ethanporcaro/eric-fulltext-meta huggingface dataset:
A Summary of: 25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College
Author: Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP)
Date: 2010-09-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Postsecondary Education,Paying for College,Community Colleges,Dual Enrollment,Employment,Policy,Acceleration (Education),Outsourcing,Dismissal (Personnel),College Administration,Program Termination,College Athletics,Financial Aid Applicants,Need Analysis (Student Financial Aid),Scholarship,Research,Duplication,Cost Effectiveness,Purchasing,Cooperation,Educational Facilities,Efficiency,Teaching Load,Time Management,Time to Degree,Online Courses,Textbooks,Academic Libraries,Electronic Libraries,Electronic Mail,Integrated Learning Systems,College Transfer Students,Transfer Policy,Public Colleges,Educational Change,Financial Support,Accreditation (Institutions),Student Financial Aid,Competition,Value Judgment

Almost everyone agrees that colleges have become costly to attend and are a growing burden on society to finance. Rising tuition costs threaten the ability and desire of students to attend college. Are there things that can be done to significantly reduce the cost of college? The answer is an emphatic "yes." The Center for College Affordability and Productivity (CCAP) identified 25 ways to reduce college costs and has produced an extensive book-length study to explore them. This booklet summarizes the 25 ways to cut costs, pointing the way to achieving significant cost reductions for those sincerely interested in making college more affordable and accessible to members of American society. [For the full report, "25 Ways to Reduce the Cost of College," see ED536144.]
Funding the Arms Race: A Case Study of Student Athletic Fees
Author: Denhart, Matthew
Date: 2011-03-00
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Educational Finance,Physical Activities,College Athletics,Case Studies,Fees,Intercollegiate Cooperation,Operating Expenses,Fund Raising,Student Attitudes,Institutional Characteristics,Familiarity,Tax Effort,School Policy,Student Surveys

Intercollegiate athletics (ICA) is becoming an increasingly expensive venture at America's colleges and universities. Some big-time athletic powers have athletic budgets exceeding $100 million annually, and even schools with lesser reputations in the NCAA's Divisions II and III have had sharp increases in athletic budgets in recent years. Increasingly, ICA threatens to crowd out other higher education activities, including the core mission of teaching and research. As institutions dig into their own pockets to fund ICA programs not supported by ticket, logo, concession, broadcasting, parking revenues or private gifts, they are increasingly forced to rely directly on funds provided by student fees. The funding of ICA has historically been mired by secrecy and, arguably, deception. Schools have fought to keep the public from knowing the subsidy students pay, the salary of the football coach, some of the less than optimal practices used to maintain player eligibility, etc. This study focuses on student funding and how much students know about their own financial contribution to ICA--and whether they approve of it. The empirical section of the study focuses on one institution, Ohio University, and its students. Ohio University is in many ways a rather typical state university of around 20,000 students, of mid-quality and reputation, both with respects to academics and athletics. The study shows that the claims of proponents of big ICA spending often mislead the public, and that student enthusiasm for ICA is far less than claimed by supporters. To be sure, there is an issue of the representativeness of Ohio University and its students, and this study needs to be replicated and expanded to other institutions. The results, however, suggest the efforts of students, faculty and other educational reformers to rein-in ICA costs and increase transparency regarding spending are important and more necessary than ever. Appended are: (1) Survey Demographics; and (2) Survey Text. (Contains 16 charts and 18 footnotes.) [Introduction was written by Richard Vedder.]
How College Pricing Undermines Financial Aid
Author: Martin, Robert E.
Date: 2011-03-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Student Financial Aid,Incentive Grants,Input Output Analysis,Access to Education,Cost Effectiveness,Expenditure per Student,Student Costs,Paying for College,Finance Reform,Financial Policy,Audits (Verification),Policy Analysis,Cost Indexes,Supply and Demand,Consumer Economics

The primary purpose of government provided student financial aid is to increase college access by bringing the out-of-pocket price of attendance within reach of more students. The basic idea is quite straightforward. If a good or service costs $100 to buy and the government gives consumers a $50 subsidy, then consumers need only spend $50 of their own money instead of $100. Since the price has effectively been cut in half from the perspective of consumers, those who could not afford to buy the product before the subsidy can now afford to do so. This is all quite logical, but it rests upon the assumption that the seller does not change the price because of the subsidy. If the seller increases the price to $150, then the item's affordability has not been increased by the subsidy. Instead, the subsidy merely increases the price and the seller's income. While financial aid is designed to increase access by lowing prices, the authors show that recent increases in financial aid have not improved affordability and have therefore not increased access. They argue that the reason for this is that colleges are able to capture the aid by increasing prices. This does not suggest that colleges and universities are engaged in either collusive or venal behavior. Rather, these institutions are simply responding to the perverse incentive system they confront. The incentive system is what must be changed. (Contains 2 figures, 5 tables, and 13 footnotes.)
From Wall Street to Wal-Mart: Why College Graduates Are Not Getting Good Jobs
Author: Vedder, Richard
Date: 2010-12-16
Type: Reports - Research
Subjects: Higher Education,College Graduates,Evidence,Middle Class,Human Capital,Job Security,Expertise,Employment Potential,Graduate Surveys,College Outcomes Assessment,Educational Attainment,Graduation Rate,Occupational Surveys,Educational Policy,Educational Benefits,Salary Wage Differentials

There are many reasons for pursing a higher education. For most persons, a significant, maybe even the dominant reason, for going to college is that it supposedly will improve one's prospect of acquiring a good job. In a sense, a college degree has long been considered a ticket to the middle class--an adult life with a good income and relatively high job security. From the standpoint of society, efforts to expand college graduation attainment rates have been justified by President Obama and major foundations (for example, Lumina and Gates) on a need to be competitive with other nations which have a larger proportion of adults with college degrees. This study argues that the conventional wisdom that going to college is a "human capital investment" with a high payoff is increasingly wrong. Evidence shows that currently more than one-third of college graduates hold jobs that governmental employment experts say would require less than a college degree. Moreover, the push to increase enrollments has led to a majority of the "increment" of the stock of college graduates finding employment in relatively low skilled jobs, most of which are not particularly high paying (although there are exceptions). If the public objective is to use higher education as a means to form human capital and expand national productive capabilities, it appears much of the recent "investment" in colleges is misdirected. The bottom line is that there is a need to rethink higher education policies, particularly the massive one-size-fits-all federal financial assistance programs but also other public provision of higher education services. (Contains 4 figures, 2 tables, and 2 footnotes.)
Stop Misusing Higher Education-Specific Price Indices
Author: Gillen, Andrew
Date: 2011-03-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Higher Education,Educational Finance,Cost Indexes,Tuition,Budgeting,Bias

In order to compare the price of things over time, it is necessary to use a price index to adjust for inflation. The Higher Education Price Index (HEPI) and the Higher Education Cost Adjustment (HECA) were designed to more accurately account for the spending patterns of colleges and universities. However, there are some methodological problems with HEPI and HECA. Both suffer from inherent biases regarding quality, productivity, and substitution causing them, in practice, to overstate the rate of inflation. In addition, HEPI is self-referential. In spite of these problems, HEPI and HECA mirror university spending patterns more closely than other price indices and as such are quite useful for certain purposes, such as internal budget planning. However, as industry specific price indices, they are of very limited use. While HEPI and HECA can be appropriately used for budget forecasting, internal university documents relating to future budgets are rarely publically available. This means that virtually every instance of the use of the HEPI and HECA in the public domain is inappropriate. Those who use HEPI or HECA should be aware of the problems highlighted in this report, namely that HEPI and HECA likely suffer from quality, productivity, and substitution bias, and that HEPI is self-referential. More importantly, however, organizations and institutions need to ensure that they are using the appropriate price index for the issue they are examining. For most purposes (including indexing college tuition for inflation), the use of HEPI or HECA is simply inappropriate. Table 3, "Index Values for Various Price Indices (1961-2010)" is appended. (Contains 2 figures, 3 tables, and 36 footnotes.)
Who Subsidizes Whom? An Analysis of Educational Costs and Revenues
Author: Gillen, Andrew
Date: 2011-03-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Educational Finance,Grants,Expenditure per Student,Program Costs,Tuition,Income,Theory Practice Relationship,Higher Education,School Accounting,Institutional Characteristics

Conventional wisdom holds that colleges and universities heavily subsidize their students. This assertion seems correct, given that total spending per student is almost always in excess of per student tuition payments. However, as the authors show in this report, the conventional wisdom is wrong because it inappropriately compares only one revenue source--tuition payments--to total institutional spending. Such a comparison is seriously misleading because institutional spending encompasses far more than just the educational expenditures that tuition revenues are ostensibly designed to cover. The more logical comparison--and the one which the authors make here--is between what colleges and universities are paid to provide an education versus what those institutions actually spend to provide that education. In many cases student tuition and third-party payments on behalf of students easily cover the portion of spending that is actually used for educational activities. Between 52% and 76% of all students attend institutions where educational payments exceed educational spending. For four-year students, this figure is between 59% and 87%, and for two-year students, it is between 24% and 63%. Appended are: (1) Data Sources and Descriptions; and (2) Methodological Description. (Contains 1 figure, 5 tables, and 13 footnotes.)
Introducing Bennett Hypothesis 2.0
Author: Gillen, Andrew
Date: 2012-02-00
Type: Reports - Descriptive
Subjects: Higher Education,Paying for College,Tuition,Evidence,Colleges,Universities,Student Financial Aid,Educational Improvement,Enrollment,Grants

A quarter of a century ago, then Secretary of Education William J. Bennett made waves by declaring: "If anything, increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase." From that point forward, the notion that increases in financial aid cause increases in tuition has gone by the moniker of the Bennett Hypothesis, and its validity has been hotly debated ever since. Many within higher education view the idea as preposterous. At the same time, many observers of higher education view it as an accurate depiction of reality. Scholars have found evidence that contradicts the notion, but they have also found evidence that confirms the idea, which has allowed both opponents and supporters to claim vindication. In this paper, the author argues that all the mixed evidence and subsequent controversy is a consequence of an overly simplified view of the Bennett Hypothesis. Tweaking the concept to account for a more realistic view of who receives financial aid, the actions available to colleges, and the nature of competition in higher education leads to predictions that are more consistent with the data than the original hypothesis or its antithesis. The three refinements are: (1) All Aid is Not Created Equal; (2) Selectivity, Tuition Caps, and Price Discrimination are Important; and (3) Don't Ignore the Dynamic Story. These three refinements not only help explain the mixed empirical evidence, but also provide a better understanding of the relationship between financial aid and tuition. (Contains 8 figures, 1 table, and 55 footnotes.)
Educational Inequality in the United States: Methodology and Historical Estimation of Education Gini Coefficients
Author: Bennett, Daniel L.
Date: 2011-08-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Equal Education,Statistical Distributions,Educational Attainment,Educational Trends,Human Capital,Age,Gender Issues,Research Methodology,School Statistics,Educational Research

This paper estimates historical measures of equality in the distribution of education in the United States by age group and sex. Using educational attainment data for the population, the EduGini measure indicates that educational inequality in the U.S. declined significantly between 1950 and 2009. Reductions in educational inequality were more profound during the first three decades of the study than the last three, with the degree of inequality remaining relatively constant since the early 1990s. Educational inequality has historically been higher among males than females, but recently the gap has narrowed substantially. Older age groups have experienced greater declines in educational inequality compared to younger age groups. Research extensions of the data presented in this paper are discussed. Appended are: (1) Full Methodology; (2) EduGini by Year, Age Group; (3) Male EduGini by Year, Age Group; and (4) Female EduGini by Year, Age Group. (Contains 5 figures, 3 tables, 20 footnotes.)
Net Tuition and Net Price Trends in the United States: 2000-2009
Author: Gillen, Andrew
Date: 2011-11-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Student Financial Aid,Grants,Methods,Classification,Paying for College,Costs,Tuition,Higher Education,Data Analysis

While the most visible measure of college costs is published tuition, because of financial aid, this &quot;sticker price&quot; does not necessarily reflect the costs that students and their families actually pay. To the extent that students and their families are concerned about what costs they will need to pay to cover tuition charges, the relevant measure is &quot;net tuition,&quot; which is the &quot;sticker price&quot; less any grant aid students receive. This report seeks to document the trends in net tuition over the period starting with the 1999-2000 academic year and ending with the 2008-09 academic year and relate the trends in net tuition to the trends in published tuition. This report provides estimates for the following measures: (1) Published Tuition: the &quot;sticker price&quot; of college; (2) Net Student Tuition: how much students actually pay for tuition (that is, sticker price less grant and scholarship aid); (3) Net Student Price: how much students actually pay, including non-tuition expenses, after accounting for grant and scholarship aid; and (4) College Net Tuition Revenue: how much tuition revenue colleges receive per student. Appended are: (1) Alternative Methods of Calculating Net Tuition; (2) Carnegie Classification Categories; (3) Tax Benefits and Carnegie Classifications; and (4) Aid by Student Class Level. (Contains 6 figures, 7 tables, and 19 footnotes.)
Smarter Spending: Reforming Federal Financial Aid for Higher Education
Author: Gillen, Andrew
Date: 2011-12-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Higher Education,Educational Finance,Educational Change,Money Management,Cost Effectiveness,Federal Aid,Student Financial Aid,Equal Education,Educational Opportunities,Access to Education,Credit (Finance),Human Capital,Educational Benefits,Outcomes of Education,Government School Relationship,Grants,Student Loan Programs

In higher education, three generally recognized rationales for federal involvement in financial aid exist: (1) Promoting equality of opportunity: Those from poor households are less likely to attend college for a variety of reasons; (2) Credit market imperfections: Students may not have access to the credit needed to make profitable investments in their human capital; and (3) Social Benefits (Positive Externalities): A more educated person tends to make others more productive and/or create other social benefits. While there are a few other rationales, these three are routinely emphasized in the establishment and continuation of federal financial aid programs. To various degrees, virtually every federal financial aid program in the country is pushed to advance all three goals, and that is the problem. This paper proposes to remedy many of these problems by restructuring federal financial aid, establishing separate programs focused exclusively on each goal. The next three sections review in greater detail the backgrounds and current practices to promote each of the three goals of financial aid, and then offer specific recommendations. These recommendations include the continuation of the Pell grant program, a replacement of the student loan programs, and the creation of a new subsidy program that targets subsidies to those areas of higher education that create social benefits. (Contains 1 figure, 1 table, and 58 footnotes.)
Faculty Productivity and Costs at the University of Texas at Austin: A Preliminary Analysis
Author: Vedder, Richard
Date: 2011-05-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Higher Education,Campuses,College Credits,Expenditure per Student,Program Budgeting,Cost Effectiveness,Teacher Student Ratio,College Faculty,Productivity,Research,Grants,Teaching Load,Differences,Educational Finance,Finance Reform

In this report, the authors examine recently released preliminary data concerning faculty compensation, teaching loads and external research grant awards at one of the nation's largest college campuses, The University of Texas at Austin. The authors use these data to assess faculty productivity (in terms of both teaching and research), and their analysis reveals vast disparities in the functions professors actually perform and the compensation which they receive for their services. The data reveal that a relatively small portion of faculty teaches a sizable majority of the students, and, similarly, a minority of faculty secures the vast majority of funded academic research. Conversely, a significant proportion of the faculty is far less productive: teaching little while also generating little external research grant dollars. The analysis suggests that the cries that examination of faculty productivity meant an end to UT Austin's status as a major research institution are at the very minimum highly exaggerated, and more likely totally inappropriate. These preliminary results highlight the dramatic financial consequences of low teaching loads. Data and Methodology are appended. (Contains 11 footnotes.)
Literary Research: Costs and Impact
Author: Bauerlein, Mark
Date: 2011-11-00
Type: Reports - Evaluative
Subjects: Productivity,College Faculty,Essays,Humanities,Research Universities,Cost Effectiveness,Program Administration,Educational Research,Economic Impact,Case Studies,Citation Analysis,Textbooks,Investment,Input Output Analysis,Supply and Demand,Program Costs,Literary Genres,Operating Expenses

One of the standard labor practices of research universities is to hire, pay, and promote faculty members on the basis of the research they produce. In the humanities, professors write books and articles and universities reward them accordingly. The system amounts to a considerable expenditure for the institution and a significant portion of faculty time and energy. Is the outcome worth the investment? In the humanities, is research publication the best use of university resources and faculty talent? This paper examines the system of research productivity in literary studies--its policies and expectations, and its costs and outputs. To illustrate the system, the English departments at SUNY-Buffalo, University of Georgia, University of Illinois and University of Vermont are reviewed. The focus is on departments in order to add empirical evidence to the rising debate over the standing and costs of the humanities in research universities, and departments are the places in which personnel decisions primarily happen. The review reveals that: (1) Universities make substantial investments in faculty research through direct compensation; (2) Faculty members respond to this support by producing ample numbers of scholarly books and articles; and (3) Once those books and essays are published, the vast majority of them attract meager attention from other scholars. There is a glaring mismatch between the resources these universities and faculty members invest and the impact of most published scholarship. Despite the scant attention paid to this scholarship, a faculty member's promotion and annual review depends heavily on the professor's published work. A university's resources and human capital is thereby squandered as highly-trained and intelligent professionals toil over projects that have little consequence. (Contains 2 figures, 2 tables, and 18 notes.) [This paper was supported by the James Madison Program and the Ann and Herbert W. Vaughn Fellowship at Princeton University.]