Federal-State Responsibility for Facilitating Student Access. Policy Analysis Service Reports, Vol. 1, No. 2.

During the spring of 1974 a series of seminars on student aid programs and student access was held in connection with the congressional hearings on Title IV of the Higher Education Act. Participants represented the federal, state, or institutional point of view. This document reporting on those seminars, deals with federal-state responsibilities in facilitating student access to postsecondary education. This topic is particularly thorny for two reasons. First, clear-cut federal legislative policy for postsecondary education has been lacking, at least until the 1972 Education Amendments with their initiation of a program of state scholarships and their creation on the 1202 Commissions. Second, the 50 states differ greatly on variety of important variables: legislation, the mix of public and private institutions, student migration patterns, arrangements for financial postsecondary education, and level of financial support for the total system. In addition to these two major problems, many other difficulties arise in trying to apportion responsibility between the federal government and the states. Some of these difficulties discussed by the five panel members are: (1) The Federal Role; (2) The Promise of SSIG; The Goals of State Aid, and The Complementary Roles of State and Federal Programs; (3) The CUNY Experience; (4) A Challenge from the Private Sector; (5) The Paradox of "Access", The Scorecard, and Increasing Student Choice. (Author/KE)