Disproportionate Burden: Estimating the Cost of FAFSA Verification for Public Colleges and Universities

Verification is a federally mandated process that requires selected students to further attest that the information reported on their Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is accurate and complete. In this brief, we estimate institutional costs of administrating the FAFSA verification mandate and consider variation in costs by institution type and sector. Using data from 2014, we estimate that compliance costs to institutions in that year totaled nearly US$500 million with the burden falling disproportionately on public institutions and community colleges, in particular. Specifically, we estimate that 22% of an average community college’s financial aid office operating budget is devoted to verification procedures, compared with 15% at public 4-year institutions. Our analysis is timely, given that rates of FAFSA verification have increased in recent years.

Teaching in a Swimming Pool

In the 1950s, American public universities began training a vast new cadre of nuclear engineers, technicians, and scientists in specially designed and built “teaching reactors.” As this article describes, a generation of nuclear engineering undergraduates and graduate students were exposed to an open, accessible, and above all, visible demonstration of nuclear energy through educational “swimming pool”–style reactors. Distinct from reactors for either weapons or power production, the swimming pool reactor was specifically configured to be a pedagogical tool. Educational programs were created around federally and industrially sponsored reactors for training, part of the massive Cold War era transformations of Midwestern, Western, and Southern public colleges and universities. This article offers the Ford Nuclear Reactor at the University of Michigan as an example of how the peaceful pedagogical atom developed after the 1950s. As I argue, teaching reactors were one product of the conservative compact made between government, public universities, and private industry in the early 1950s that underpinned the famed Atoms for Peace movement, with its technology and information sharing and international training priorities. Indeed, teaching reactors resolved for Eisenhower’s administration the tension between a desire for centralized control of the atom and the powerful vision of a future of prosperity brought about by open education and use of nuclear materials. This paper is part of a special issue entitled “Revealing the Michigan Memorial–Phoenix Project.”

Free Speech on Campus: A New Forum-Based Approach

Students and faculty at public colleges and universities frequently find themselves in conflict with administrators over questions of free speech. Unfortunately, the courts have provided precious little guidance. Lower courts are struggling with a diverse set of issues: the appropriate rules for student protests; which campus spaces constitute open forums for speech and which can be closed off or regulated; how much control administrators can wield over student-invited speakers; and whether or when student online speech can be punished, among many other problems. The Supreme Court has provided virtually no helpful guidance to lower court judges or public college administrators as to how or when the First Amendment limits their discretion. This article provides a helpful forum-based approach to the analysis of many of these questions and proposes specific solutions in the hope of bringing more predictability and stability to this confusing area of constitutional law.

Attendance Spillovers between Public and For-Profit Colleges: Evidence from Statewide Variation in Appropriations for Higher Education

Between 2000 and 2010, U.S. public colleges and universities experienced widespread and uneven changes in funding from state and local appropriations. We find that over this period annual decreases in statewide appropriations led to lower public enrollment and higher for-profit enrollment (with no effect on enrollment overall), as well as increased student borrowing. In an analysis of mechanisms, we detect effects on spending, tuition, and capacity in the public sector. Altogether, the results reveal that core institutional resources affect the types of schools that students attend and yield new evidence of substitution between the public and for-profit sectors.

Completion at the Expense of Access? The Relationship Between Performance-Funding Policies and Access to Public 4-Year Universities

Efforts to improve college-completion rates have dominated higher education policy agendas. Performance-based funding (PBF) intends to improve college completion and links state funding for public colleges and universities to performance measures. One critique of PBF policies is that institutions might restrict student access. This study uses a difference-in-differences design and institution-level data from 2001 to 2014 to examine whether 4-year, public institutions become more selective or enroll fewer underrepresented students under PBF. Our findings, supported by various robustness checks, suggest that institutions subject to PBF enroll students with higher standardized test scores and enroll fewer first-generation students. PBF models tied to institutions’ base funding are more strongly associated with increased standardized test scores and enrollment of Pell students.

An Analysis of the HEC's English Language Teaching Reforms (ELTR) Project

This study aimed to analyze the English Language Teaching Reforms (ELTR) project, which was launched by the Higher Education Commission (HEC) of Pakistan in 2004. The purpose of the ELTR project was to enhance the teaching practices of English Language (EL) teachers teaching at the tertiary level. A further aim of the ELTR project was to bridge the gap between college and university teachers. The project was divided into two phases: Phase I (2004-2010) and Phase II (2010-2013). In both phases, EL teachers were trained from various public colleges and universities across Pakistan. The teachers were offered long and short-term courses through which they could be professionally developed. This study adopted a qualitative methodology. In order to collect data, HEC's documents, reports and research did by other researchers on the ELTR project were analyzed. The findings revealed that HEC tried to accomplish its set goals, but there were certain areas in which the set goals of ELTR were not achieved. As HEC took a challenging step to train a large number of EL teachers, resultantly it had to face various challenges like scrutiny of participant's background, lack of facilities, monitoring and evaluation and implementation of the training provided through the project.

College on the Margins: Higher Education Professionals’ Perspectives on Campus Basic Needs Insecurity

Background A substantial share of undergraduates are basic needs insecure, meaning they lack consistent access to essential material goods like food and shelter. These material hardships are associated with poorer academic success, but we know very little about higher education professionals’ perspectives on the matter. Purpose This paper examines how higher education professionals perceive, understand, and support college students who experience basic needs insecurity. Research Design Using data from interviews with 59 professionals who work at eight broad-access public colleges and universities across five states, we employ an institutional logics perspective to understand how they draw on normative scripts, rationales, and schemas to guide their responses to campus basic needs insecurity. Findings Higher education professionals have considerable discretion when working with students who are basic needs insecure, and they draw on organizational, professional, and broader social spheres to guide their interactions. We identify three distinct logics—systemic, quiescent, and cautious—that are unique from one another on two dimensions: locus of control and individual response based on perceived locus of control. Conclusions The design and implementation of initiatives designed to support vulnerable students must consider the ways in which on-the-ground professionals understand students, their needs, and the sources of their challenges.