the aid process. Our findings offer insight for policymakers as they design free college programs and provide context for researchers examining the effectiveness and equity outcomes of statewide free college programs.

Changes in the affordability of 4-year public higher education in China during massification

This study investigates how the affordability of 4-year public higher-education tuition in China changed during the massification period. To conduct an in-depth analysis, this paper examines a wide range of data from the National Bureau of Statistics and adopts a series of measurement indicators, including average tuition as a percentage of per-capita GDP, its share in per-capita disposable income and family savings, and its ratio to financial aid. First, this study concludes that during massification, college affordability rapidly declined and then continuously increased. While for a significant majority of Chinese families college tuition is not an unbearable financial burden, it remains expensive for households in the lowest-income quintile. Second, this paper sheds light on the gap in residents’ ability to pay higher-education tuition between urban and rural areas, different regions, and different income groups. It finds a rapid widening in the gap in these dimensions during the early years of massification, which in recent years has gradually narrowed. Indeed, the mode of Chinese higher education has quickly transformed from “high tuition and low aid” to “low tuition and high aid.”