Keeping College Affordable

Michael S. McPherson; Morton Owen Schapiro

doi:10.5771/9780815716693

Summary

As Congress debates the reauthorization of the basic federal student aid legislation, and as governors and state legislators cope with increasingly severe budgetary problems of their own, the issues of preserving college opportunity and sharing the burden of college costs are particularly critical and timely. This book assesses the role of government subsidies for higher educationespecially but not exclusively federal student aidin keeping college affordable for Americans of all economic and social backgrounds. The authors examine the effects of student aid policies of the last twenty years. They address several vital questions, including: Has federal student aid encouraged the enrollment and broadened the educational choices of disadvantaged students? Has it made higher education institutions more secure and educationally more effectiveor has it raised costs and prices as schools try to capture additional aid? Has federal student aid made the distribution of higher education's benefits, and the sharing of costs, fairer? And what are the likely trends in patterns of college affordability?

Drawing on their analysis, the authors highlight some of the principal dimensions of policy choice on which the debate has focused, as well as some that have been relatively neglected. Building upon their conclusion that student aid works, they propose reforms that would bolster the role of income-tested aid in the overall student financing picture. McPherson and Schapiro recommend a number of incremental reforms that could improve the effectiveness of existing federal aid programs and present a proposal to replace a substantial fraction of state-operating subsidies to colleges and universities with expanded federal aid.

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Bibliographic data

Copyright year: 2010
ISBN-Print: 978-0-8157-5641-5
ISBN-Online: 978-0-8157-1669-3
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield, Lanham
Language: English
Pages: 262
Product type: Book Titles

1. Contents No access
1. An Overview of College Financing No access
2. The Effectiveness of the Student Finance System No access
3. Considerations in Assessing Federal Policy No access
4. Dimensions of Policy Choice No access
1. A Long-Run Perspective on College Finance No access
2. College Financing Trends since 1965 No access
3. A Detailed Look at Financing Trends since 1974 No access
4. Enrollment Patterns over Time No access
1. A Summary of the Literature No access
2. Is There Really an Inconsistency between Empirical Results and History? No access
3. Pushing the Analysis Forward: Where Do We Go from Here? No access
1. Findings of Previous Research No access
2. The Data No access
3. Analysis of Trends in College and University Finance No access
4. An Econometric Model of College and University Finance No access
5. Conclusion No access
1. Changes in the College Destinations of Middle-Income Students No access
2. Enrollment Destinations of High-Achieving Students No access
3. Conclusion No access
1. The Simulation Model No access
2. Projections of Overall Affordability No access
3. Future Affordability for Aided and Nonaided Students No access
4. Conclusion No access
1. Needs Testing and Income Testing No access
2. Student Aid in a Mixed Public-Private Higher Education System No access
3. Vocational Education No access
4. Adult and Nontraditional Students No access
5. Merit Aid No access
6. Conclusion No access
1. Returns to Higher Education No access
2. Capital Market Imperfections No access
3. Market Incentives and Federal Loan Guarantees: An Economic Appraisal No access
4. College Finance as an Intergenerational Compact No access
5. Student Aid and the Labor Market No access
6. Conclusion No access
1. Strengths and Weaknesses of the Existing Student Finance System No access
2. Four Goals for Reform in the Finance of Undergraduate Education No access
3. Federalizing Student Aid for Lower-Income Students No access
4. Incremental Reforms No access
5. Conclusion No access
1. A. An Empirical Analysis of Financial Aid, College Costs, and Enrollment: Technical Report No access
2. B. Description of Variables Used in Analysis of Institutional Behavior No access
3. C. Notes on the Modeling Strategy: The Question of Fungibility No access
4. D. An Empirical Analysis of Government Support and Institutional Behavior No access
References No access Pages 249 - 256
1. A No access
2. B No access
3. C No access
4. D No access
5. E No access
6. F No access
7. G No access
8. H No access
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10. J No access
11. K No access
12. L No access
13. M No access
14. N No access
15. O No access
16. P No access
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20. U No access
21. V No access
22. W No access