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After decades of frustration with increasingly complex college financial aid policies, a nationwide shift toward "free college" programs has gained momentum. New York State joined the free college movement in 2017, when Governor Andrew Cuomo announced his goal to make public higher education tuition-free for most students during his State of the State address. The proposed Excelsior Scholarship would resemble the free tuition programs emerging at Ivy Plus universities in that it would cover any in-state public college tuition not already covered by other sources for students with family incomes up to $125,000. In this essay, the authors assess the distribution of benefits, in terms of who qualifies for, receives, and renews the scholarship. They focus on students enrolled in community colleges and senior (four-year) colleges of the City University of New York (CUNY). The authors find that middle- and upper-income students are most likely to benefit from the program, largely because of the eligibility formula's last-dollar nature; most middle- and low-income students already have their tuition covered by other aid. Based on evidence from other financial aid programs, the authors hypothesize that the application process and complex contracts students must sign may impede access to benefits.

Despite increasing financial pressures on higher education systems throughout the world, many governments remain resolutely opposed to the introduction of tuition fees, and some countries and states where tuition fees have been long established are now reconsidering free higher education. This paper examines the consequences of charging tuition fees on university quality, enrolments, and equity. To do so, we study the English higher education system which has, in just two decades, moved from a free college system to one in which tuition fees are among the highest in the world. Our findings suggest that England's shift has resulted in increased funding per head, rising enrolments, and a narrowing of the participation gap between advantaged and disadvantaged students. In contrast to other systems with high tuition fees, the English system is distinct in that its income-contingent loan system keeps university free at the point of entry, and provides students with comparatively generous assistance for living expenses. We conclude that tuition fees, at least in the English case supported their goals of increasing quality, quantity, and equity in higher education

Over the past few years, a multitude of studies have examined the labor market returns to community college credentials, taking advantage of new administrative datasets that link college transcripts to quarterly earnings records and allow for comparisons of students' earnings before and after enrollment. These studies, however, typically follow students for only four to six years after initial entry, meaning they may only be observed for a year or two after graduation. Graduates' early labor market experiences may not fully capture the returns to completion, and may particularly distort comparisons of longer versus shorter duration credential programs. We extend the literature by examining returns to terminal associate degrees and certificates up to 11 years after students initially entered a community college in Ohio. We use an individual fixed-effects approach that controls for students' pre-enrollment earnings and allows the returns to credential completion to vary over time. Additionally, we examine how the returns to credential completion shift as students enter and exit the Great Recession, as well as how credentials affect other labor market outcomes such as employment stability and the likelihood of earning a "living wage." Our results confirm prior findings regarding the positive early returns to associate degrees and long-term certificates. However, the value of an associate degree grows substantially after graduation while the returns to a long-term certificate remain flat. Returns to associate degrees are notably higher during the recession (the patterns for certificates are more muted and vary by gender). Finally, we find that while both associate degrees and long-term certificates increase the likelihood and stability of employment, associate degrees lead to much higher paying jobs and a greater likelihood of earning a living wage. We conclude with a discussion of policy implications.

This document was designed as a companion to the full report entitled "The Impact of Pell Grant Eligibility on Community College Students' Financial Aid Packages, Labor Supply, and Academic Outcomes." Provided here are the appendices to the full report as follows: (1) Methods for Choosing Optimal Bandwidths; (2) Gerard, Rokkanen, and Rothe (2016) Bounds; (3) Sensitivity Checks; (4) Probability of Receiving Pell Grant (Left) and Average Amount of Pell Grant (Right) by EFC; (5) Baseline Covariance by EFC--Loan School Only; and (6) Baseline Covariance by EFC--Continuous School Only. [For the full report, see ED574818.]

In this paper, we examine the effects of receiving a modest Pell Grant on financial aid packages, labor supply while in school, and academic outcomes for community college students. Using administrative data from one state, we compare community college students just above and below the expected family contribution (EFC) cutoff for receiving a Pell Grant. Between 2008 and 2010, students just below the cutoff qualified for an average of $500 in Pell Grants. We find that other financial aid adjusts in ways that vary by institution: students at schools that offer federal loans borrowed more if they just missed the Pell eligibility threshold, but at other schools, students who just missed the cutoff for Pell were compensated with higher state grants. Focusing on the loan-offering schools where students face a discontinuity in total grant aid, we find suggestive evidence that receiving a modest Pell Grant instead of additional loans leads students to reduce labor supply and increase enrollment intensity. We also provide indirect evidence that students' initial enrollment choices are influenced by an offer of Pell Grants versus loans. [For the appendices to this report see ED574820.]

Satisfactory academic progress (SAP) requirements have existed in some form in the federal student aid programs for nearly 40 years--and have become increasingly strict--yet only limited research exists regarding their motivations and consequences. In this brief, the authors discuss two recent CAPSEE studies they conducted that examine the consequences of SAP policy for first-time community college students in two separate, anonymous states. They discuss the underlying motivations for the policy, examine how students are affected, and assess the implications for program efficiency and equity. [Elizabeth Ganga and Rachel Yang Zhou contributed to this brief.]

The Federal Work-Study (FWS) program is one of the oldest federal programs intended to promote college access and persistence for low-income students. Since 1964, the program has provided approximately $1 billion annually to cover up to 75 percent of the wages of student employees, who typically work on campus for 10 to 15 hours per week. The FWS program has an extensive reach, serving nearly 700,000 students per year, including one out of every 10 full-time first-year undergraduates (and three out of 10 at private nonprofit four-year colleges). Among recipients, the average annual award size is $2,270 (representing about 66 percent of published tuition and fees at a public two-year college or 24 percent at a public four-year college, but only 5 percent of published tuition and fees at a private nonprofit four-year college). Despite this longstanding reach, federal funding for the FWS program has been stagnant for more than a decade, and in inflation-adjusted terms it has actually declined by nearly 25 percent since 2000 (to $982 million in 2015-16, from $1.3 billion in 2000-01), even as student enrollment and student need have both grown (College Board, n.d.). This decline in support may reflect two persistent concerns: first, the lack of adequate evidence regarding the program's impact on student outcomes, and second, discomfort with its "campus-based" funding mechanism, which provides funds to institutions rather than students and disproportionately benefits selective private institutions. While some small private institutions are able to provide FWS to all eligible students, public institutions typically can provide FWS to only a fraction of students that qualify, and at some community colleges, FWS funds are effectively nonexistent. In this brief, the authors discuss current research regarding both the effectiveness of the program and its equity in terms of the distribution of funds. The authors begin by highlighting findings from recent research by the Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment (CAPSEE) which suggests that the program does positively influence students' college attainment and post-college outcomes. The evidence also suggests that these impacts may be greatest for low-income students and students at public institutions. The authors then discuss how the current process for allocating FWS funds to institutions leaves these very students--those who are most likely to benefit--with the least access to the program. They conclude with implications for policy, including potential channels that might be used to maximize the effectiveness of the program.

The increasing availability of massive administrative datasets linking postsecondary enrollees with post-college earnings records has stimulated a wealth of new research on the returns to college, and has accelerated state and federal efforts to hold institutions accountable for students' labor market outcomes. Many of these new research and policy efforts rely on state databases limited to postsecondary enrollees who work in the same state post-college, with limited information regarding family background and pre-college ability. In this paper, we use recent waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to provide new, nationally representative, non-experimental estimates of the returns to degrees, as well as to assess the possible limitations of single-state, administrative-data-based estimates. To do this we evaluate how the national estimates change, depending upon the baseline comparison group, adjustments for pre-college achievement and family background, and alternative ways of addressing interstate mobility. We conclude with a discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of survey versus administrative data for estimating returns to college, as well as implications for research and policy efforts based upon single-state administrative databases. [For "Estimating Returns to College Attainment: Comparing Survey and State Administrative Data Based Estimates: Appendices A, B, C, D, and E," see ED573077.]

The increasing availability of massive administrative datasets linking postsecondary enrollees with post-college earnings records has stimulated a wealth of new research on the returns to college, and has accelerated state and federal efforts to hold institutions accountable for students' labor market outcomes. Many of these new research and policy efforts rely on state databases limited to postsecondary enrollees who work in the same state post-college, with limited information regarding family background and pre-college ability. In this paper, we use recent waves of data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth 1997 (NLSY97) to provide new, nationally representative, non-experimental estimates of the returns to degrees, as well as to assess the possible limitations of single-state, administrative-data-based estimates. To do this we evaluate how the national estimates change, depending upon the baseline comparison group, adjustments for pre-college achievement and family background, and alternative ways of addressing interstate mobility. We conclude with a discussion of the relative advantages and disadvantages of survey versus administrative data for estimating returns to college, as well as implications for research and policy efforts based upon single-state administrative databases. The appendices presented here include: (1) Definitions and Additional Notes for Key Variables; (2) Additional Details of Data Cleaning; (3) Comparing Self-Reported and Administrative College Enrollment and Attainment Data; (4) Results of Crosschecking Self-Reported Survey Data and Postsecondary Transcripts Data for the NLSY97; and (5) Selected Studies on the Labor Market Returns to Postsecondary Education. [For the full report: "Estimating Returns to College Attainment: Comparing Survey and State Administrative Data Based Estimates," see ED573076.]

College attendance is a risky investment. But students may not recognize when they are at risk for failure, and financial aid introduces the possibility for moral hazard. Academic performance standards can serve three roles in this context: signaling expectations for success, providing incentives for increased student effort, and limiting financial losses. Such standards have existed in federal need-based aid programs for nearly 40 years in the form of Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) requirements, yet have received virtually no academic attention. In this paper, we sketch a simple model to illustrate not only student responses to standards but also the tradeoffs faced by a social planner weighing whether to set performance standards in the context of need-based aid. We then use regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference designs to examine the consequences of SAP failure. In line with theoretical predictions, we find heterogeneous effects in the short term, with negative impacts on persistence but positive effects on grades for students who remain enrolled. After three years, the negative effects appear to dominate. Effects on credits attempted are 2-3 times as large as effects on credits earned, suggesting that standards increase the efficiency of aid expenditures. But it also appears to exacerbate inequality in higher education by pushing out low-performing low-income students faster than their equally low-performing, but higher-income peers. A table on DID Estimated Effects of Failing GPA Performance Standard At End of Year 1, No Covariates is appended.

While research has consistently found strong positive earnings returns to the bachelor's degree, recent evidence also highlights heterogeneity in post-college outcomes. Combined with increases in the proportions of students borrowing to enroll, heterogeneity in college outcomes introduces the risk that some students with college degrees may experience financial hardship after graduation. Using nationally representative data on baccalaureate recipients in 1993 and 2008, this paper jointly examines labor market and debt outcomes four years after students graduate, with a focus on exploring heterogeneity by institution type and major field of study, as well as trends over time. Results confirm that the typical graduate fares well after college, both in terms of earnings and debt management. Borrowing rates and debt loads have increased substantially over time, but these substantially higher levels of debt are nonetheless manageable for the vast majority of graduates. Within this context of positive outcomes, stratification by institution type, for both earnings and debt outcomes, appears to be increasing. Similarly, while the top-earning majors have remained quite stable over time, the magnitude of the advantage of engineering, math/computer science, and business graduates has grown notably. Examining debt alongside earnings only reinforces the patterns by major: higher earning fields also have lower debt-to-earnings ratios. Overall, these patterns offer reassurance regarding the typical returns to bachelors' degrees, even for those graduating into the Great Recession, and even in light of growing debt loads. But the results also provide evidence that students' choices about where to attend and what to study have only become more consequential over time. The following tables are appended: (1) Employment, Enrollment, and Debt Outcomes by Gender; (2) Employment, Enrollment, and Debt Outcomes by Self-Reported Race/Ethnicity; and (3) Employment, Enrollment, and Debt Outcomes by Highest Parental Education.

The Federal Pell Grant Program is the nation's largest need-based grant program. While students' initial eligibility for the Pell is based on financial need, renewal of the award is contingent on their making satisfactory academic progress (SAP)--meeting minimum academic standards similar to those proposed in models of performance-based scholarships. It is not clear how many students are affected by failure to meet SAP standards, or how the policies shape student outcomes. In this study, we draw from literature on performance-based funding and academic probation to consider the potential implications of SAP standards. We describe federal guidelines and illustrate how SAP is evaluated in a statewide community college system. Using administrative data with term-by-term measures of Pell receipt, student grades, attempted and earned credits, persistence, degree attainment, and transfer, we employ regression discontinuity and difference-in-differences approaches to examine the magnitude of SAP failure and its effects. Our results suggest that a substantial portion of Pell recipients at community colleges are at risk for Pell ineligibility due to their failure to meet SAP grade point average (GPA) or credit completion requirements. Approximately a quarter fail to meet the GPA standard alone. When the credit completion requirement is taken into consideration, the first-year SAP failure rate approaches 40 percent. Our preferred difference-in-differences estimates show mixed effects of SAP standards: Failing to meet the GPA requirement has a negative impact on persistence into the second year, but it may improve associate degree attainment and transfer among students who are not discouraged from reenrolling. The following are appended: (1) Regression Discontinuity Results; and (2) Difference-in-Differences Results.

Student employment subsidies are one of the largest types of federal employment subsidies, and one of the oldest forms of student aid. Yet it is unclear whether they help or harm students' long term outcomes. This document contains the appendices to the report "Should Student Employment Be Subsidized? Conditional Counterfactuals and the Outcomes of Work-Study Participation. A CAPSEE Working Paper". Appendix A provides additional full sample results in table form: (1) Table A1.1: Summary Statistics by FWS Status Before and After Propensity Score Matching--Model 1; (2) Table A1.2: Summary Statistics by FWS Status Before and After Propensity Score Matching--Model 2; (3) Table A1.3: Summary Statistics by FWS Status Before and After Propensity Score --Model 3; (4) Table A2.1: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions Using Caliper 0.2; (5) Table A2.2: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions Using Nearest Neighbor with Replacement; (6) Table A2.3: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions Using Five-Nearest-Neighbors With Replacement; (7) Table A3: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for the Overall Sample, Including Independent, Part-Time Students, and Two-Year Enrollees; (8) Table A4: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions and Discarding Observations With Missing Data; (9) Table A5: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3, Clustering Standard Errors by Institution After Matching; (10) Table A6.1: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes Using Nearest Neighbor Matching and Adjusting S.E. for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; (11) Table A6.2: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes Using teffects nnmatch Five-Nearest-Neighbors for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; (12) Table A7: OLS Impact Estimates of Federal Work Study (FWS) on Student Outcomes for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; and (13) Table A8. Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3 for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions who Filed FAFSA. Appendix B provides subgroup analyses in table form: (1) Table B1.1: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent and High Ability Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; (2) Table B1.2: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent and Low Ability Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; (3) Table B2.1: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent and High-Income Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; (4) Table B2.2: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent and Low-Income Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; (5) Table B3.1: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions Located in High Unemployment Areas; (6) Table B3.2: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions Located in Low Unemployment Areas; (7) Table B4.1: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions Located in Urban Areas; (8) Table B4.2: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent Students Entering Four-Year Institutions Located in Rural Areas; (9) Table B5.1: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent Female Students Entering Four-Year Institutions; and (10) Table B5.2: Federal Work Study (FWS) Impact on Student Outcomes for Full-Time Dependent Male Students Entering Four-Year Institutions. [For the full report, "Should Student Employment Be Subsidized? Conditional Counterfactuals and the Outcomes of Work-Study Participation. A CAPSEE Working Paper," see ED555373.]

Student employment subsidies are one of the largest types of federal employment subsidies, and one of the oldest forms of student aid. Yet it is unclear whether they help or harm students' long term outcomes. We present a framework that decomposes overall effects into a weighted average of effects for marginal and inframarginal workers. We then use an application of propensity scores, which we call conditional-counterfactual matching, in which we estimate the overall impact, and the impact under two distinct counterfactuals: working at an unsubsidized job, or not working at all. Finally, we estimate the effects of the largest student employment subsidy program--Federal Work-Study (FWS)--for a broad range of participants and outcomes. Our results suggest that about half of FWS participants are inframarginal workers, for whom FWS reduces hours worked and improves academic outcomes, but has little impact on future employment. For students who would not have worked otherwise, the pattern of effects reverses. With the exception of first-year GPA, we find scant evidence of negative effects of FWS for any outcome or subgroup. However, positive effects are largest for lower-income and lower-SAT subgroups, suggesting there may be gains to improved targeting of funds. [For Appendix A: Additional Full Sample Results and Appendix B: Subgroup Analyses, see ED555376, "Should Student Employment Be Subsidized? Conditional Counterfactuals and the Outcomes of Work-Study Participation: Appendices A and B. A CAPSEE Working Paper."]

The increasing tension between the perceived necessity of a college degree and the challenge of paying for it has led to a proliferation of financial aid policy in the U.S. and around the world. More students are receiving more aid today, and more different types of aid, than ever before. Half a century of policy experimentation has led to an equally impressive accumulation of research evidence, facilitated by methodological advances and the widespread availability of student-level administrative data. In this chapter, we present the economic rationale for financial aid, a summary of how aid works in the U.S. context, and common methodological challenges in the study of financial aid. We then review the evidence from both inside and outside the U.S. on the causal impact of a variety of financial aid policies and programs on students' college decisions, attainment, and post-college outcomes, and summarize the overarching themes with respect to margins of impact, mechanisms, and heterogeneity. We conclude with a discussion of future directions for research.

Non-financial barriers to college are an important possible explanation for socioeconomic, racial, gender, and other gaps in college access and success. A sizeable economic literature documents policy efforts to understand and address these barriers. We review this literature on non-financial interventions for improving college access and success ranging from discreet and narrowly defined interventions to comprehensive and multifaceted programs and systemic-level solutions.

In the nearly fifty years since the adoption of the Higher Education Act of 1965, financial aid programs have grown in scale, expanded in scope, and multiplied in form. As a result, financial aid has become the norm among college enrollees. Aid now flows not only to traditional college students but also to part-time students, older students, and students who never graduated from high school. Today aid is available not only to low-income students but also to middle- and even high-income families, in the form of grants, subsidized loans, and tax credits. The increasing size and complexity of the nation's student aid system has generated questions about effectiveness, heightened confusion among students and parents, and raised concerns about how program rules may interact. In this article, Susan Dynarski and Judith Scott-Clayton review what is known, and just as important, what is not known, about how well various student aid programs work. The evidence, the authors write, clearly shows that lowering costs can improve college access and completion. But this general rule is not without exception. First, they note, the complexity of program eligibility and delivery appears to moderate the impact of aid on college enrollment and persistence after enrollment. Second, for students who have already decided to enroll, grants that tie financial aid to academic achievement appear to boost college outcomes such as persistence more than do grants with no strings attached. Third, compared with grant aid, relatively little rigorous research has been conducted on the effectiveness of student loans. The paucity of evidence on student loans is particularly problematic both because they represent a large share of student aid overall and because their low cost (relative to grant aid) makes them an attractive option for policy makers. Future research is likely to focus on several issues: the importance of program design and delivery, whether there are unanticipated interactions between programs, and to what extent program effects vary across different types of students. The results of this evidence will be critical, the authors say, as politicians look for ways to control spending. (Contains 2 figures, 1 table, and 77 endnotes.)

Community colleges are typically assumed to be nonselective, open-access institutions. Yet access to college-level courses at such institutions is far from guaranteed: the vast majority of two-year institutions administer high-stakes exams to entering students that determine their placement into either college-level or remedial education. Despite the stakes involved, there has been relatively little research investigating whether such exams are valid for their intended purpose, or whether other measures of preparedness might be equally or even more effective. This paper contributes to the literature by analyzing the predictive validity of one of the most commonly used assessments, using data on over 42,000 first-time entrants to a large, urban community college system. Using both traditional correlation coefficients as well as more useful decision-theoretic measures of placement accuracy and error rates, I find that placement exams are more predictive of success in math than in English, and more predictive of who is likely to do well in college-level coursework than of who is likely to fail. Utilizing multiple measures to make placement decisions could reduce severe misplacements by about 15 percent without changing the remediation rate, or could reduce the remediation rate by 8 to 12 percentage points while maintaining or increasing success rates in college-level courses. Implications and limitations are discussed. (Contains 6 tables, 5 figures and 12 footnotes.)

As community colleges search for models of organizational success, new attention is being paid to technical colleges--institutions that primarily offer terminal programs in specific career-related fields rather than focusing on more general academic credentials and transfer programs as many comprehensive institutions do. Recent research observes that in some states, technical colleges have substantially higher completion rates than do comprehensive community colleges. Yet there is scant research available that systematically compares similar students in similar programs at technical and comprehensive colleges. This study uses administrative data from Washington State to compare the outcomes of young, career-technical students across institutions, with and without extensive controls for student characteristics, educational intent, and area of study. This generates three key findings: first, technical and comprehensive colleges tend to serve quite different populations, so a true apples-to-apples comparison requires limiting the analysis to a relatively small fraction (less than 10%) of students enrolled at either institution. Second, at least for this limited subset of career-technical students, technical schools have significantly higher certificate completion rates after three years, with no apparent deficit in associate degree completion. Our third main finding is that the differences in student outcomes "within" the two types of schools are much larger than differences "between" them. Even within this limited group, institution type alone explains a relatively small fraction of the overall variation in student outcomes across institutions. It would thus be unwise for research and policymakers to fixate on this one dimension of difference. (Contains 1 figure, 8 tables and 20 footnotes.)

Based on a longer review, this Brief summarizes research evidence and theoretical discussion regarding whether community college students are more likely to persist and succeed in programs that are tightly and consciously structured, with relatively little room for individuals to deviate from paths toward completion, and with limited bureaucratic obstacles. The lineage of this hypothesis can be traced back in part to Tinto's seminal work on student persistence (1993), which recognized that the dropout phenomenon is not solely an individual failure but also an institutional one. In the community college context, this hypothesis has been prominently raised in recent years by Rosenbaum, Deil-Amen, and Person (2006), who examined differences in organizational procedures between public and private two-year colleges. The definition of "structure" used in this Brief refers not only to explicit institutional policies and procedures, but also to "norms and nudges" that may more subtly influence individuals' decisions at a point of action. This broad definition is influenced by recent literature on choice architecture, which calls attention to the way that choices are structured and presented. After outlining the kinds of decisions community college students face and the context within which they do so, this Brief introduces several concepts to examine how the structure of student decision-making may influence students' choices. It then discusses evidence regarding potential structure-based interventions and concludes with suggestions for future research and practice. [This Brief is based on "The Shapeless River: Does a Lack of Structure Inhibit Students' Progress at Community Colleges? CCRC Working Paper No. 25. Assessment of Evidence Series" (ED515131).]

For many students at community colleges, finding a path to degree completion is the equivalent of navigating a shapeless river on a dark night. While academic preparation and financial supports are critical components of student success, subtle institutional features may also play an important role. This paper thus reviews the evidence for what is called the "structure hypothesis: that community college students will be more likely to persist and succeed in programs that are tightly and consciously structured, with relatively little room for individuals to unintentionally deviate from paths toward completion, and with limited bureaucratic obstacles for students to circumnavigate". This review of the literature inside and outside of higher education suggests that the lack of structure in many community colleges is likely to result in less-than-optimal decisions by students about whether and how to persist toward a credential. Though there is no silver-bullet intervention to address this problem, this paper highlights several promising programs and suggests directions for future experimentation and research. (Contains 8 footnotes.)

Placement exams are high-stakes assessments that determine many students' college trajectories. More than half of entering students at community colleges are placed into developmental education in at least one subject, based primarily on scores from these assessments, yet recent research fails to find evidence that placement into remediation improves student outcomes. While this has spurred debate about the content and delivery of remedial coursework, another possibility is that the assessment process itself may be broken. In this review of the literature on community college assessment policy, we argue that the debate about remediation policy is incomplete without a fuller understanding of the role of assessment. We then examine: (1) the extent of consensus regarding the role of developmental assessment and how it is best implemented; (2) the validity of the most common assessments currently in use; and (3) emerging directions in assessment policy and practice. We conclude with a discussion of gaps in the literature and potential implications for policy and research. (Contains 1 table and 10 footnotes.)[Format changes were made to conform to ERIC guidelines.]

This report analyzes new data on student debt and repayment, released by the U.S. Department of Education in October 2017. Previously available data have been limited to borrowers only, follow students for a relatively short period (3-5 years) after entering repayment, and had only limited information on student characteristics and experiences. The new data allow for the most comprehensive assessment to date of student debt and default from the moment students first enter college, to when they are repaying loans up to 20 years later, for two cohorts of first-time entrants (in 1995-96 and 2003-04). This report provides a broader perspective on student debt and default that considers all college entrants rather than just borrowers, provides substantially longer follow-up, and enables a more detailed analysis of trends over time and heterogeneity across subgroups than previously possible. Key findings from new analysis of these data include: (1) Trends for the 1996 entry cohort show that cumulative default rates continue to rise between 12 and 20 years after initial entry; (2) The new data show the importance of examining outcomes for all entrants, not just borrowers, since borrowing rates differ substantially across groups and over time; (3) The new data underscore that default rates depend more on student and institutional factors than on average levels of debt; (4) Debt and default among black college students is at crisis levels, and even a bachelor's degree is no guarantee of security; and (5) Trends over time are most alarming among for-profit colleges. The results suggest that diffuse concern with rising levels of average debt is misplaced. Rather, the results provide support for robust efforts to regulate the for-profit sector, to improve degree attainment and promote income-contingent loan repayment options for all students, and to more fully address the particular challenges faced by college students of color.

A previous "Evidence Speaks" report described the high rates at which student loan borrowers default on their repayment within 12 years of initial college entry, often on relatively modest amounts of debt. A striking pattern emerging from that and other prior work is how dramatically default rates vary by institution sector and by race/ethnicity: black, non-Hispanic entrants and for-profit entrants experience default at much higher rates than other students. This report examines whether these disparities in default rates can be explained by other factors, noting what happens after a default and whether this also varies by race or institution sector. It utilizes data released by the U.S. Department of Education in October 2017, linking survey and administrative data from the Beginning Postsecondary Student (BPS) surveys to administrative data on debt and defaults from the National Student Loan Data System. The report focuses on the BPS 2003-04 survey sample, which is nationally representative of college entrants who enrolled for the first time in 2003-04. [For "The Looming Student Loan Default Crisis Is Worse than We Thought. Evidence Speaks Reports, Vol 2, #34," see ED581719.]

Displaced workers suffer large and persistent earnings losses. These losses can be mitigated by returning to school, yet the extent to which such workers enroll in post-secondary education in response to displacement is poorly understood. Using employer-employee-student matched administrative data from Ohio, we provide the first direct evidence of workers' enrollment responses following mass layoffs in the United States. Close to 10% of these displaced workers enroll in public two- or four-year colleges after displacement, with the typical enrollment persisting for five semesters and 29% completing a degree. However, much of this enrollment may have occurred regardless of the displacement. To estimate a causal effect, we compare displaced workers over time to similar non-displaced workers. We estimate that for every 100 displaced workers, only about 1 is ever induced to enroll in a public college as a result. This effect is concentrated almost entirely among displaced manufacturing workers, who enroll at a rate of 2.5 per every 100. Such workers with lower within-firm earnings and from local labor markets with limited for-profit college options are the most likely to enroll in public institutions.

In the nearly fifty years since the adoption of the Higher Education Act of 1965, financial aid programs have grown in scale, expanded in scope, and multiplied in form. As a result, financial aid has become the norm among college enrollees. The increasing size and complexity of the nation's student aid system has generated questions about effectiveness, heightened confusion among students and parents, and raised concerns about how program rules may interact. In this article, we review what is known and what is not known about how well various student aid programs work. We find evidence that lowering costs can improve college access and completion, but this general rule is not without exception. For example, the complexity of program eligibility and delivery appears to moderate the impact of aid, and for students who have already decided to enroll, grants that link financial aid to academic achievement appear to boost college outcomes more than do grants with no strings attached. Future research is likely to focus on several issues: the importance of program design and delivery, whether there are unanticipated interactions between programs, and to what extent program effects vary across different types of students. [Funding for this research provided by The Future of Children, a collaboration of the Woodrow Wilson School of Public & International Affairs at Princeton University and the Brookings Institution" and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.]

At an annual cost of roughly $7 billion nationally, remedial coursework is one of the single largest interventions intended to improve outcomes for underprepared college students. But like a costly medical treatment with non-trivial side effects, the value of remediation overall depends upon whether those most likely to benefit can be identified in advance. Our analysis uses administrative data and a rich predictive model to examine the accuracy of remedial screening tests, either instead of or in addition to using high school transcript data to determine remedial assignment. We find that roughly one in four test-takers in math and one in three test-takers in English are severely mis-assigned under current test-based policies, with mis-assignments to remediation much more common than mis-assignments to college-level coursework. We find that using high school transcript information--either instead of or in addition to test scores--could significantly reduce the prevalence of assignment errors. Further, we find that the choice of screening device has significant implications for the racial and gender composition of both remedial and college-level courses. Finally, we find that if institutions took account of students' high school performance, they could remediate substantially fewer students without lowering success rates in college-level courses. Tables and figures are appended.

College attendance is a risky investment. But students may not recognize when they are at risk for failure, and financial aid introduces the possibility for moral hazard. Academic performance standards can serve three roles in this context: signaling expectations for success, providing incentives for increased student effort, and limiting financial losses. Such standards have existed in federal need-based aid programs for nearly 40 years in the form of Satisfactory Academic Progress (SAP) requirements, yet have received virtually no academic attention. In this paper, we sketch a simple model to illustrate not only student responses to standards but also the trade-offs faced by a social planner weighing whether to set performance standards in the context of need-based aid. We then use regression discontinuity and difference-in-difference designs to examine the consequences of SAP failure. In line with theoretical predictions, we find heterogeneous effects in the short term, with negative impacts on persistence but positive effects on grades for students who remain enrolled. After three years, the negative effects appear to dominate. Effects on credits attempted are 2-3 times as large as effects on credits earned, suggesting that standards increase the efficiency of aid expenditures. But it also appears to exacerbate inequality in higher education by pushing out low-performing low-income students faster than their equally low-performing, but higher-income peers.

Socioeconomic gaps in college enrollment and attainment have widened over time, despite increasing returns to postsecondary education and significant policy efforts to improve access. We describe the barriers that students face during the transition to college and review the evidence on potential policy solutions. We focus primarily on research that examines causal relationships using experimental or quasiexperimental methods, though we draw upon descriptive evidence to provide context. Our review is distinctive in three respects. First, in addition to the literature on financial aid, we examine the evidence on informational and behavioral interventions, academic programs, and affirmative action policies intended to improve college access. Second, we incorporate a wealth of recent research not included in prior reviews. Finally, we conceptualize college access broadly, as including not just whether but also where students attend and whether they have access to college-level courses. We conclude with a discussion of implications for policy and research.

Half of all college students take at least one remedial course as part of their postsecondary experience, despite mixed evidence on the effectiveness of this intervention. Using a regression-discontinuity design with data from a large urban community college system, we extend the research on remediation in three ways. First, we articulate three alternative models of remediation to help guide interpretation of sometimes conflicting results in the literature. Second, in addition to credits and degree completion we examine several under-explored outcomes, including the initial decision to enroll, grades in subsequent college courses, and post-treatment proficiency test scores. Finally, we exploit rich high school background data to examine heterogeneity in the impact of remedial assignment by predicted academic risk. We find that remediation does little to develop students' skills. But we also find relatively little evidence that it discourages either initial enrollment or persistence, except for a subgroup we identify as potentially mis-assigned to remediation. Instead, the primary effect of remediation appears to be diversionary: students simply take remedial courses instead of college-level courses. These diversionary effects are largest for the lowest-risk students. Implications for remediation policy are discussed.

Recent cohorts of college enrollees are more likely to work, and work substantially more, than those of the past. October CPS data reveal that average labor supply among 18 to 22-year-old full-time undergraduates nearly doubled between 1970 and 2000, rising from 6 hours to 11 hours per week. In 2000 over half of these "traditional" college students were working for pay in the reference week, and the average working student worked 22 hours per week. After 2000, labor supply leveled off and then fell abruptly in the wake of the Great Recession to an average of 8 hours per week in 2009. This paper considers several explanations for the long-term trend of rising employment--including compositional change and rising tuition costs--and considers whether the upward trend is likely to resume when economic conditions improve.

A growing body of empirical evidence shows that some financial aid programs increase college enrollment. Puzzlingly, there is little compelling evidence that Pell Grants and Stafford Loans, the primary federal student aid programs, are effective in achieving this goal. In this paper, we provide an in-depth review of this evidence, which taken as a whole suggests that complexity and uncertainty in the federal aid system undermine its efficacy. We document complexity in the aid system, comparing it in particular to complexity in the tax system. We build on our previous work by showing that complexity in the aid process does little to improve the targeting of both student loans and grants, for both dependent and independent students. We conclude that the current targeting of aid can be reproduced with a much simpler aid process. While we show that the targeting benefits of complexity are small, we further document that the costs are large. We offer new estimates of the compliance costs faced by applicants and the administrative costs borne by the government and colleges. These costs total at least $4 billion per year. The perspective of behavioral economics suggests that the true cost is even higher, since complexity and uncertainty may discourage the target population from applying for student aid.