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Texas is a national leader in creating early college high schools, an innovative small school model that blends secondary and postsecondary education with intensive supports to increase college readiness and success for underachieving students. The state has 29 early college schools, with more opening in the 2008-2009 academic year, thanks largely to state’s education reforms favorable to their development. Texas leaders hope to further expand the model, using it as a priority strategy to boost college success rates. The authors detail the efforts of El Paso Community College, South Texas College, and their partners to build regional clusters of early college high schools. Their experiences highlight important lessons about how to make the most of a state’s public policy environment to create, sustain, and expand early college schools.

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Over the last two decades, Illinois has gone through a period of disinvestment in higher education, seeing continued losses in higher education appropriations and under-investment in student financial aid. From 2002 to 2018, funding for Illinois public universities was cut over 50 per cent and community colleges saw similar disinvestment. This environment created an increased financial strain for the state's colleges and universities, leaving them little choice but to raise tuition in order to make up for the loss in funding, effectively shifting the burden to pay onto students. Latinx college-going in Illinois has been characterized by both recent population growth and mounting barriers. This report, which is the second report of a three-part series, outlines that while degree attainment has increased for Latinx students more than any other racial group, when it comes to four-year college completion, degree attainment hasn't kept pace with population changes. With the number of Latinx high school graduates expected to plateau and then decline in Illinois over the next decade, unless the state takes action, the number of college graduates will likely stop growing as well. The report concludes with specific policy recommendations that can have a direct impact on improving equity in higher education for Latinx students.

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Over the past 10 years, the volume of outstanding college student loan debt has tripled, reaching more than $1 trillion and raising concerns for both students and policymakers. At the same time, enrollments in for-profit colleges spiked, rising from about 650,000 in 2000 to close to 2.5 million in 2010. Although increased scrutiny and regulation of the for-profit sector has contributed to declining enrollment in more recent years, concerns remain over the high debt burdens and default rates of for-profit students. In this brief, [the authors] analyze patterns of student borrowing across for-profit, nonprofit, and public college sectors. In particular, they investigate the connection between debt and educational costs and student backgrounds. How is student debt distributed across sectors, and what factors account for the unusual borrowing trends among students of for-profit colleges?

The research found that for-profit students are similar to community college students in demographics and financial resources, yet pay costs similar to private nonprofit students. Furthermore, for-profit student have less institutional aid to cushion tuition costs and school fees. As a result, they face the highest borrowing rates of any sector for comparatively weaker job prospects post-graduation. [The authors] found that tuition costs most strongly influence the borrowing trends of for-profit students. Surprisingly, factors such as student demographics and financial resources do little to explain their borrowing habits. The [authors] speculate the primary reason for the greater borrowing among for-profit students is a lack of access to accurate information about the costs associated with for-profit schools. This problem could be at least partly to blame on the institutions themselves, which may encourage students to borrow due to their profit-seeking business models.

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This briefing note contains the first in-depth analysis of the new student support arrangements following the changes to the higher education finance regime introduced in September 2012. The key change is the creation of the National Scholarship Programme (NSP). It replaces the minimum statutory bursary and is used to provide financial support to disadvantaged students in the form of fee waivers, cash bursaries, and subsidised goods and services. The result is that clear patterns emerge in the amount of total support offered to eligible students. Higher-ranked institutions, such as those in the Russell Group and the 1994 Group, offer more generous total support packages than lower-ranked institutions on a per-student basis. This briefing note aims to provide the first detailed picture of the range of fees charged and support offered by universities in England to English students who started undergraduate degrees in September 2012 under the new higher education (HE) finance regime. While the reforms, characterised by cuts in public funding and rises in fees, have shifted the balance of funding between the public and private sectors, another important area of reform was the support provided to students.

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Higher education is one of the most important investments individuals can make for themselves and for our country. Many students access student loans to help finance their education, and last year federal student loans helped 9 million Americans to make that investment in their futures. Typically, that investment pays off, with bachelor's degree recipients earning $1 million more in their lifetime and associate's degree recipients earning $360,000 more, compared to high school graduates. Society also benefits from these investments through such mechanisms as higher tax revenues, improvements in health, higher rates of volunteering and voting, and lower levels of criminal behavior. At the same time too many Americans feel that college may be financially out of reach and are concerned about rising student loan debt. Student loan debt can be especially burdensome for those who do not graduate or who attend schools that do not deliver a quality education. However, unmanageable debt is not the only issue facing current and former students. Some individuals who could benefit from a high quality postsecondary education do not apply and enroll in college, under-investing in education and shortchanging their future. Multiple factors have contributed to the challenge of ensuring that all students who could benefit from a college degree are able to attend a quality school, graduate, and then repay their loans on manageable terms after they graduate. These include rising tuitions; hardship caused by the Great Recession; complexities of the labor market; variations in program quality across the college landscape; and lack of information to help students make good college choices.

The Obama Administration has taken several steps to address these challenges. To help expand college opportunity, the President has doubled investments in grant and scholarship aid through Pell grants and tax credits, provided students and their families better and more accessible information about college costs and quality through the College Scorecard, simplified the application for federal student aid, and protected students from low-quality schools. To help borrowers manage debt after college, the Administration has also created better debt repayment options like the President's Pay as You Earn (PAYE) plan, which caps monthly student loan payments at 10 per cent of discretionary income. While more work remains, we are starting to see these efforts pay off. Today, more than four out of five Direct Loan recipients with loans in repayment are current on their loans. Delinquencies, defaults, and hardship deferments are all trending downward, and nearly three million borrowers since 2010 have successfully accessed a pathway out of default through loan rehabilitation. To ensure student loans are manageable, the Administration has cut student loan interest rates, saving a typical student $1,000 over the life of loans borrowed this year. Additionally, more borrowers are making use of flexible income driven repayment plans that make it easier to successfully manage student debt after college, with nearly 5 million Direct Loan borrowers now enrolled in repayment options like the PAYE plan.

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Discretionary Learner Support (DLS) is aimed at supporting learners aged 19 or over, who are facing financial hardship. This reports presents findings from research to assess whether the DLS supports disadvantaged learners. The review assessed the impact and effectiveness of the DLS fund for the academic year 2011 to 2012. It analysed the characteristics of recipients, and considered whether the funding provided value for money.

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This research aimed to identify and map innovative practices for the adjustment and implementation of Active Labour Market Policies (ALMPs) during the [Coronavirus Disease 2019] COVID-19 crisis. Looking at the European Union, the EU Neighbourhood and Central Asia, it analysed solutions for design and delivery, emerging challenges, new target groups and skill sets, and building resilience among jobseekers and workers. The report also investigated how Public Employment Services (PESs) can deal with pandemic-related increases in the demand for services and new delivery methods. It is part of a wider study commissioned by the [European Training Foundation] ETF and led by Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini on ALMPs, labour market transitions, and skills development in ETF partner countries during the crisis. The report aimed to examine: what has been done to financially support businesses and individuals; what measures have been introduced or adapted to foster employment and skills development during the crisis; and how PES have adapted their services.

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Nearly 50 years ago, the federal government committed itself to removing the financial barriers that prevent low-income students from enrolling in and completing colleges. For years, colleges complemented the government's efforts by using their financial aid resources to open the doors to the neediest students. But those days appear to be in the past. With their relentless pursuit of prestige and revenue, the nation's public and private four-year colleges and universities are now in danger of shutting down what has long been a pathway to the middle class for low-income and working-class students. [This report] presents a new analysis of little-examined US Department of Education data showing the 'net price' - the amount students pay after all grant aid has been exhausted - for low-income students at thousands of individual colleges. The analysis shows that hundreds of public and private non-profit colleges expect the neediest students to pay an amount that is equal to or even more than their families' yearly earnings. As a result, these students are left with little choice but to take on heavy debt loads or engage in activities that reduce their likelihood of earning their degrees, such as working full-time while enrolled or dropping out until they can afford to return.

The analysis finds that the financial hurdles are highest in the private non-profit college sector, where only a few dozen exclusive colleges meet the full financial need of the low-income students they enroll. Nearly two-thirds of the private institutions analyzed charge students from the lowest-income families, those making 30,000 dollars or less annually, a net price of over 15,000 dollars a year. While the problem is not as extreme among public universities, it is rapidly getting worse. As more states cut funding for their higher education systems, public colleges are increasingly adopting the enrollment management tactics of their private college counterparts - to the detriment of low-income and working-class students alike. Overall, too many four-year colleges, both public and private, are failing to help the government achieve its college access mission. They are instead using their financial resources to fiercely compete for the students they most desire: the 'best and brightest' students - and the wealthiest. The time has come for policymakers to take notice. Federal action is needed to ensure that colleges continue to provide a gateway to opportunity, rather than perpetuating inequality by limiting college access to only those who are rich enough to be able to afford it.

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Reviewing proposals for improving the complex array of federal student aid programs, [the authors] find agreement on some broad policy directions but considerable differences of opinion about the details. Many advocates support automatically placing student borrowers into income-driven repayment plans, which set payments at some percentage of discretionary income. And virtually no one argues against consolidating tuition tax credits and deductions into one credit. This comprehensive report examines over 20 proposals for reforming student loan repayment and education tax credits and deductions, evaluating the equity and efficiency of proposed provisions and providing recommendations for strengthening these components of federal student aid.

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Community colleges are increasingly using the Internet for admissions and financial aid applications. The use of online processes has serious implications for students with disabilities, such as visual and learning problems, who may encounter difficulties with the websites if they are not designed in an accessible and usable way. A survey of student services leaders at community colleges across the country was conducted to evaluate the use of the web for a variety of student processes. Also investigated was the awareness of issues related to web accessibility for students with disabilities. Nearly 700 colleges responded, representing a 79 per cent response rate. While 90 per cent offered online access to course catalogs, class schedules, and online courses, only half said that their school had requirements for accessible web content. These results indicate that significantly more work needs to be done to inform community college administrators and web developers about these issues.

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