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The article discusses the opportunities and challenges for public and private universities in the U.S. with the continuous rise in higher education in the U.S. It predicts the implementation of cost-cutting measures such as online teaching, and the increasing use of non-tenure-track instructors by public universities and colleges to deal with the rising costs. It highlights the erosion of higher quality education with the implementation of cost-cutting plans.

I began using the theme of education in my first-year composition courses at Kingsborough Community College because it is one context that I am sure that I share with my class, something we all have some degree of access to and opinions about. Because so many students rightly relate the issues of college cost and loan debt to class mobility, I have dedicated a second unit of my course specifically to the topic of class and education. I try to remind my students that their problems are a part of larger political and economic systems. This tends to steer the conversation away from shallow arguments of self-interest and toward deeper understandings of systems and structures. What if more students were able to make meaningful connections between their lived experiences and political discourse? Such analysis is crucial, not just for students to perform better in the academic environment, but also as a means of supporting an informed and active democracy. [Extracted from the article]

The article discusses the reportedly unsupportable cost of variable pricing of student loans in America as of September 2013, focusing on unfairness and the potential impacts of interest rate changes on borrowers and default rates in the U.S. College financial aid and the costs associated with higher education in America are mentioned, along with Professor Michael Simkovic and risk-based student loans. A mismatch between the skills of workers and the needs of employers is examined.

Over the past decade, institutionally-funded financial aid (or 'tuition discounts') have been the fastest-growing item within most public four-year college and university operating budgets. One explanation for this trend is due to the changing structure of public colleges' revenue streams, as tuition and fees have replaced state appropriations as a viable and predictable source of funding. This analysis explores the extent to which expenditures on institutionally-funded financial aid generates additional revenue for public four-year colleges and universities. Using institutional data ( n = 174) from 2002 to 2008, the analysis implements a generalized method of moments (GMM) technique and concludes that aid indeed can be leveraged for revenue generation. However, this relationship is only sustainable to a certain point. When unfunded tuition discount rates exceed approximately 13%, institutions may experience diminishing revenue returns to this financial aid investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents research regarding ways in which U.S. state policies for funding higher education impact student admissions and enrollment at universities. A brief history of student financial aid programs in the U.S. is provided which includes a description of the federally funded Pell Grant program and the shift in policy to need-based student aid during the 1980s. Particular focus within the research is paid to the relationship between higher education financing policies and the socioeconomic status (SES) and racial characteristics of students.

Abstract: Many educational systems have struggled with the question about how best to give out financial aid. In particular, if students do not know the amount of financial aid that they can receive before they make a decision about where to go to college and what major to study, it may distort their decision. This study utilizes an experiment (implemented by the authors as a Randomized Control Trial) to analyze whether or not an alternative way of providing financial aid—by providing an early commitment on financial aid during the student''s senior year of high school instead of after entering college—affects the college decision making of poor students in rural China. We find that if early commitments are made early enough; and they are large enough, students will make less distorting college decisions. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The article presents a study which examines the reasons on why parents are paying for the college education of their children. The study presents the data of the three cases related to the consciousness of parents on paying for the college education of their children such as one on the benefit of college education and one on their obligations for paying for education of the children. The study shows that the opinions of parents are based on their ability to pay the costs for higher education.

In this article the authors present their view on the debate between two views of how to expand college access for low-income students in a public university. The two views include the high tuition/high aid (HH) model in which supporters contend that list tuition should reflect the true cost of education and the actual cost minus aid should reflect one's ability to pay. The second view, the low tuition/low (LL) aid model, argues that college subsidies should be spread more evenly over the student population. The authors conclude that the LL model could be the best way to encourage students to attend college in their home states.

This paper argues that the introduction of access agreements following the establishment of the Office for Fair Access (OFFA) has consolidated how English higher education institutions (HEIs) position themselves in the marketplace in relation to widening participation. However, the absence of a national bursary scheme has led to obfuscation rather than clarification from the perspective of the consumer. This paper analyses OFFA's 2008 monitoring report and a sample of twenty HEIs’ original 2006 and revised or updated access agreements (2008) to draw conclusions about the impact of these agreements on notions of ‘fair access’ and widening participation. The authors conclude that, unsurprisingly in an increasingly market-driven system, institutions use access agreements primarily to promote enrolment to their own programmes rather than to promote system-wide objectives. As a consequence of this marketing focus, previous differences between pre-1992 and post-1992 institutions in relation to widening participation and fair access are perpetuated, leading to both confusion for consumers and an inequitable distribution of bursary and other support mechanisms for the poorest applicants to HE. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Student loans schemes are in operation in more than seventy countries around the world. Most loans schemes benefit from sizeable built-in government subsidies and, in addition, are subject to repayment default and administrative costs that are not passed on to student borrowers. We probe two issues in this paper, for 44 loans schemes in 39 countries: how much of the original loan is an individual student required to repay (the “repayment ratio”) and what percentage of the total costs of loans schemes can the lending body expect to receive back in repayments (the “recovery ratio”)? The analysis shows considerable variation in the size of the repayment and recovery ratios across schemes. Moreover, many loans schemes exhibit sizeable built-in subsidies accruing to student borrowers—in over 40% of the schemes examined, the repayment ratio is 40% or less. Overall loans recovery is considerably lower. Policy implications of these findings are discussed together with a consideration of steps that may be taken to improve the financial outcome of loans schemes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since about 1980, the university has been subject, like most institutions of the welfare state, to privatization, casualization of labor, and corporate management. It took some time for critics to understand what was going on, but the past decade has seen a great deal of analysis of the "corporate university," especially of labor and administration. One thing that has largely gone unanalyzed is the precipitous rise in student debt. This essay calls attention to the pernicious policy of student debt. It adduces a brief history of student debt, statistics of its dramatic rise in the past decade, and how it represents a shift in conception of higher education, from public to private service and youthful exemption to market conscription. It also speculates on the lessons that enforced debt—enforced if you need a higher degree—teaches about the public sphere, the market, and the possibilities of a welfare state. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the global trend in shifting university costs from national governments to individual students and families, with a specific focus on the existing cost-sharing model in Australian higher education. The research examines the manner in which the availability of income-contingent loans (through the Higher Education Contribution Scheme, or HECS) enters into individual cost assessments and evaluative frameworks during the university exploration and search process of low-income Australian youth, and the resulting lessons that might be applied to other national contexts. Semi-structured interviews with 16 participants addressed a broad range of issues related to the development of educational aspirations, and how beliefs and attitudes about cost influenced participants’ understanding and decision-making regarding tertiary enrollment and post-graduate plans. A number of discreet and related themes emerged from analysis of the interviews, including motivations for attending university; pre-university cost considerations; self-assessments of skills, abilities, and personal traits and characteristics; general financial orientation; pre-university experiences and influences; and the role of others including family, peers, teachers and other school staff. The author concludes that the Australian system is worthy of consideration by other nations as a possible mechanism for enhancing access to higher education for individuals who might otherwise not possess the opportunity to participate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Using a random sample of college students, this study identifies the factors that significantly affect the probability a college student is financially at risk for mismanaging/misusing credit. Financially at-risk students are more likely to be financially independent, to receive need-based financial aid, to hold $1000 or more in other debt, and to have acquired their credit card(s) by mail, at a retail store, and/or at a campus table. Students having difficulty making credit card payments are also more likely to be female, black, and/or Hispanic. Campus administrators and financial professionals can use this information to better allocate their resources and develop materials that specifically target those students who need them most. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Examines the student financial aid program in Finland. Benefits the program give to students; Details on the expenditures of students; Direct and indirect financial support for students; Importance of parental support and contributions of students.

Reports on an investigation of differences and similarities across the 50 states in the United States in terms of approaches to the pricing and discounting, via student aid, of undergraduate education. Philosophical origins of public tuition and aid policies; Theoretical framework; Per-capita state student aid; State tuition pricing policies.

Investigates whether student aid, as a system, is working like it's supposed to in the U.S. Congress' plan to begin its reauthorization of the student-aid legislation; Real value of student aid; Concern about the costs of college; Chronology of student-aid programs, economic cycles, and political events that have affected college enrollments.

The article presents the results of the National Loan Debt Clock, a study by the Student Public Interest Research Groups, which show that American students are $535 trillion in debt for student loans. It is stated that these debts can often put the life of a student after graduation on hold, bringing into as much as a $1000 a month in payments, and permit the student loan companies to garnish wages and benefits. Details on the impact of student loans on borrowers as well as on graduate education are also considered.