Student Funding Research Articles

Equity in student finance: Cross-UK comparisons

Comparisons with other parts of the United Kingdom have played an important role in justifying decisions made in relation to student funding in Scotland since devolution. This article considers first what comparative claims have been made for the content of student funding policy in four areas: fees, debt, total living cost support and ‘ability to pay’. It compares the position of Scotland with other parts of the UK for each of these in turn. After considering what sort of relationship might exist between student funding policy and widening participation, it then examines what issues for equity and social justice in Scotland are brought out by detailed cross-UK comparisons and questions whether claims that the arrangements in Scotland are more supportive of widening access and more socially equitable than those adopted elsewhere in the UK can be sustained. It argues that while some short term effects may be uncertain, one long term effect of the Scottish system is highly predictable: a regressive distribution of student loan means that the cost of expanding higher education to enable wider participation will be borne disproportionately by graduates from more disadvantaged backgrounds. It concludes that a different approach is needed to the use of cross-UK comparisons if these are to be used to support rather than distract from the achievement of greater social justice in higher education student support policy.

Perspectives: Nursing Student Funding Debate

On a dark and damp London evening on 6 January 2016, leading healthcare academics, students, union representatives and other concerned parties gathered together at London South Bank University’s (LSBU’s) Keyworth Events Theatre with one thing on their minds, the ending of NHS student bursaries. Announced in the Spending Review (HM Treasury, 2015), the Treasury has decided that nursing, midwifery and allied health professional students can no longer benefit from ‘free’ qualifications and must pay a contribution as other graduates do, through a 9% marginal rate income tax for 30 years or until the £50,000 or greater loan plus interest is fully repaid (Student Loans Company, 2015). The headline question for the evening’s debate was ‘Will removing the restrictions on nursing student places and NHS funded nursing bursaries and fees increase the supply of registered nurses in the UK?’ Although the present proposal only directly affects England, later in the debate it was suggested that there may be consequences for devolved territories that would need separate conversations. Further, balancing cost-effectiveness, quality and security of supply of nurses is a concern with global reach. Speaking in support of the changes was Elisabeth Jelfs, Director of the Council of Deans of Health, seconded by nurse Charlotte Johnston. Speaking against the changes was nurse Rob Waterson, seconded by student nurse Serena Ruffoni. Chairing, in her first day of a new job no less, was Becky Malby, Professor of Health Systems Innovation at LSBU, with co-hosting provided online by @WeNurses under their #WeNurses hashtag. Live polling of the present audience was facilitated before and after the debate by Dr Elaine Maxwell, with the results as fascinating as ever, revealing some shifting from moderate towards stronger opinions, with the broadest consensus being that loans would make studying less attractive and discourage mature students. The debates hosted by Elaine and her colleagues are always excellently provocative and enlightening, but as a student (albeit currently on deferment for family reasons) I felt this one was especially personal, making it hard to approach with a dispassionate objectivity. Elisabeth (Lizzie) Jelfs spoke first and immediately shattered any entrenched preconceptions I held by being disarmingly reasonable and comprehensively informed. She carefully explained how the >20% increase in commissioned places since 2012 described by Health Education England (2015a) could not be sustained in the current

Postgraduate students experience of poverty and academic success at a university of technology in South Africa

Poverty within a developing context such as South Africa has been deepening, with the pressures of globalisation and neo-liberalism resulting in the widening gap between the rich and the poor. For students from a poor background an opportunity to study at a higher education institution is an opportunity to change their economic status at a personal and family level; however, it is difficult to achieve this goal when the very economic conditions they live in have an impact on their ability be academically successful. The study is concerned with poverty under which postgraduate students live, think and learn while studying and how this affects their academic success. Semi-structured individual interviews were conducted with 34 postgraduate students. The main aim of the article is to contribute to an understanding of how funding of academic students by government and higher education institutions could be utilised to enable their academic success. Keywords: Academic success, poverty, universities, understanding, funding

Free to Choose: Can School Choice Reduce Student Achievement?

A central argument for school choice is that parents can choose schools wisely. This principle may underlie why lottery-based school evaluations have almost always reported positive or zero achievement effects. This paper reports on a striking counterexample to these results. We use randomized lotteries to evaluate the Louisiana Scholarship Program, a voucher plan that provides public funds for disadvantaged students to attend private schools. LSP participation lowers math scores by 0.4 standard deviations and also reduces achievement in reading, science, and social studies. These effects may be due in part to selection of low-quality private schools into the program. (JEL H75, I21, I22, I28)

University funding and student funding: international comparisons

In this article we compare the mechanisms for funding higher education institutions across a set of OECD countries. First, some data on public and private funding levels are presented. The article then discusses two important trends: (i) the increased presence of cost sharing and (ii) the move towards performance-based funding. We show where countries differ in terms of the fees paid by students and the financial support received by students. Using the degree of output orientation and the degree of centralization as dimensions to classify the various countries’ funding mechanisms, differences may be shown between countries. Reforms in funding approaches, inspired by new public management thinking, are discussed. One such reform is the introduction of performance agreements that increasingly underlie the public budget of universities. We focus on the drivers of the reforms and the question of whether these reforms actually matter for the performance of national higher education systems—for instance on the issue of student completion rates.

STUDENT LOANS IN MALAYSIA AND CHINA: EQUITY, EFFICIENCY AND ADEQUACY

Student loans have been widely practiced in many developed and developing countries to help finance tertiary education. Malaysia and China have advocated student loans to support tertiary education. Such financial assistance helps to reduce the economic burden of students. The objective of this study is to analyze the Malaysian and Chinese student loans in terms of adequacy, equity, efficiency and related issues. Additionally, this study identifies factors that determine adequacy of a student loan in Malaysia and China. Questionnaires were distributed to 200 undergraduate students in Malaysia and China respectively. This study applied descriptive statistics and logistic regression to analyze the data. The findings indicate that the amount of student loans offered should be increased. Both the Malaysian and the Chinese government should concentrate on the equity, efficiency and related issues of student loans. The results also show that nationality, the amount of tuition fees and parental income are important determinants of student loans in Malaysia and China. It is hoped that appropriate policy interventions can be undertaken by policy makers to ensure proper funding for undergraduate students.

ABC classification using DEA: classification of Iranian universities from students welfare foundation viewpoint

The motivation of this paper is to classify a set of decision making units (DMUs) into three classes A, B, and C using an optimistic-pessimistic approach of data envelopment analysis technique. To this end, the minimum and maximum possible efficiency scores of DMUs are estimated under the assumption that the sum of their scores equals to unity. Then, all DMUs are ranked two times. First, they are ranked according to their minimum scores, and then according to their maximum scores. Finally, the class of each DMU is ascertained according to its ranks in two rankings. We apply the proposed method for classifying the welfare funds of students for the universities in Iran.

LEARNING POINTS FROM WHISTLEBLOWER CLAIMS AGAINST INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

The types of whistleblowing claims made against institutions of higher education are not well understood nor are the various mechanisms used to solicit, investigate, and learn from such claims at the institutional and state levels. This research obtained and analyzed whistleblower claims made against institutions of higher education and explores and facilitates a discussion around the value of learning opportunities that come from whistleblowing claims. Aggregate claims data and detail workpapers for claims made against the 45 publicly funded colleges and universities in the state of Ohio, in the midwestern United States was analyzed to identify patterns and areas of focus which could improve institutional processes and internal controls. Four areas resulted from the analysis: hiring and pay practices, prevention of the theft of institutional assets, prevention of the theft of student funds, and an institutional accreditation issue. All claims that were reported reflected real concerns on topics of strategic importance to institutions and their management practices, although not all were substantiated or corroborated. One quarter of the claims resulted in proven cases for recovery and prosecution. At the state level, completeness of investigation and administrative learning were sometimes not pursued due to the code enforcement nature of the governing bodies whose mandate was limited to the identification and prosecution of crimes, although improvement opportunities clearly existed. The case of Ohio demonstrates that open government and public information request processes can provide sufficient information to allow insight into the nature of the claims and to identify improvement opportunities for both the institution and state level administration. Key words: internal controls, internal audit, higher education, whistleblowing, fraud, ethics, Ohio, college and university administration, governance.

Editorial: narrative inquiry and critical professional reflection

The scholarship of teaching and learning (SoTL) is now recognised as an important part of a university academic’s teaching work. This recognition has emerged during a period of significant change over the last 10 to 15 years in which universities have opened up to be more inclusive and today a much higher percentage of people undertake a university education than was the case in the past. Along with changes in the funding of universities, students and governments are expecting better learning outcomes, better learning experiences and better value for money courses. University teaching academics also are now more concerned about the quality teaching and learning and how it is appraised. The engagement in the scholarship of teaching and learning by academics not only provides opportunities for improved learning outcomes from a university experience, but also provides opportunities for academics to engage in scholarship and research of their practice.

The Challenges of Advancing Fiscal Equity in a Resource-Strained Context

Weighted student funding (WSF) is a multifaceted school finance, management, and governance reform that is gaining attention. While WSF has a number of goals, its primary objective is to redress intra-district funding inequities. This article draws on a mixed-methods study of WSF in Prince George’s County Public Schools to examine the initiative’s impact on the distribution of financial resources to the 180 schools that were affected by it. Our findings indicate that WSF was not a robust mechanism for advancing equity and illustrate how technical, economic, and political factors can undermine the ability of WSF to realize its equity goals.

Student funding, student retention and student experiences: perspectives from Bristol

Our paper summarises a suite of research projects based around the general themes of student funding, retention/withdrawals and student experiences which have been undertaken by the University of Bristol since 2013/14. Some are completed, some ongoing and some are in the planning stage. They focus both on students who have withdrawn and on continuing students. We contextualise the work against national higher education sector trends in funding and in other related research, particularly that from the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) on the lack of any relationship between student funding and withdrawals, and draw inferences from this. Our evidence so far from the Bristol perspective suggests otherwise: the University's financial support may both encourage student retention and add positively to the student experience of its recipients.

The Student Fund, LP

The Student Fund, LP

De wankele empirische basis van het onderwijsachterstandenbeleid

Summary The frail empirical foundation of the educational disadvantage policyEducational opportunities are influenced by factors lying in the home situation of the children. In order to compensate for unfavorable circumstances, the Dutch government launched the educational disadvantage policy in the 1970s. The core of this policy is the so-called weighted student funding system. This policy instrument departs from the premise that students can be discerned according to level of disadvantage, and that schools with disadvantaged students should receive extra financial resources accordingly to combat educational delays. When this system was developed in the early 1980s, three indicators of disadvantage were applied, viz. parental educational level, occupational level, and country of birth. Analyses performed at the time showed a predictive validity estimate of 0.50, or 25 percent of explained variance in the students’ educational attainment. In the course of years the demographic circumstances have changed and the funding system has been adapted. Nowadays there only is one indicator of disadvantage left, that is, parental educational level. Analyses performed on data from the 2014 measurement wave of the national large-scale COOL5-18 cohort study show a validity estimate of 0.20, or no more than 4 percent of explained variance. It is argued that the empirical foundation of the educational disadvantage policy has become questionably frail and that instead of employing demographical family characteristics, focusing on the actual performance of children based on test achievement or teacher observations probably offers a more valid alternative.

Leveling the Playing Field: The Case for an Education Value Added Tax

Inequality of opportunity has become the main challenge for this generation of Americans. This article will focus on the lack of equality of opportunity as embodied in lack of access to a high-quality education. This has often been discussed in terms of access to college; however, it also manifests in lower levels of education. Moreover, lower education affects later education in two ways — it determines both college admissions and college readiness. To make this problem more concrete, we decided to focus on one case study: the funding of public education in the City of Detroit (one of the poorest cities in the US) and three of its wealthy suburbs — Birmingham, Bloomfield Hills and West Bloomfield. As is common in the US, funding for public education in Michigan once relied primarily on local property tax revenues. Because of concerns about the inequality of property tax bases by school district and the wish to restrict property taxes, Michigan voters approved Proposal A in 1994, which used a 2% increase in the state sales tax to fund equalization payments, and limited the ability of richer districts to spend more than poorer ones. However, as will be seen, even though Proposal A contributed to reducing the disparity in funding between rich and poor districts, there are still major discrepancies because the initial funding differential is built into the system, resulting in per student funding in rich districts that is almost double that of poorer districts. After describing this situation, the article turns to proposed remedies. One possible solution is to create a unified school district that includes both Detroit and the suburbs, and to equalize the per student funding base across the unified district, as was done in NYC and LA. We conclude, however, that given the history of animosity between Detroit and its suburbs, such a remedy is unlikely to be politically viable.A second option is to build on Proposal A and to use state support to completely equalize the per-student funding base. But even if such a revised Proposal A were not to founder on the same problems that we mentioned above, it is unlikely that the state of Michigan could raise adequate funds, because both the sales tax and the state income tax are vulnerable to “tax competition” problems that would preclude the state from raising the rates sufficiently.Thus, we conclude that the only solution is a federal solution. As President Nixon proposed in 1972, the United States should adopt an “Education Value Added Tax” (E-VAT) and use the revenues to equalize per student school funding across the country, as well as funding universal free public pre-K programs (such as the ones instituted by Mayor DeBlasio in NYC) and universal free public colleges for in-state residents (as used to be the case in California). This, we will argue, will do more to address the root causes of lack of equality of opportunity in America than any other potential use of revenues from a federal VAT.

The Value of Textile Education and Industry Partnerships

Textile research/industry partnerships have recently gained momentum in New Zealand. This paper makes a preliminary account by focusing on the benefits of the collaboration to Massey University Master of Design postgraduates, companies, and the academics. The students work on a significant problem faced by a company to rejuvenate business or to produce solutions for a particular or a set of problems. The company gains access to new university research and discoveries and faculty members complement their own academic research by securing funds for graduate students. During a one-year period, the students receive a government-funded scholarship and industry mentoring. The aim is to steer success across the textile value chain from economic and environmental perspectives while balancing academic requirements. Typically, the industry-centered design is developed using iterative processes with a strong emphasis on the role of technology, often requiring the acquirement of new software skills to design with industry equipment. The model establishes best practice to share resources and experiences within the thrust of daily industrial life and the demands of a Master of Design degree. This paper aims to gage the benefits of, and challenges in a range of wool-centered collaborative projects from yarn development to sustainable dye to bedding product development to the revitalization of a weaving mill innovative waste to blue sky solutions for a tannery. The research of novel ideas and process innovation leads to enhanced job placement opportunity and new exports.

Charter School Expansion and Within-District Equity: Confluence or Conflict?

This article explores whether two popular policy initiatives are compatible or conflicting strategies for enhancing educational equality in diverse large urban centers. These two initiatives are (1) charter school expansion and (2) improvement of resource equity across urban public school systems through policies often referred to as weighted student funding formulas. In this article, we focus on New York and Houston, two cities where districts have adopted initiatives to improve equity of the distribution of school site funding and have concurrently experienced significant expansion of charter schooling. We find that charter schools have the tendency to amplify student population differences across schools by disability, language, and low income status, and that charter schools’ access to financial resources varies widely. Nevertheless, we find that in very large urban districts like New York City, where charter market share remains small, the overall effects of charters on system-wide inequity remain small.

PETE Doctoral Institutions: Programs, Faculty, and Doctoral Students

Purpose: The present study of doctoral physical education teacher education (D-PETE) programs was part of a longitudinal study that provided an extensive description of demographics including: (a) doctoral program characteristics, (b) faculty, and (c) doctoral students/graduates. Method: This trend study incorporated 3 data sets (2005–2006, 2008–2009, and 2011–2012) that described the characteristics of D-PETE programs. Academic heads of D-PETE programs provided demographic information on their doctoral students, faculty, and institutional characteristics for the 2005–2006, 2008–2009, and 2011–2012 academic years and selected summary data from 1996–1997 through 2011–2012. Results/Conclusion: As a result of this longitudinal data collection, the following trends were revealed. First, there was a decrease in the number of D-PETE programs and an increase of nontenured and part-time pedagogy faculty. Second, initial teacher licensure programs remained in existence at the vast majority of D-PETE programs. Third, funding for doctoral students at D-PETE programs was decreasing. Fourth, racial composition of doctoral graduates and current doctoral students remained largely skewed toward Caucasians. Fifth, there was a slight decline in the percentage of doctoral graduates entering higher education, but employment rates were exceptionally high. Sixth, non-U.S. doctoral students and ABDs were marketable in the United States.

The power of the purse: student funding and the labour market for Dutch Reformed and Catholic theology students, 1800–1880

Several European countries were unable to match student numbers with labour market demand during the nineteenth century. The causes of this mismatch may be found in the organisation of higher education and the funding of students. Drawing on a variety of sources, this paper compares financial support available to Reformed and Catholic theology students in The Netherlands, to examine how differences in student funding affected enrolment and labour-market patterns. While low tuition fees increased access to the public universities, generous student financing provided by numerous parties caused a structural oversupply of Protestant theology students. The private Catholic colleges instead selected students and applied grants specifically to encourage graduation, consequently balancing students more closely with labour-market demand. This relative success of regional colleges over national universities mirrors the primary education history literature on the benefits of local coordination and resource allocation.

The Shift from Adequacy to Equity in Federal Education Policymaking: A Proposal for How ESEA Could Reshape the State Role in Education Finance

ESEA's original intent was to provide educational assistance to less privileged students. However, ESEA's supplemental funding for students and teachers has often been inadequate in addressing pervasive and systematic disparities in fiscal resources. These disparities exist between states, within states, and within school districts. In the spirit of the original legislation, this article proposes addressing educational fiscal inequities via a new program within ESEA that would reward states for reforming their education finance systems to address inequities between and within states, and within districts. The program would effectively steer federal resources to encourage thoughtful work to reform and recalibrate state- and district-level finance mechanisms. It would be designed as a competitive grant program built upon the framework of Race to the Top. This article articulates a rationale for the program, especially the need for a renewed federal focus on opportunity-to-learn, reviews relevant research, o...

Ocean acoustics at the University of Victoria

This paper describes the academic program in Ocean Acoustics and Acoustical Oceanography at the University of Victoria in Canada. The program was established when a Research Chair in Ocean Acoustics consisting of two faculty members was funded in 1995 by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). The Research Chair graduate program offered two courses in Ocean Acoustics, and courses in Time Series Analysis and Inverse Methods. Funding for students was obtained entirely through partnership research programs with Canadian marine industry, the Department of National Defence in Canada and the Office of Naval Research. The program was successful in graduating around 30 M.Sc. and Ph.D. students to date, about half of whom were Canadians. Notably, all the students obtained positions in marine industry, government, or academia after their degrees. The undergraduate program consisted of one course in Acoustical Oceanography at the senior level (3rd year) that was designed to appeal to students in physics, biology, and geology. The course attracted about 30 students each time, primarily from biology. The paper concludes with perspectives on difficulties in operating an academic program with a low critical mass of faculty and in isolation from colleagues in the research field.