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The purpose of this study was to examine what types of initiatives exist to increase access to and affordability of postsecondary education, especially in community college programs that lead to occupational advancement. We reviewed community college agency and state legislative websites to discover what initiatives or policies are currently being implemented or considered in the 50 states. We found few state-level initiatives designed specifically for occupational students, so we broadened our target population to include nontraditional students, whom we defined as financially independent working adults (over 25) who commute to a community college part time. We found that common ways of attempting to increase access for nontraditional students were (1) evening and weekend course schedules, (2) distance learning, and (3) awareness campaigns about college and the availability of financial aid. In terms of affordability, we found that states were expanding existing financial aid programs as well as creating new ones that target nontraditional students. States were also targeting specific occupational fields for aid in order to develop the workforce needed in that state. Future research in this area should study the effectiveness of these initiatives and policies in order to determine which initiatives have had the greatest impact on increasing access to and affordability of community colleges for occupational and nontraditional students.

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Students in Ontario face the highest tuition fees in the country and the cost and perceived costs of post-secondary education are consistently identified as barriers to post-secondary education. These barriers are contributing factors to the persistently high attainment gaps for various vulnerable groups in pursuing an undergraduate degree. This report highlights that while a majority (60 per cent) of students are applying for government assistance, assistance from the government is not always sufficient to finance the cost of a post-secondary education. Indeed, two-thirds of students were concerned that they would not have enough money to complete their post-secondary education. The findings suggest that there may be gaps within the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) that need to be addressed to ensure that the affordability and accessibility of university in Ontario is retained for all students, regardless of their financial reality.

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This paper examines the optimal design for a study-abroad scholarship. A student is awarded a fixed-amount scholarship to participate in the program but will have to pay back the scholarship if his/her performance fails to meet a target level. When the program is highly productive, the scholarship is low and the target performance is high. The opposite case prevails if the disutility from studying is high. A higher program cost leads to a higher target performance and a cost sharing between the university and the students. When the uncertainty regarding performance evaluation in the program increases, the target performance decreases while the scholarship amount is higher.

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This book is the product of research collaboration between The Australian National University and Dhurakij Pundit University. It brings together new work, from a conference held in 2008 in Bangkok, on higher education financing by international experts on the issue from around East Asia.

Excerpt from publication.

The contents are as follows: Issues and overview / Shiro Armstrong and Aaron Batten; Part one, 'Education and development: the role of higher education': Education and development: the role of higher education / Lawrence Summers; Financing higher education: lessons from economic theory and operational experience / Nicholas Barr; Finance, state capacity, privatisation and transparency in South-East Asian higher education / Anthony R. Welch; Part two, 'Experience in developed economies': The Australian university student financing system: the rationale for, and experience with, income-contingent loans / Bruce Chapman; Higher education policies and development: approaches to funding higher education in Japan / Motohisa Kaneko; Part three, 'Experience in East Asia': Student loan reform in China: problems and challenges / Wei Jianguo and Wang Rong; Recent developments in higher education in Indonesia: issues and challenges / Teguh Yudo Wicaksono and Deni Friawan; Strategies for financing higher education: the case of Thailand / Somkiat Tangkitvanich and Areeya Manasboonphempool; Thailand's student loans fund: an analysis of interest rate subsidies and repayment hardships / Piruna Polsiri, Rangsit Sarachitti and Thitima Sitthipongpanich; Income-contingent student loans for Thailand: alternatives compared / Bruce Chapman and Kiatanantha Lounkaew. Show less

This article appears in Chapter 1 - Transforming, which deals with various concepts of leadership in the context of technician education and training (TET). Basu introduces his topic by claiming that technological developments have increased people's ability to do both good and evil, to increase or decrease wellbeing and that, given these options, policy makers must be sensible and make appropriate choices for the TET sector. He discusses the changes and the challenges - including demographic changes and increases in the labour force; trade liberalisation and globalisation of the workforce; and the implications of poverty and unemployment. He raises the issues of environmental degradation and dwindling natural resources and insists that helping people to break out of the cycle of poverty must be a major concern of national policy makers. Finally, he looks at innovative TET processes in teaching/learning, the effects of the information technology (IT) revolution, certification and accreditation, and the importance of enhancing international cooperative programs for TET. Basu concludes that the World Bank and other development agencies must continue to finance TET and leave the leaders to accept the challenges and create opportunities for TET to be a tool for human development.

The volume of collected papers is indexed at TD/IRD 88.87. Show less

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.

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Drawing on a survey of 106 secondary vocational schools and 7309 students in two provinces of China, this descriptive paper assesses whether vocational schooling is measuring up to government benchmarks for quality and whether poor students are able to access quality schools. We find that secondary vocational schools have met government benchmarks for teacher qualification and training, student opportunities for practical training and adequate facilities. Furthermore, poor students access schools of similar quality to non-poor students, even though 34 per cent of poor students do not receive financial aid. We conclude that recent policies are successfully ensuring secondary vocational school quality and equity of access to school quality between poor and non-poor students. However, financial aid policies should be re-examined, such that poor students receive sufficient coverage. Moreover, given that input-based measures only proxy school quality, the government should consider holding schools accountable for outcomes such as student learning.

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The Education Maintenance Allowance (EMA) is a post-16 educational allowance paid to youth with eligibility dependent on parental income. The piloting of EMA began in 1999 with a view to raising participation, retention and achievement in post-16 education among 16-18 year olds. The focus of this report is on the local implementation and administration of the EMA pilots in the final year of the evaluation. It examines the processes and administrative mechanisms through which EMAs have been delivered, with special emphasis on examples of good practice developed by Local Education Authorities (LEAs) and by schools and colleges which could assist the planning for the national delivery of EMA. Findings indicate that: respondents welcomed the decision to implement EMA nationally from September 2004; there was widespread agreement about the importance of personal support being available at a local level for EMA recipients and those eligible for EMA; there was widespread recognition of the importance of having a local network or partnership to support the work of the national payment and assessment body, with a designated lead organisation. The contents are: Introduction; A national EMA provider; Role of local implementation in national delivery of EMA; EMA applications, monitoring and payment systems; Perceptions and take up of EMA; Further considerations. Show less

'Skills conditionality' is a referral mechanism by which individuals claiming unemployment benefits can be mandated onto essential skills training where their lack of skills has been identified as a barrier to finding work. The Skills Conditionality Pilot aims to explore the labour market effects of mandating participation in essential skills training.

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Improving the college search process by making college costs more transparent to potential students and their families is a primary focus of recent higher education policy efforts. But the importance of this information does not end at the university gates. In order to make prudent decisions about what to study, how many courses to take, and what kinds of jobs to pursue, college students should continue to bear in mind the cost of their education and the loan payments they will eventually have to make as they progress through school. But do they? [The authors'] analysis, drawing on data from two sources that link student survey responses to administrative records on cost and borrowing, suggests that a significant share of undergraduate students do not understand how much they are paying for college or how much debt they are taking on. [The authors] find that only a bare majority of respondents (52 per cent) at a selective public university were able to correctly identify (within a $5,000 range) what they paid for their first year of college. The remaining students underestimate (25 per cent), overestimate (17 per cent), or say they don't know (seven per cent). Using nationally representative data, [the authors] find that about half of all first-year students in the US seriously underestimate how much student debt they have, and less than one-third provide an accurate estimate within a reasonable margin of error. The remaining quarter of students overestimate their level of federal debt. Lastly, [the authors] find that among students with federal loans, 28 per cent reported having no federal debt and 14 per cent said they didn't have any student debt at all. Students who do not have a good idea of their level of borrowing may make expensive mistakes that they will later come to regret. They are also likely to be surprised or even fearful when their first loan payments come due, which may impose an emotional burden on borrowers. More broadly, it may perpetuate popular narratives about crushing student loan burdens, which could discourage promising students from pursuing a college education.

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