Cost Of Higher Education Research Articles

The Precarity of Young People’s Housing Experiences in a Rural Context

ABSTRACTYoung people’s housing, economic and labour market circumstances have become increasingly insecure due to the combined effects of the 2007/2008 economic crisis, neoliberal welfare reforms, rising costs of higher education and the shortage of affordable housing. Discussions of young peoples’ experiences in these domains have largely neglected their spatial variability but evidence suggests that young people living in rural parts of the UK have distinctive experiences of housing, which are closely connected to labour markets and educational opportunities. By drawing on qualitative data from young people and housing professionals, this article explores some of these rural distinctions and frames them within theoretical debates about the ‘precariat’. It argues for a more theoretically informed and geographically nuanced understanding of contemporary housing issues as rural youth potentially face greater precarity than their urban peers.

Do Factors Associated With the Increases in Higher Education Costs Affect Average Net Price at Four‐Year Public Institutions?

Students and their families evaluate net price when determining whether they can afford a college. But what affects net price? There are factors, such as instructional inefficiencies, administrative expenses, federal financial aid, and state appropriations, that have been noted in the literature that have an impact on costs and tuition. This study looks at the relationship between average net price and those factors. The findings of this study note that there is a relationship between average net price and said factors.

The Changing of the Guard: The Political Economy of Administrative Bloat in American Higher Education

The cost of higher education in the United States has risen dramatically in recent years. Numerous explanations have been provided to explain this increase. This paper focuses on one contributing factor: The dramatic growth in the size and expense of non-academic administrators and other university bureaucrats, which has outpaced the growth of expenditures on academic programs. Given that university faculty are typically viewed as the constituency that primarily controls universities, this growth of non-academic employees and expenses appears to be anomalous. Some theories are provided to explain this transition.

Barriers and strategies to improve influenza vaccination in Pakistan.

Influenza vaccination is strongly recommended by World Health Organisation on a yearly basis. The rate of immunization in Pakistan is suboptimal. High cost, traditional norms, customs and low levels of education in Pakistan are preventing people from getting vaccinated. It is timely to include influenza vaccination in the expanded programme on immunization (EPI), which is a disease prevention programme aiming to eradicate preventable diseases through subsidized or free immunization. The Ministry of National Health Services, Regulation and Coordination, Government of Pakistan should launch a national influenza vaccine policy in view of this current situation and oversee its implementation. Healthcare professionals should promote influenza vaccination and focus on high risk groups such as the elderly, pregnant women and children. Convincing and educating family members regarding immunization of pregnant women and follow-up with parents regarding a second influenza shot for their children will further improve vaccination rates in Pakistan.

Dynamic Skill Accumulation, Education Policies and the Return to Schooling

Using a dynamic skill accumulation model of schooling and labor supply with learning-by-doing, we decompose early life-cycle wage growth of U.S. white males into four main sources: education, hours worked, cognitive skills (AFQT scores) and unobserved heterogeneity, and evaluate the effect of compulsory high school graduation and a reduction in the cost of college. About 60 percent of the differences in slopes of early life-cycle wage profiles are explained by heterogeneity while individual differences in hours worked and education explain the remaining part almost equally. We show how our model is a particularly useful tool to comprehend the distinctions between compulsory schooling and a reduction in the cost of higher education. Finally, because policy changes induce simultaneous movements in observed choices and average per-year effects, linear IV estimates generated by those policy changes are uninformative about the returns to education for those affected. This is especially true for compulsory schooling estimates as they exceed IV estimates generated by the reduction in the cost of higher education even if the latter policy affects individuals with much higher returns than than those affected by compulsory schooling.

Explaining the High Cost of Higher Education to Black Americans: A Focus on Black American Women

This article claims that Black Americans, especially Black women have made substantial progress in college enrollment and degree attainment in recent decades. From 2000 to 2015, Black American females were either second to Asian males or third to Asian males and Asian females in their proportion of those enrolled in college in the United States. In 2016, there were 2.446 million Black women and 1.841 million Black men aged 18 and over with at least a bachelor’s degree. However, these achievements have come at a very high financial cost, compared to other groups. The factors cited for the high debt burden on Black American students, especially Black women include: the shift from grants to loans with interests to pay for college; lack of scholarships (research assistantship and traineeship) compared to students from other groups; the high cost of college education at for-profit institutions; and lack of funding from parents or family members. A number of recommendations to manage this problem, including increase in the number of “grant aid” and lowering the cost of undergraduate instruction, are presented in this article.

Health Care Spending in the US vs UK: The Roles of Medical Education Costs, Malpractice Risk and Defensive Medicine

We analyze the extent to which three important factors can explain the high costs of health care in the US relative to the UK: (i) the high cost of medical education, (ii) high risks/costs associated with malpractice litigation, and (iii) excessive diagnostic testing arising from the practice of defensive medicine. To do this we formulate, calibrate and simulate a model of the demand and supply of physicians, the labor supply and treatment decisions of practicing physicians, and the market for malpractice insurance. Consistent with prior work, we find that direct costs arising from malpractice risk and malpractice insurance can explain little of the cost differential between the two countries. However, we find that the much higher cost of medical education in the US interacts with malpractice risk in an interesting way: It leads doctors to optimally choose to engage in a high level of diagnostic testing in order to mitigate risk (where by ”optimal” we mean from a private rather than social perspective). This defensive behavior leads to an increase in costs far beyond what can be accounted for by malpractice insurance costs alone. Our simulation results imply that more generous medical education subsidies (like those in the UK) would lead to both improved patient welfare and reduced overall health care costs in the US system (a Pareto improvement).

More Money, More Opportunities: The Impact of the Machen Florida Opportunities Scholars Program on the Post-Baccalaureate Enrollment Decisions of Low-Income / First-Generation College Students

Developing financial aid policies that increase access for first-generation and low-income student have long been a priority of the scholars and administrators. To counter the rising costs of higher education, institutions have increasingly turned to no-loan programs to provide financial assistance to their most needy applications. However, only recently, has the empirical literature begun to examine the role of these no-loan program on post-enrollment outcomes. This study examines the impact of no-loan program participation on post-baccalaureate enrollment decision through a regression discontinuity approach. Results from this study indicate a positive and statistically significant effect of no-loan program participation on graduate school enrollment for these historically underrepresented and disadvantaged students.

A Proposal for Developing the Cost Sharing of Higher Education in Saudi Arabia in Light of Some International Experiences

Abstract:The present study aims to explore the current situation of cost sharing of higher education in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia , to compare it to the higher education in England and America, and to identify differences and similarities and differences between them. The researcher used George Berday’s approach in comparative studies. Results have shown that there is a shortcoming in the procedures of reducing the cost of governmental higher education in Saudi Arabia and in the methods of funding and procedures of disbursement and allocation of the university., There are also shortcomings in the programs of linking between scientific research and the needs of the labor market due to the fact that the university does not get involved in major industrial enterprises. There are no partnerships between them in order to make use of scientific research to serve the community and respond to the needs of the labor market. This has led to an increase in the gap between the university outcomes and the needs of the Saudi labor market. On contrary, both countries, under comparison, take care of all programs that serve the scientific research, community service, and respond to the market needs. However, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia relies on traditional methods to reduce the cost of Higher education, including, restricted admission for male and female students, increasing tuition fees, and requiring rent for facilities, and reducing indirect costs.

Maintaining Momentum Toward Graduation: OER and the Course Throughput Rate

<p class="3"><em>Open Educational Resources</em> (OER) have the potential to replace traditional textbooks in higher education. Previous studies indicate that use of OER results in high student and faculty satisfaction, lower costs, and similar or better educational outcomes. In this case study, we compared students using traditional textbooks with those using OER at Tidewater Community College to compare their performance on what we call course throughput rates, which is an aggregate of three variables – drop rates, withdrawal rates, and C or better rates. Two self-selecting cohorts were compared over four semesters, with statistically significant results. The study found that, subject to the limitations discussed, students who use OER perform significantly better on the course throughput rate than their peers who use traditional textbooks, in both face-to-face and online courses that use OER. This suggests that OER are a promising avenue for reducing the costs of higher education while increasing academic success.</p>

Agency Costs in Higher Education: Evaluating an Institution Through a Comprehensive Framework

An agency situation is established when one of the parties involved in a transaction (the principal) delegates to a single or group of individuals (the agents) certain rights to carry out activities. In this dynamic, any number of problems and risks could arise. Problems result from informational asymmetries, high monitoring costs, and conflicting preferences between the principal (employer) and the agents (employees). Using the principal–agency theory, this study explores explicit (hiring, promotion, and salary policies) and implicit (organizational climate) labor contracts at one private university in Argentina. The study considers the extent to which this institution is attentive to mitigating agency costs. The work presents a new model to study the behavior of universities using economic logic. This deviates from the more traditional sociological and psychological approaches generally used in the analysis of faculty life.

Physical Therapist Student Loan Debt.

The cost of higher education in the United States is big news. One major reason for the media attention is rising student loan debt. Concerns about rising student loan debt are being voiced at the federal government level1 and by political candidates,2,3 institutions of higher education,4 professional organizations,5,6 and, of course, consumers.7 There seems to be little agreement on the reasons for escalating costs, although there is nearly universal agreement that the costs are out of control. Various authors have argued for and against the effects of several factors on increasing costs, including growing numbers of institutional administrators,8,9 increasing federal regulation,10 new campus buildings to attract students,9,11 rising costs of employee health insurance,12 costs of intercollegiate sports,9 and an increasing proportion of professors staying beyond traditional retirement age.13 State support for public institutions has declined over the past 2 to 3 decades,9,14,15 and both public and private institutions saw declines in gifts and endowments during the recent recession.9 Consequently, institutions have charged students more to make up for budget deficits.15 The result is that over the past 3 decades, tuition and fees have increased approximately 210% at 4-year public universities and by approximately 130% at private 4-year nonprofit institutions,9 while median household income has increased by approximately 2%.15 Although tuition increases have been accompanied by expansion of financial aid packages, increasing proportions of those packages are in the form of loans.9,16 Taken together, these forces have caused higher education costs to outstrip the capacity of many family budgets, requiring more borrowing than in the past. Consequences of high student loan debt are reported to include delays in starting families, …

MOOCs, Graduate Skills Gaps, and Employability: A Qualitative Systematic Review of the Literature

<p class="3">The increasing costs of higher education (HE), growing numbers of flexible anytime, anywhere learners, and the prevalence of technology as a means to up-skill in a competitive job market, have brought to light a rising concern faced by graduate students and potential graduate employers. Specifically, there is a mismatch of useful skills obtained by students through HE institutions which is evident upon graduation. Faced with this dilemma, “graduate students,” or more specifically newly graduated students, with a with bachelor’s degree, and a growing number of employers are turning to Massive Open Online Courses, or MOOCs, as a complimentary mechanism through which this skills gap may be bridged. </p><p class="3">It is found in the literature that MOOCs are often discussed within the capacity of their development, their retention rates, institutional policies regarding their implementation, and other such related areas. Examinations into their broader uses, benefits, and potential pitfalls have been limited to date. Therefore, this paper aims to analyse the literature highlighting the use of MOOCs as a means to reduce the mismatch in graduate skills. As such, this literature analysis reviews the following relevant areas: higher education and graduate skills gap, today’s graduates and employability, and MOOCs and graduate skills. Through analysing the literature in these areas, this paper identifies gaps in the existing literature. </p>

Student debt and hardship: Evidence from a large sample of low- and moderate-income households

Student debt has risen in recent years as higher education costs have shifted to students and their families, particularly those with low-to-moderate incomes (LMI). Though a college degree continues to convey higher earnings, those who finance their degrees have lower net worth and greater financial difficulties than persons without student debt. We assess the relationship between student debt and material and health care hardship among a large sample (n=5558) of LMI tax filers, using propensity score analysis to adjust for self-selection into student debt status and loan amount and monthly payment quartiles. We find that participants with student debt have a higher likelihood of hardship. Loan amounts only partially predict hardship, and borrowers making current loan payments are at lower odds for hardship than non-payers. We also find that among those with student debt, non-payers and those without college degrees have much greater social and economic disadvantages.

Skill-Biased Technical Change and the Cost of Higher Education

We document the growth in higher education costs and tuition over the past 50 years. To explain these trends, we develop a general equilibrium model with skill- and sector-biased technical change. Finding the model’s parameters through a combination of estimation and calibration, we show that it can explain the rise in college costs between 1961 and 2009, along with the increase in college attainment and the change in the relative earnings of college graduates. The model predicts that if college costs had ceased to grow after 1961, enrollment in 2010 would have been 3%–6% higher.

American Higher Education and Income Inequality

This paper demonstrates that increasing income inequality can contribute to the trends we see in American higher education, particularly in the selective, private nonprofit and public sectors. Given these institutions’ selective admissions and commitment to socioeconomic diversity, the paper demonstrates how increasing income inequality leads to higher tuition, costs, and financial aid. A numerical example is presented that estimates how much lower tuition, spending (costs), and financial aid would have been if household incomes in the United States had grown by the same aggregate amount between 1971 and 2009, but with no increase in income inequality. The policy implications include the government addressing rising income inequality directly or changing the incentives facing higher education and will be of interest to those concerned with the rising cost of higher education and issues of access and affordability.

LEVELING THE PLAYING FIELD: THE TAXPAYER RELIEF ACT OF 1997 AND TAX-EXEMPT BORROWING BY NONPROFIT COLLEGESAND UNIVERSITIES

Higher education costs have continued to climb along with student debt levels and concerns over broad access to a college degree. Commonly cited reasons for increasing costs include the personnel-intensive nature of higher education, as well as competition among colleges and universities to provide more desired amenities to students. The dominant explanation for cost growth has been what is referred to as Baumol's cost disease, which focuses on labor costs. The attention on labor costs in higher education masks substantial capital costs, which are typically financed with tax- exempt debt. In this paper, we consider the rising debt levels of private, nonprofit colleges and universities, which have received far more attention from the popular press than academic research. A 1997 change in the tax code leveled the playing field for the borrowing costs of public and private, nonprofit higher education. The policy change impacted higher education nonprofits differently than nonprofit hospitals or public higher education institutions, which we use to estimate the differential growth in tax-exempt borrowing, total borrowing, and fixed asset levels. Based on a difference-in-differences approach, we find that the unrestricted availability of tax-exempt debt financing to nonprofit colleges and universities resulted in significantly greater tax-exempt debt levels, dependence on tax-exempt debt, and fixed assets compared to nonprofit hospitals and higher levels of total borrowing relative to public colleges and universities.

Value and Pricing of MOOCs

Reviewed in this article is the potential for Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to transform higher education delivery, accessibility, and costs. Next, five major value propositions for MOOCs are considered (headhunting, certification, face-to-face learning, personalized learning, integration with services external to the MOOC, marketing). Then, four pricing strategies for MOOCs are examined (cross-subsidy, third-party, “freemium”, nonmonetary). Although the MOOC movement has experienced growing pains similar to most innovations, we assert that the unyielding pace of improvements in network technologies combined with the need to tame the costs of higher education will create continuing demand for MOOC offerings.

Universal higher education and positional advantage: Soviet legacies and neoliberal transformations in Russia

The great expansion of participation in higher education in Russia in the post-Soviet period was the layered and contradictory result of both conditions established in the Soviet period, and the structuring of reforms after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1992. The Soviet government was strongly committed to the expansion of education across the country, and gender equality was achieved at that time. In the 1990s and 2000s enrolments more than doubled, though the growth of numbers has been reversed since 2008 because of demographic decline of the relevant age cohorts. Employing Trow’s analysis of the growth of higher education systems and Hirsch’s concept of positional goods, among other conceptual approaches, as well as statistical, national, and comparative survey data, this paper analyses social dynamics of the process of increasing participation and equalization of opportunity in Russia. The dramatic higher education expansion in Russia was largely associated with the positional value of higher education credentials, in a society in which the Soviet system of social status had been discontinued, and a new system of status was being built on the basis of post-Soviet rules (which are still evolving). Driven by family aspirations and resources, massification has largely rested on the part-privatisation of the costs of higher education, part of a neoliberal reform package common to the post-Soviet countries. However, higher education expansion has not brought about greater social equity. Expansion, fee-based financing and policy measures such as university excellence initiatives have tended to strengthen the institutional and social stratification of the higher education system, weakening social mobility and social equality.

“These Are the Choices We’ve Made”

This study uses surveys and in-depth interviews to explore professors’ student loan debt experiences at a university in the Northwest United States, focusing attention on their perceptions of fellow colleagues’ experiences. Having been long-term students in higher education themselves, professors’ student loan debt has increased with the trend toward privatization and corporatization of higher education over the last several decades. Interviews reveal professors’ tendency to disassociate their colleagues’ student loan debt experiences from the public issue of rising higher education costs. We find that a university culture imbued with market ethos shapes their explanations for professors’ student loan debt, rationalizing debt as a result of poor spending habits or career choices. These explanations detract from the public issue of rising education costs being shouldered increasingly by students and their families, which we contend will result in excluding minority groups’ access to the profession and limiting diversity in higher education and research.