teaching – Robert Kelchen

My 2024 Higher Education Finance Reading List

As a department head, I typically only teach one class per year. This spring, I get to teach my PhD class in higher education finance again—the eighth time that I have taught it in my eleven-year faculty career. Each time, I have updated the readings considerably as the field is moving quickly and I figure out what works best for the students. I use articles, working papers, news coverage, and other online resources to provide a current look at the state of higher education finance.

The format that I have taught the class using has also changed frequently over time due to what works best for the program and other events of the past several years. Here are reading lists from previous years and how I have taught the class:

Summer 2023: Accelerated five-week format, mix of asynchronous and online synchronous

Spring 2022: Online synchronous, meeting one evening per week

Spring 2020: Met one Saturday per month, started out in person but moved to Zoom halfway through due to the pandemic

Fall 2017: In person, meeting one evening per week

This spring, I am back to teaching the class in person one evening per week for the first time in nearly seven years. Here is the reading list I am assigning my students for the course. I link to the final versions of the articles whenever possible, but those without access to an academic library should note that earlier versions of many of these articles are available online via a quick Google search.

The higher education finance landscape and data sources

Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Saez, E., Turner, N., & Yagan, D. (2017). Mobility report cards: The role of colleges in intergenerational mobility. Working paper. (link)

Schanzenbach, D. W., Bauer, L., & Breitwieser, A. (2017). Eight economic facts on higher education. The Hamilton Project. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2021). A growing divide: The promise and pitfalls of higher education for the working class. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 695, 94-106. (link)

Recommended data sources:

College Scorecard: https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ (underlying data at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/)

Equality of Opportunity Project: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college

IPEDS: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data

NCES Data Lab: https://nces.ed.gov/datalab/index.aspx

Postsecondary Value Commission’s Equitable Value Explorer: https://www.postsecondaryvalue.org/equitable-value-explorer/

ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

Urban Institute’s Data Explorer: https://educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer/colleges/

Institutional budgeting

Barr, M.J., & McClellan, G.S. (2010). Understanding budgets. In Budgets and financial management in higher education (pp. 55-85). Jossey-Bass. (link)

Jaquette, O., Kramer II, D. A., & Curs, B. R. (2018). Growing the pie? The effect of responsibility center management on tuition revenue. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(5), 637-676. (link)

Rutherford, A., & Rabovsky, T. (2018). Does the motivation for market-based reform matter? The case of responsibility-centered management. Public Administration Review, 78(4), 626-639. (link)

University of Tennessee System’s FY2024 budget: https://finance.tennessee.edu/budget/documents/

University of Tennessee System’s FY2022 annual financial report: https://treasurer.tennessee.edu/reports/

UTK’s Budget Allocation Model (responsibility center management) website: https://budget.utk.edu/budget-allocation-model/

Higher education expenditures

Archibald, R. B., & Feldman, D. H. (2018). Drivers of the rising price of a college education. Midwestern Higher Education Compact. (link)

Commonfund Institute (2023). 2023 higher education price index. (link)

Griffith, A. L., & Rask, K. N. (2016). The effect of institutional expenditures on employment outcomes and earnings. Economic Inquiry, 54(4), 1931-1945. (link)

Hemelt, S. W., Stange, K. M., Furquim, F., Simon, A., & Sawyer, J. E. (2021). Why is math cheaper than English? Understanding cost differences in higher education. Journal of Labor Economics, 39(2), 397-435. (link)

Korn, M., Fuller, A., & Forsyth, J. S. (2023, August 10). Colleges spend like there’s no tomorrow. ‘These places are just devouring money.’ The Wall Street Journal. (link)

The financial viability of higher education

Britton, T., Rall, R. M., & Commodore, F. (2023). The keys to endurance: An investigation of the institutional factors relating to the persistence of Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The Journal of Higher Education, 94(3), 310-332. (link)

Ducoff, N. (2019, December 9). Students pay the price if a college fails. So why are we protecting failing institutions? The Hechinger Report. (link)

Jesse, D., & Bauman, D. (2023, November 13). This small college was out of options. Will its creditors give it a break? The Chronicle of Higher Education. (link)

Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (2019). Final report & recommendations. Transitions in higher education: Safeguarding the interest of students (THESIS). (link)

Sullivan, G. W., & Stergios, J. (2019). A risky proposal for private colleges: Ten reasons why the Board of Higher Education must rethink its plan. Pioneer Institute. (link)

Tarrant, M., Bray, N., & Katsinas, S. (2018). The invisible colleges revisited: An empirical review. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(3), 341-367. (link)

State and sources of revenue

Chakrabarti, R., Gorton, N., & Lovenheim, M. F. (2020). State investment in higher education: Effects on human capital formation, student debt, and long-term financial outcomes of students. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 27885. (link)

Gándara, D. (2023). “One of the weakest budget players in the state”: State funding of higher education at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. (link)

Kelchen, R., Ortagus, J. C., Rosinger, K. O., Baker, D., & Lingo, M. (2023). The relationships between state higher education funding strategies and college access and success. Educational Researcher. (link)

Kunkle, K., & Laderman, S. (2023). State higher education finance: FY 2022. State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. (link)

Ortagus, J. C., Kelchen, R., Rosinger, K. O., & Voorhees, N. (2020). Performance-based funding in American higher education: A systematic synthesis of the intended and unintended consequences. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 42(4), 520-550. (link)

Tennessee’s outcomes-based funding formula: https://www.tn.gov/thec/bureaus/ppr/fiscal-policy/outcomes-based-funding-formula-resources/2020-25-obf.html

Federal sources of revenue

Bergman, P., Denning, J. T., & Manoli, D. (2019). Is information enough? The effect of information about education tax benefits on student outcomes. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 38(3), 706-731. (link)

Black, S. E., Turner, L. J., & Denning, J. T. (2023). PLUS or minus? The effect of graduate school loans on access, attainment, and prices. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 31291. (link)

Graddy-Reed, A., Feldman, M., Bercovitz, J., & Langford, W. S. (2021). The distribution of indirect cost recovery in academic research. Science and Public Policy, 48(3), 364-386. (link)

Kelchen, R., & Liu, Z. (2022). Did gainful employment regulations result in college and program closures? Education Finance and Policy, 17(3), 454-478. (link)

Ward, J. D. (2019). Intended and unintended consequences of for-profit college regulation: Examining the 90/10 rule. Journal of Student Financial Aid, 48(3), Article 4. (link)

College pricing, tuition revenue, and endowments

Baker, D. J. (2020). “Name and shame”: An effective strategy for college tuition accountability? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 42(3), 1-24. (link)

Baum, S., & Lee, V. (2018). Understanding endowments. Urban Institute. (link)

Delaney, T., & Marcotte, D. E. (2023). The cost of public higher education and college enrollment. The Journal of Higher Education. (link)

Kelchen, R., & Pingel, S. (2023). Examining the effects of tuition controls on student enrollment. Research in Higher Education. (link)

Knox, L. (2023, December 4). Seeking an enrollment Hail Mary, small colleges look to athletics. Inside Higher Ed. (link)

Ma, J., & Pender, M. (2023). Trends in college pricing and student aid 2023. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2017). State divestment and tuition at public institutions. Economics of Education Review, 60, 1-4. (link)

Financial aid policies, practices, and impacts

Anderson, D. M., Broton, K. M., Goldrick-Rab, S., & Kelchen, R. (2020). Experimental evidence on the impacts of need-based financial aid: Longitudinal assessment of the Wisconsin Scholars Grant. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 39(3), 720-739. (link)

Billings, M. S., Clayton, A. B., & Worsham, R. (2022). FAFSA and beyond: How advisers manage their administrative burden in the financial aid process. Journal of Student Financial Aid, 51(2), Article 2. (link)

Dynarski, S., Page, L. C., & Scott-Clayton, J. (2022). College costs, financial aid, and student decisions. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 30275. (link)

LaSota, R. R., Polanin, J. R., Perna, L. W., Austin, M. J., Steingut, R. R., & Rodgers, M. A. (2022). The effects of losing postsecondary student grant aid: Results from a systematic review. Educational Researcher, 51(2), 160-168. (link)

Page, L. C., Sacerdote, B. I, Goldrick-Rab, S., & Castleman, B. L. (2023). Financial aid nudges: A national experiment with informational interventions. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 45(2), 195-219. (link)

Student debt and financing college

Baker, D. J. (2019). When average is not enough: A case study examining the variation in the influences on undergraduate debt burden. AERA Open, 5(2), 1-26. (link)

Black, S. E., Denning, J. T., Dettling, L. J., Goodman, S., & Turner, L. (2020). Taking it to the limit: Effects of increased student loan availability on attainment, earnings, and financial well-being. American Economic Review, 113(12), 3357-3400. (link)

Boatman, A., Evans, B. J., & Soliz, A. (2017). Understanding loan aversion in education: Evidence from high school seniors, community college students, and adults. AERA Open, 3(1), 1-16. (link)

Dinerstein, M., Yannelis, C., & Chen, C. (2023). Debt moratoria: Evidence from student loan forbearance. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 31247. (link)

Levine, P. B., & Ritter, D. (2023). The racial wealth gap, financial aid, and college access. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. (link)

Free college/college promise programs

Carruthers, C. K., Fox, W. F., & Jepsen, C. (2023). What Knox achieved: Estimated effects of tuition-free community college on attainment and earnings. The Journal of Human Resources. (link)

Gándara, D., & Li, A. Y. (2020). Promise for whom? “Free-college” programs and enrollments by race and gender classifications at public, 2-year colleges. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 42(4), 603-627. (link)

Monaghan, D. B. (2023). How well do students understand “free community college”? Promise programs as informational interventions. AERA Open, 9(1), 1-13. (link)

Murphy, R., Scott-Clayton, J., & Wyness, G. (2017). Lessons from the end of free college in England. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. (link)

Perna, L. W., Leigh, E. W., & Carroll, S. (2018). “Free college:” A new and improved state approach to increasing educational attainment? American Behavioral Scientist, 61(14), 1740-1756. (link)

Map of college promise/free college programs (Penn AHEAD) (link)

Returns to education

Conzelmann, J. G., Hemelt, S. W., Hershbein, B. J., Martin, S., Simon, A., & Stange, K. M. (2023). Grads on the go: Measuring college-specific labor markets for graduates. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. (link)

Darity, Jr., W. A., & Underwood, M. (2021). Reconsidering the relationship between higher education, earnings, and productivity. Postsecondary Value Commission. (link)

Deterding, N. M., & Pedulla, D. S. (2016). Educational authority in the “open door” marketplace: Labor market consequences of for-profit, nonprofit, and fictional educational credentials. Sociology of Education, 89(3), 155-170. (link)

Ma, J., & Pender, M. (2023). Education pays 2023: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. The College Board. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2016). Are college costs worth it? How ability, major, and debt affect the returns to schooling. Economics of Education Review, 53, 296-310. (link)

My 2023 Higher Education Finance Reading List

I have the pleasure of teaching my PhD class in higher education finance again at Tennessee this summer. Our students take classes year-round, and I am offering the class in a condensed five-week format this summer to best meet the needs of our students. That means a lot of reading for all of us in a short period of time, but I’m excited as always for this class.

The last three times that I taught the course (spring 2022, spring 2020, and fall 2017), I shared my reading list for the class on this blog. I do not use a textbook for the course because the field is moving so quickly and there are more topics to cover than a textbook could ever include. Instead, I use articles, working papers, and other online resources to provide a current look at the state of higher education finance. As a result, the reading list for my class changes considerably each time.

Here is the reading list I am assigning my students for the course. I link to the final versions of the articles whenever possible, but those without access to an academic library should note that earlier versions of many of these articles are available online via a quick Google search.

The higher education finance landscape and data sources

Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Saez, E., Turner, N., & Yagan, D. (2017). Mobility report cards: The role of colleges in intergenerational mobility. Working paper. (link)

Schanzenbach, D. W., Bauer, L., & Breitwieser, A. (2017). Eight economic facts on higher education. The Hamilton Project. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2021). A growing divide: The promise and pitfalls of higher education for the working class. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 695, 94-106. (link)

Recommended data sources:

College Scorecard: https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ (underlying data at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/)

Equality of Opportunity Project: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college

IPEDS: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data

NCES Data Lab: https://nces.ed.gov/datalab/index.aspx

Postsecondary Value Commission’s Equitable Value Explorer: https://www.postsecondaryvalue.org/equitable-value-explorer/

ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

Urban Institute’s Data Explorer: https://educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer/colleges/

Institutional budgeting

Barr, M.J., & McClellan, G.S. (2010). Understanding budgets. In Budgets and financial management in higher education (pp. 55-85). Jossey-Bass. (link)

Jaquette, O., Kramer II, D. A., & Curs, B. R. (2018). Growing the pie? The effect of responsibility center management on tuition revenue. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(5), 637-676. (link)

Rutherford, A., & Rabovsky, T. (2018). Does the motivation for market-based reform matter? The case of responsibility-centered management. Public Administration Review, 78(4), 626-639. (link)

University of Tennessee System’s FY2023 budget: https://finance.tennessee.edu/budget/documents/

University of Tennessee System’s FY2022 annual financial report: https://treasurer.tennessee.edu/reports/

UTK’s Budget Allocation Model website: https://budget.utk.edu/budget-allocation-model/

Higher education expenditures

Archibald, R. B., & Feldman, D. H. (2018). Drivers of the rising price of a college education. Midwestern Higher Education Compact. (link)

Cheslock, J. J., & Knight, D. B. (2015). Diverging revenues, cascading expenditures, and ensuing subsidies: The unbalanced and growing financial strain of intercollegiate athletics on universities and their students. The Journal of Higher Education, 86(3), 417-447. (link)

Commonfund Institute (2021). 2021 higher education price index. (link)

Griffith, A. L., & Rask, K. N. (2016). The effect of institutional expenditures on employment outcomes and earnings. Economic Inquiry, 54(4), 1931-1945. (link)

State sources of revenue

Gándara, D. (2020). How the sausage is made: An examination of a state funding model design process. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(2), 192-221. (link)

Kelchen, R., Lingo, M., Baker, D., Rosinger, K. O., Ortagus, J. C., & Wu, J. (2023). A typology and landscape of state funding formulas for public colleges and universities from 2004 to 2020. InformEd States. (link)

Kunkle, K., & Laderman, S. (2023). State higher education finance: FY 2022. State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. (link)

Shaw, K., Asher, L., & Murphy, S. (2023). Mapping community college finance systems to develop equitable and effective finance policy. HCM Strategists. (link)

Tennessee’s outcomes-based funding formula: https://www.tn.gov/thec/bureaus/ppr/fiscal-policy/outcomes-based-funding-formula-resources/2020-25-obf.html

Federal sources of revenue

Graddy-Reed, A., Feldman, M., Bercovitz, J., & Langford, W. S. (2021). The distribution of indirect cost recovery in academic research. Science and Public Policy, 48(3), 364-386. (link)

Kelchen, R., & Liu, Z. (2022). Did gainful employment regulations result in college and program closures? Education Finance and Policy, 17(3), 454-478. (link)

Ward, J. D. (2019). Intended and unintended consequences of for-profit college regulation: Examining the 90/10 rule. Journal of Student Financial Aid, 48(3), Article 4. (link)

The financial viability of higher education

Ducoff, N. (2019, December 9). Students pay the price if a college fails. So why are we protecting failing institutions? The Hechinger Report. (link)

EY-Parthenon (2018). Transitions in higher education: Safeguarding the interests of students. (link)

Kelchen, R. (2020). Examining the feasibility of empirically predicting college closures. Brookings Institution. (link)

Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (2019). Final report & recommendations. Transitions in higher education: Safeguarding the interest of students (THESIS). (link)

Sullivan, G. W., & Stergios, J. (2019). A risky proposal for private colleges: Ten reasons why the Board of Higher Education must rethink its plan. Pioneer Institute. (link)

Tarrant, M., Bray, N., & Katsinas, S. (2018). The invisible colleges revisited: An empirical review. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(3), 341-367. (link)

College pricing, tuition revenue, and endowments

Baker, D. J. (2020). “Name and shame”: An effective strategy for college tuition accountability? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 42(3), 1-24. (link)

Baum, S., & Lee, V. (2018). Understanding endowments. Urban Institute. (link)

Cheslock, J. J., & Riggs, S. O. (2023). Ever-increasing listed tuition and institutional aid: The role of net price differentials by year of study. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis. (link)

Hatch, B., Myskow, W., & Trivedi, I. (2022, August 15). Stopping the enrollment slide. The Chronicle of Higher Education. https://www.chronicle.com/article/stopping-the-slide.

Kramer II, D. A., Ortagus, J. C., & Lacy, T. A. (2018). Tuition-setting authority and broad-based merit aid: The effect of policy intersection on pricing strategies. Research in Higher Education, 59(4), 489-518. (link)

Ma, J., & Pender, M. (2022). Trends in college pricing and student aid 2021. The College Board. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2017). State divestment and tuition at public institutions. Economics of Education Review, 60, 1-4. (link)

Financial aid policies, practices, and impacts

Bird, K., & Castleman, B. L. (2016). Here today, gone tomorrow? Investigating rates and patterns of financial aid renewal among college freshmen. Research in Higher Education, 57(4), 395-422. (link)

Dynarski, S., Page, L. C., & Scott-Clayton, J. (2022). College costs, financial aid, and student decisions. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 30275. (link)

Guzman-Alvarez, A., & Page, L. C. (2021). Disproportionate burden: Estimating the cost of FAFSA verification for public colleges and universities. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 43(3), 545-551. (link)

Kelchen, R., Goldrick-Rab, S., & Hosch, B. (2017). The costs of college attendance: Examining variation and consistency in institutional living cost allowances. The Journal of Higher Education, 88(6), 947-971. (link)

Student debt and financing college

Baker, D. J. (2019). When average is not enough: A case study examining the variation in the influences on undergraduate debt burden. AERA Open, 5(2), 1-26. (link)

Black, S. E., Denning, J. T., Dettling, L. J., Goodman, S., & Turner, L. (2020). Taking it to the limit: Effects of increased student loan availability on attainment, earnings, and financial well-being. National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 27658. (link)

Boatman, A., Evans, B. J., & Soliz, A. (2017). Understanding loan aversion in education: Evidence from high school seniors, community college students, and adults. AERA Open, 3(1), 1-16. (link)

Ritter, D., & Webber, D. (2019). Modern income-share agreements in postsecondary education: Features, theory, applications. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Discussion Paper 19-06. (link)

Scott-Clayton, J. (2018). What accounts for gaps in student loan default, and what happens after. Brookings Institution Evidence Speaks Report #57. (link)

Returns to education

Darity, Jr., W. A., & Underwood, M. (2021). Reconsidering the relationship between higher education, earnings, and productivity. Postsecondary Value Commission. (link)

Doyle, W. R., & Skinner, B. T. (2017). Does postsecondary education result in civic benefits? The Journal of Higher Education, 88(6), 863-893. (link)

Ma, J., & Pender, M. (2023). Education pays 2023: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. The College Board. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2016). Are college costs worth it? How ability, major, and debt affect the returns to schooling. Economics of Education Review, 53, 296-310. (link)

My 2022 Higher Education Finance Reading List

I am beyond excited to be back in the (virtual) classroom this spring, as I get to teach a course for the first time since spring 2020. I am teaching a remote synchronous PhD class in higher education finance as my first course at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. Department heads here are expected to teach one course per year, and it was great to be asked to teach this course.

The last two times that I taught the course (spring 2020 and fall 2017), I shared my reading list for the class on this blog. I do not use a textbook for the course because the field is moving so quickly and there are more topics to cover than a textbook could ever include. Instead, I use articles, working papers, and other online resources to provide a current look at the state of higher education finance.

The higher education finance landscape and data sources

Lumina Foundation video series on federal financial aid: https://www.luminafoundation.org/history-of-federal-student-aid/

Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Saez, E., Turner, N., & Yagan, D. (2017). Mobility report cards: The role of colleges in intergenerational mobility. Working paper. (link)

Schanzenbach, D. W., Bauer, L., & Breitwieser, A. (2017). Eight economic facts on higher education. The Hamilton Project. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2021). A growing divide: The promise and pitfalls of higher education for the working class. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 695, 94-106. (link)

Recommended data sources:

College Scorecard: https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ (underlying data at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/)

Equality of Opportunity Project: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college

IPEDS: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data

NCES Data Lab: https://nces.ed.gov/datalab/index.aspx

Postsecondary Value Commission’s Equitable Value Explorer: https://www.postsecondaryvalue.org/equitable-value-explorer/

ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

Urban Institute’s Data Explorer: https://educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer/colleges/

Institutional budgeting

Barr, M.J., & McClellan, G.S. (2010). Understanding budgets. In Budgets and financial management in higher education (pp. 55-85). Jossey-Bass. (link)

Jaquette, O., Kramer II, D. A., & Curs, B. R. (2018). Growing the pie? The effect of responsibility center management on tuition revenue. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(5), 637-676. (link)

Rutherford, A., & Rabovsky, T. (2018). Does the motivation for market-based reform matter? The case of responsibility-centered management. Public Administration Review, 78(4), 626-639. (link)

University of Tennessee System’s FY2022 budget: https://finance.tennessee.edu/budget/documents/

University of Tennessee System’s FY2020 annual financial report: https://treasurer.tennessee.edu/reports/

The financial viability of higher education

Ducoff, N. (2019, December 9). Students pay the price if a college fails. So why are we protecting failing institutions? The Hechinger Report. (link)

EY-Parthenon (2018). Transitions in higher education: Safeguarding the interests of students. (link)

Kelchen, R. (2020). Examining the feasibility of empirically predicting college closures. Brookings Institution. (link)

Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (2019). Final report & recommendations. Transitions in higher education: Safeguarding the interest of students (THESIS). (link)

Sullivan, G. W., & Stergios, J. (2019). A risky proposal for private colleges: Ten reasons why the Board of Higher Education must rethink its plan. Pioneer Institute. (link)

Tarrant, M., Bray, N., & Katsinas, S. (2018). The invisible colleges revisited: An empirical review. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(3), 341-367. (link)

Higher education expenditures

Archibald, R. B., & Feldman, D. H. (2018). Drivers of the rising price of a college education. Midwestern Higher Education Compact. (link)

Commonfund Institute (2021). 2021 higher education price index. (link)

Griffith, A. L., & Rask, K. N. (2016). The effect of institutional expenditures on employment outcomes and earnings. Economic Inquiry, 54(4), 1931-1945. (link)

State sources of revenue

Gándara, D. (2020). How the sausage is made: An examination of a state funding model design process. The Journal of Higher Education, 91(2), 192-221. (link)

Laderman, S., & Heckert, K. (2021). State higher education finance: FY 2020. State Higher Education Executive Officers Association. (link)

Lingo, M., Kelchen, R., Baker, D., Rosinger, K. O., Ortagus, J. C., & Wu, J. (2021). The landscape of state funding formulas for public colleges and universities. InformEd States. (link)

Odle, T., Lee, J. C., & Gentile, S. P. (2021). Do promise programs reduce student loans? Evidence from Tennessee Promise. The Journal of Higher Education, 92(6), 847-876. (link)

Tennessee’s outcomes-based funding formula: https://www.tn.gov/thec/bureaus/policy–planning–and-research/fiscal-policy/redirect-fiscal-policy/outcomes-based-funding-formula-resources/redirect-outcomes-based-funding-formula-resources/2015-20-outcomes-based-funding-formula.html

Federal sources of revenue

Cellini, S. R. (2010). Financial aid and for-profit colleges: Does aid encourage entry? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 29(3), 526-552. (link)

Gibbons, M. T. (2021, January 13). Universities report 5.7% growth in R&D spending in FY 2019, reaching $84 billion. National Science Foundation. (link)

Kelchen, R. (2019). An empirical examination of the Bennett Hypothesis in law school prices. Economics of Education Review, 73, Article 101915. (link)

Mok, S., & Shakin, J. (2018). Distribution of federal support for students pursuing higher education in 2016. Congressional Budget Office. (link)

College pricing, tuition revenue, and endowments

Baker, D. J. (2020). “Name and shame”: An effective strategy for college tuition accountability? Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 42(3), 1-24. (link)

Baum, S., & Lee, V. (2018). Understanding endowments. Urban Institute. (link)

Cheslock, J. J., & Riggs, S. O. (2021). Psychology, market pressures, and pricing decisions in higher education: The case of the US private sector. Higher Education, 81, 757-774. (link)

Ma, J., & Pender, M. (2021). Trends in college pricing and student aid 2021. The College Board. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2017). State divestment and tuition at public institutions. Economics of Education Review, 60, 1-4. (link)

Financial aid policies, practices, and impacts

Nguyen, T. D., Kramer, J. W., & Evans, B. J. (2019). The effects of grant aid on student persistence and degree attainment: A systematic review and meta-analysis of the causal evidence. Review of Educational Research, 89(6), 831-874. (link)

Student debt and financing college

Baker, D. J. (2019). When average is not enough: A case study examining the variation in the influences on undergraduate debt burden. AERA Open, 5(2), 1-26. (link)

Boatman, A., Evans, B. J., & Soliz, A. (2017). Understanding loan aversion in education: Evidence from high school seniors, community college students, and adults. AERA Open, 3(1), 1-16. (link)

Ritter, D., & Webber, D. (2019). Modern income-share agreements in postsecondary education: Features, theory, applications. Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Discussion Paper 19-06. (link)

Scott-Clayton, J. (2018). What accounts for gaps in student loan default, and what happens after. Brookings Institution Evidence Speaks Report #57. (link)

Free college

Carruthers, C., Fox, W. F., & Jepsen, C. (2020). Promise kept? Free community college, attainment, and earnings in Tennessee. Working paper. (link)

*Collier, D. A., & Parnther, C. (2021). Conversing with Kalamazoo Promise scholars: An inquiry into the beliefs, motivations, and experiences of tuition-free college students. Journal of College Student Retention: Research, Theory & Practice, 22(4), 572-596. (link)

*Gándara, D., & Li, A. Y. (2020). Promise for whom? “Free-college” programs and enrollments by race and gender classifications at public, 2-year colleges. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 42(4), 603-627. (link)

Murphy, R., Scott-Clayton, J., & Wyness, G. (2017). Lessons from the end of free college in England. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. (link)

Map of college promise/free college programs: https://ahead-penn.org/creating-knowledge/college-promise

Returns to education

Darity, Jr., W. A., & Underwood, M. (2021). Reconsidering the relationship between higher education, earnings, and productivity. Postsecondary Value Commission. (link)

Doyle, W. R., & Skinner, B. T. (2017). Does postsecondary education result in civic benefits? The Journal of Higher Education, 88(6), 863-893. (link)

Ma, J., Pender, M., & Welch, M. (2019). Education pays 2019: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. The College Board. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2016). Are college costs worth it? How ability, major, and debt affect the returns to schooling. Economics of Education Review, 53, 296-310. (link)

A Few Thoughts after Teaching Online

On a typical Sunday evening in the middle of March, I am putting the finishing touches on my annual Net Price Madness bracket based on the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. Needless to say, that went out the window last week after the tournament was cancelled due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis. The virus has had a major impact on higher education, with seemingly most colleges suspending in-person operations on short notice. I’m also increasingly concerned about the financial implications of these closures for colleges, students, and employees alike.

As a department chair for this academic year, the resulting chaos in helping to make sure all classes can continue to operate while also taking care of a regular schedule of meetings and dissertation defenses made this the craziest week in my seven years as a faculty member. I also had to take my own seminar on dissertation writing online on both Saturday and Sunday on short notice. I have taught a few days of class online in the past, usually if there is bad weather or I am out of town for a meeting. But taking two full days of a class online in a synchronous format is something that I had not done before, so here are a few thoughts after teaching.

(1) I am glad that I bought a Zoom license. While my university provides two free options for video courses (Microsoft Teams and Blackboard Collaborate), they simply don’t match the ease of use of Zoom. We were able to easily share screens throughout the weekend, and nobody had any problems with connectivity. It felt more like a coherent experience as a result, which is important given that I had not had any of the students in a previous class.

(2) Lecture notes become an even more important resource. I always put copies of my lecture notes on Blackboard before I teach, but that was crucial for a class held live via video. This way, I could share the notes on the screen and students could follow along easily. It also saved them from having to see my oversized face for most of the weekend, which is an enormous benefit.

(3) Flexibility is crucial. I taught a class of K-12 school and district leaders over a weekend, so I did not have to worry about anyone not having access to a computer with a webcam. (That puts me in a privileged position.) But my students kept getting calls from their districts about contingency plans while I was also getting communication from my university about next steps. Attendance policies should be out the window at this point as we do whatever we can to help students learn. I ended up changing the timing and delivery mode of the final presentation to better meet students’ needs.

(4) There will be trial and error in teaching online. I think this weekend went pretty well given everything else that went on, but I’m still pondering what types of changes to make when I teach my next eight-hour class in two weeks. If you have any recommendations on what to do, I’m all ears at this point.

(5) Take care of yourself. I know that I can’t keep up this week’s pace of work for too many weeks, as this was legitimately a 75-hour work week. So as soon as I could after classes ended, I went out for a long run (a social distance run?) on my local trails—keeping far away from any other people. I am able to mostly—if not entirely—work from home over the next few weeks, so that should help me sleep well, eat well, and be outside while maintaining plenty of social distancing.

My 2020 Higher Education Finance Reading List

I am excited to teach a graduate-level class in higher education finance to my Seton Hall students for the first time since the fall of 2017. Since the field is moving quickly and the course covers a large number of topics, I don’t use a textbook for the course. (Saving students some money is also an added bonus!) I posted my reading list for the fall 2017 class, and I’m happy to be sharing the updated list for this course.

Here is the reading list I am assigning my students for the course, which is my best effort to capture the current state of knowledge in higher education finance. I teach students who are primarily administrators and practitioners, so I especially value articles that are clearly-written and explain research methods in a concise manner. I link to the final versions of the articles whenever possible, but those without access to an academic library should note that earlier versions of many of these articles are available online via a quick Google search.

The higher education finance landscape and data sources

Lumina Foundation video on how the federal government distributes financial aid to students: https://www.luminafoundation.org/looking-back-to-move-forward-4

Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Saez, E., Turner, N., & Yagan, D. (2017). Mobility report cards: The role of colleges in intergenerational mobility. Working paper. (link)

Madzelan, D. (2013). The politics of student aid. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. (link)

Schanzenbach, D. W., Bauer, L., & Breitwieser, A. (2017). Eight economic facts on higher education. Washington, DC: The Hamilton Project. (link)

Recommended data sources:

College Scorecard: https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/ (underlying data at https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/)

Equality of Opportunity Project: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college

IPEDS: https://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/use-the-data

NCES Data Lab: https://nces.ed.gov/datalab/index.aspx

ProPublica’s Nonprofit Explorer: https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/

Urban Institute’s Data Explorer: https://educationdata.urban.org/data-explorer/colleges/

Institutional budgeting

Anguiano, M. R., & Rodriguez, J. (2017). Redesigning a budget model with a grassroots approach. Planning for Higher Education Journal, 45(3), 134-144. (link)

Barr, M.J., & McClellan, G.S. (2010). Understanding budgets. In Budgets and financial management in higher education (pp. 55-85). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (link)

Rutherford, A., & Rabovsky, T. (2018). Does the motivation for market-based reform matter? The case of responsibility-centered management. Public Administration Review, 78(4), 626-639. (link)

Seton Hall’s FY 2018 Forms 990 and 990-T to the Internal Revenue Service: https://www.shu.edu/finance-division/index.cfm

The College of New Jersey’s FY 2018 audited financial statements: https://treasurer.tcnj.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2019/03/FY-18-Audited-Financial-Statements.pdf

Credit rating reports for The College of New Jersey: https://treasurer.tcnj.edu/reports/rating-agency-reports/

Information on The College of New Jersey’s budgeting cycle: https://treasurer.tcnj.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/90/2018/09/TCNJ-Budget-timeline-Aug-2018-PDF-1.pdf

Policy analysis and higher education finance

DesJardins, S.L. (2001). Understanding and using efficiency and equity criteria in the study of higher education policy. In J.C. Smart & W.G. Tierney (Eds.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, Vol. 17 (pp. 173-220). Norwell, MA: Kluwer Academic Publishers. (link)

Heller, D. E. (2017). Financial aid research: The nexus of academic, practitioner, and policy work. Journal of Student Financial Aid, 47(3), 97-104. (link)

Ness, E. C. (2010). The role of information in the policy process: Implications for the examination of research utilization in higher education policy. In J. C. Smart (Ed.), Higher education: Handbook of theory and research, Vol. 25 (pp. 1-49). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer. (link)

Toutkoushian, R., & Raghav, M. (forthcoming). Estimated profit: A look at the excess revenues of private four-year nonprofit postsecondary institutions. Education Finance and Policy. (link)

Federal sources of revenue

Cellini, S. R. (2010). Financial aid and for-profit colleges: Does aid encourage entry? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 29(3), 526-552. (link)

Gibbons, M. T. (2019). Higher education R&D funding from all sources increased for the third straight year in FY 2018. Washington, DC: National Science Foundation. (link)

Kelchen, R. (2019). An empirical examination of the Bennett Hypothesis in law school prices. Economics of Education Review. doi: 10.1016/j.econedurev.2019.101915. (link)

Mok, S., & Shakin, J. (2018). Distribution of federal support for students pursuing higher education in 2016. Washington, DC: Congressional Budget Office. (link)

State sources of revenue

Doyle, W., & Zumeta, W. (2014). State-level responses to the access and completion challenge in the new era of austerity. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 655, 79-98. (link)

Kolbe, T., & Baker, B. (2019). Fiscal equity and America’s community colleges. The Journal of Higher Education, 90(1), 111-149. (link)

Ortagus, J. C., Kelchen, R., Rosinger, K. O., & Voorhees, N. (2019). Performance-based funding in American higher education: A systematic synthesis of the intended and unintended consequences. Working paper. (I will be able to share it soon!)

State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (2019). State higher education finance: FY 2018. Boulder, CO: Author. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2017). State divestment and tuition at public institutions. Economics of Education Review, 60, 1-4. (link)

Higher education expenditures

Archibald, R. B., & Feldman, D. H. (2018). Drivers of the rising price of a college education. Minneapolis, MN: Midwestern Higher Education Compact. (link)

Commonfund Institute (2018). 2018 higher education price index. Wilton, CT: Author. (link)

Hemelt, S. W., Stange, K. M., Furquim, F., Simon, A., & Sawyer, J. E. (2018). Why is math cheaper than English? Understanding cost differences in higher education. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 25314. (link)

Hurlburt, S., & McGarrah, M. (2016). Cost savings or cost shifting? The relationship between part-time contingent faculty and institutional spending. New York, NY: TIAA Institute. (link)

College pricing, tuition revenue, and endowments

Baum, S., & Lee, V. (2018). Understanding endowments. Washington, DC: Urban Institute. (link)

Burd, S., Fishman, R., Keane, L., & Habbert, J. (2018). Decoding the cost of college: The case for transparent financial aid award letters. Washington, DC: New America. (link)

Goldrick-Rab, S., & Kendall, N. (2016). The real price of college. New York, NY: The Century Foundation. (link)

Jaquette, O., Curs, B. R., & Posselt, J. R. (2016). Tuition rich, mission poor: Nonresident enrollment growth and the socioeconomic and racial composition of public research universities. Journal of Higher Education, 87(5), 635-673. (link)

Ma, J., Baum, S., Pender, M., & Libassi, C. (2019). Trends in college pricing 2019. New York, NY: The College Board. (link)

Financial aid policies, practices, and impacts

Anderson, D. M., Broton, K. M., Goldrick-Rab, S., & Kelchen, R. (2019). Experimental evidence on the impacts of need-based financial aid: Longitudinal assessment of the Wisconsin Scholars Grant. Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. doi: 10.1002/pam.22190. (link)

Baum, S., Ma, J., Pender, M., & Libassi, C. (2019). Trends in student aid 2019. New York, NY: The College Board. (link)

Schudde, L., & Scott-Clayton, J. (2016). Pell Grants as performance-based scholarships? An examination of satisfactory academic progress requirements in the nation’s largest need-based aid program. Research in Higher Education, 57(8), 943-967. (link)

Free college

Deming, D. J. (2017). Increasing college completion with a federal higher education matching grant. Washington, DC: The Hamilton Project. (link)

Goldrick-Rab, S., & Kelly, A. P. (2016). Should community college be free? Education Next, 16(1), 54-60. (link)

Murphy, R., Scott-Clayton, J., & Wyness, G. (2017). Lessons from the end of free college in England. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. (link)

Map of college promise/free college programs: https://ahead-penn.org/creating-knowledge/college-promise

Student debt and financing college

Boatman, A., Evans, B. J., & Soliz, A. (2017). Understanding loan aversion in education: Evidence from high school seniors, community college students, and adults. AERA Open, 3(1), 1-16. (link)

Gonzalez, J., Ahlman, L., & Fung, A. (2019). Student debt and the class of 2018. Oakland, CA: The Institute for College Access and Success. (link)

Houle, J. N., & Warner, C. (2017). Into the red and back to the nest? Student debt, college completion, and returning to the parental home among young adults. Sociology of Education, 90(1), 89-108. (link)

Kelchen, R., & Li. A. Y. (2017). Institutional accountability: A comparison of the predictors of student loan repayment and default rates. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 671, 202-223. (link)

Ritter, D., & Webber, D. (2019). Modern income-share agreements in postsecondary education: Features, theory, applications. Philadelphia, PA: Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia Discussion Paper 19-06. (link)

Scott-Clayton, J. (2018). What accounts for gaps in student loan default, and what happens after. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Evidence Speaks Report #57. (link)

Returns to education

Doyle, W. R., & Skinner, B. T. (2017). Does postsecondary education result in civic benefits? The Journal of Higher Education, 88(6), 863-893. (link)

Giani, M. S. (2016). Are all colleges equally equalizing? How institutional selectivity impacts socioeconomic disparities in graduates’ labor outcomes. Research in Higher Education, 39(3), 431-461. (link)

Ma, J., Pender, M., & Welch, M. (2016). Education pays 2016: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. Washington, DC: The College Board. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2016). Are college costs worth it? How ability, major, and debt affect the returns to schooling. Economics of Education Review, 53, 296-310. (link)

The financial viability of higher education

Ducoff, N. (2019, December 9). Students pay the price if a college fails. So why are we protecting failing institutions? The Hechinger Report. (link)

EY-Parthenon (2018). Transitions in higher education: Safeguarding the interests of students. New York, NY: Author. (link)

Massachusetts Board of Higher Education (2019). Final report & recommendations. Transitions in higher education: Safeguarding the interest of students (THESIS). Boston, MA: Author. (link)

Sullivan, G. W., & Stergios, J. (2019). A risky proposal for private colleges: Ten reasons why the Board of Higher Education must rethink its plan. Boston, MA: Pioneer Institute. (link)

Tarrant, M., Bray, N., & Katsinas, S. (2018). The invisible colleges revisited: An empirical review. The Journal of Higher Education, 89(3), 341-367. (link)

A Plea for Simple Slides

It’s hard to believe that it is already time for the traditional academic year to begin. It seems like commencement was yesterday, but instead this week marks new student orientation and preparing to teach my first class of the fall semester on Monday. Unlike the common perception that faculty really don’t do much during the summer, I averaged one trip per week for research and meetings, taught a class, and tried to do as much writing as possible while still taking a few days off.

All of this meant that I spent a lot of time preparing and watching presentations. There was tremendous variety in presentations, with some being wonderful and some being not so wonderful. And I am particularly sensitive to how presentations are conducted, as I have a hard time with small font and weak color contrasts. (I had two eye surgeries as a child, and sudden motion and depth perception have always been an issue for me.)

My visual limitations aside, nearly every person presenting information to a professional audience would benefit from trying to keep their slides as simple as possible. I offer a few recommendations in this post.

(1) Prepare slides for a challenging audiovisual setup. I always advise my students to prepare for any presentation as if they will be in a large room with a small projector screen. While presenters will sometimes know the room they are using well, in many cases they will be walking into an unknown situation. Making sure that slides can be easily read in the back of a large room is far better than having people unable to read your slides because the font is too small. (After all, people tend to gravitate to the back of the room for most presentations!)

(2) Don’t overload slides with text. Novice presenters often compensate for their nervousness by putting everything they want to say on the slide—and then reading off of it. When the audience sees lots of information on a slide, their inclination is to try to read through it as quickly as possible in case the presenter goes on to the next slide. This results in nobody paying attention to the presenter—and everyone starting to pay attention to their phones instead.

(3) Think about colorblindness and other vision issues. Another concern to consider is whether your audience members will be able to see your text or graphics as intended. Color blindness affects millions of Americans, which can make a number of colors look similar. A classic example of this that I use in my teaching came from a game that the New York (ahem, New Jersey) Jets and Buffalo Bills played with all-green versus all-red uniforms. Color-blind viewers couldn’t tell which team was which. (Here is a resource to check your slides for color contrast issues.) I also think of my wonderful friend and Temple University economist Doug Webber, who is legally blind. I struggle with reading slides more than most people, but my goal is to have slides that can be read by nearly everyone.

(4) There is no need for fancy transitions or dancing clip art. I grew up with that dancing Microsoft Office paper clip of the 1990s, and I was not at all sad to see Clippy hit the unemployment line during the recession of 2001. Clip art like Clippy never served a useful purpose and only serves to distract people at best and scramble their circuits at the worst. Prezi slide presentations are the exact same thing—the sudden and violent transitions make me physically ill and they add no value to presentations. A solid presenter can make people pay attention to their words instead of their (not-so) stunning visuals.

(5) If possible, raise concerns about readability of slides. Presenters usually make their slides while sitting close to a computer screen, which makes slides much easier to read than they are for most audience members. And unless someone has vision issues or a close friend with vision issues, they have probably never considered the accessibility of their slides. This means that someone has to tell them that there are issues with their slides. As a newly-tenured faculty member, I am perfectly comfortable going directly to the presenter and sharing my concerns, but junior people may wish to go to someone else who can speak to the presenter.

Finally, I remind my students that the bar to clear to give a competent presentation in higher education is reasonably low (after all, most people are socially awkward like me). By keeping slides simple and trying to deliver a few key messages reasonably well, presenters will look quite good even when they don’t feel fully confident in their abilities.

How to Maintain Research Productivity

This summer is my first summer after receiving tenure at Seton Hall. While tenure and promotion to associate professor officially do not kick in until the start of the next academic year in August, there have already been some changes to my job responsibilities. The most notable change is that I have taken over as the director of the higher education graduate programs at Seton Hall, which means taking on a heaping helping of administrative work that is needed to make things run smoothly. While this work does come with a teaching reduction during the academic year, it’s a year-round job that takes a hefty bite out of my schedule. (And yes, professors do work—which is often unpaid—during the summer!)

Over the past few years, a few other factors have contributed to sharply reduce the amount of available time that I have to work on research. Since I teach in a doctoral program, faculty members are typically asked to chair more and more dissertation committees as they gain more experience. I also spend quite a bit of time on the road giving talks and being in meetings on higher education policy issues across the country, which is a great opportunity to catch up on reading dissertations in transit but makes it hard to write. These demands have really hit hard over the last few months, which is why blog posts have been relatively few and far between this year.

I had the chance to participate in a panel discussion through Seton Hall’s Center for Faculty Development last academic year on the topic of maintaining research productivity. I summarize some of my key points below, and people who are interested can listen to the entire podcast. Hopefully, some of these tips are especially useful for new faculty members who are beginning the exciting transition into a tenure-track position and often face more demands on their time than they faced in the past.

(1) Take care of yourself. One challenge of being a faculty member is that an unusually large proportion of our time is unstructured. Even for colleagues who teach three or four classes a semester (I teach two), direct teaching and office hour obligations may only be 20 hours per week. But the amount of work to do is seemingly infinite, resulting in pressures to work absurd hours. Set a reasonable bound on the number of hours that you are willing to work each week and stick to it the best that you can. Also make sure to have some hobbies to get away from the computer. I enjoy running, gardening, and cooking—as demonstrated by these homemade pizzas from last weekend.

(2) Keep your time allocation in mind. In addition to not working too many hours each week, it is important to be spending time on what is eventually rewarded. If your annual review or tenure/promotion guidelines specify that your evaluation is based 40% on research, 40% on teaching, and 20% on service, it is an issue to be spending 25 hours each week on teaching. Talk with experienced faculty members or trusted colleagues about what you can do to improve your teaching efficiency. If efficiency isn’t the issue, it’s time to talk with trusted colleagues about what can be done (if anything) to protect your time for research. I do my best to block off two days each week for research during the academic year, although that does get tough with travel, conference calls, and interviews.

Another helpful hint is structuring assignment due dates so you don’t get overwhelmed. I usually have a conference to attend during the middle of the semester, so I schedule the due date for midterm papers to be right before the trip. That way, I can read papers on the train or plane (since I’m not good at writing away from my trusted home office).

(3) Guard your most productive writing time. Most faculty members that I talk with have a much harder time getting into a research mindset than getting into a teaching or service mindset. This means that for many people, their writing time needs to be the time of day in which they are at their sharpest. Being able to control when you teach and meet with students is often outside your control, but deciding when to answer e-mails and prepare classes typically is. It’s hard enough to write, so blocking off several of your most productive hours each week to write is a must when tenure and promotion depend on it. Conference calls and nonessential meetings can fit nicely into the rest of your week.

(4) Collaborations can be awesome. (Caveat: Make sure your discipline/institution rewards collaborative research first. Most do, but some don’t.) In the tenure and promotion process, it is crucial for faculty members to be able to demonstrate their own research agenda and contribution to their field of study. But strategically using collaborations in addition to sole-authored projects can be a wonderful way to maintain research productivity and stay excited about your work. I have been fortunate to work with a number of great collaborators over the last few years, and just had a great time last week going out to Penn State to meet with my colleagues on a fun research project on state performance funding policies. These collaborations motivate me to keep working on new projects!

Colleagues, I would love to hear your thoughts about how you keep your research agenda moving forward amid a host of other demands. Either comment below or send me a note; I would love to do a follow-up post with more suggestions!

My 2017 Higher Education Finance Reading List

For the most up-to-date reading list, please see this list from January 2020.

The middle of July marks the two-thirds point in my academic summer, so I’m spending time getting ready for the fall semester in addition to packing in as much research and fun into this wonderful time of year. I am teaching a higher education finance class at Seton Hall University for the fourth time this fall semester and just posted my syllabus for my students to look at before the semester begins.

I hope you enjoy the list!

Introduction to higher education finance

Lumina Foundation video on how the federal government distributes financial aid to students: https://www.luminafoundation.org/looking-back-to-move-forward-4

Chetty, R., Friedman, J. N., Saez, E., Turner, N., & Yagan, D. (2017). Mobility report cards: The role of colleges in intergenerational mobility. Working paper. (Also, look at their website for data on how your favorite college fares: http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college/.)

Ehrenberg, R. G. (2012). American higher education in transition. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26(1), 193-216. (link)

Madzelan, D. (2013). The politics of student aid. Washington, DC: American Enterprise Institute. (link)

Schanzenbach, D. W., Bauer, L., & Breitwieser, A. (2017). Eight economic facts on higher education. Washington, DC: The Hamilton Project. (link)

National Center for Education Statistics (2015). IPEDS data center user manual. Washington, DC: Author. (skim as a reference) (link)

Institutional budgeting

Barr, M.J., & McClellan, G.S. (2010). Understanding budgets. In Budgets and financial management in higher education (pp. 55-85). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass. (link)

Varlotta, L.E. (2010). Becoming a leader in university budgeting. New Directions for Student Services, 129, 5-20. (link)

Seton Hall’s FY 2016 Forms 990 and 990-T to the Internal Revenue Service: https://www13.shu.edu/offices/finance/index.cfm

The College of New Jersey’s FY 2016 audited financial statements: https://treasurer.tcnj.edu/files/2016/02/FY2016-Audited-Financials-and-Schedules-of-Federal-State-Awards.pdf

Moody’s credit rating report for The College of New Jersey: https://treasurer.tcnj.edu/files/2016/09/Moodys-TCNJ-Final-Report-8.15.2016.pdf

Information on The College of New Jersey’s budgeting cycle: https://treasurer.tcnj.edu/files/2012/06/FY2018-TCNJ-Strategic-Budget-Planning-Cycle.pdf

Policy analysis and higher education finance

Weimer, D.L., & Vining, A.R. (1999). Thinking strategically about adoption and implementation. In Policy analysis: Concepts and practice (3rd Ed.) (pp. 382-416). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall. (link)

Winston, G. C. (1999). Subsidies, hierarchy and peers: The awkward economics of higher education. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 13(1), 13-36. (link)

Higher education expenditures

Altonji, J. G., & Zimmerman, S. D. (2017). The costs of and net returns to college major. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 23029. (link)

Archibald, R. B., & Feldman, D. H. (2008). Explaining increases in higher education costs. The Journal of Higher Education, 79(3), 268-295.

Hurlburt, S., & McGarrah, M. (2016). Cost savings or cost shifting? The relationship between part-time contingent faculty and institutional spending. New York, NY: TIAA Institute. (link)

Commonfund Institute (2015). 2015 higher education price index. Wilton, CT: Author. (skim) (link)

Desrochers, D. M., & Hurlburt, S. (2016). Trends in college spending: 2003-2013. Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. (skim) (link)

Federal sources of revenue

Cellini, S. R. (2010). Financial aid and for-profit colleges: Does aid encourage entry? Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, 29(3), 526-552. (link)

Kirshstein, R. J., & Hurlburt, S. (2012). Revenues: Where does the money come from? Washington, DC: American Institutes for Research. (link)

Pew Charitable Trusts (2015). Federal and state funding of higher education. Washington, DC: Author. (link)

Pew Charitable Trusts (2017). How governments support higher education through the tax code. Washington, DC: Author. (link)

(Note: I will add a draft paper I’m working on looking at whether law, medical, and business schools responded to a 2006 increase in Grad PLUS loan limits by raising tuition later in the semester. I’ll have a public draft of the paper to share in early November, but I think it’s good that students see a really rough draft to see how the research process works.)

State sources of revenue

Chatterji, A. K., Kim, J., & McDevitt, R. C. (2016). School spirit: Legislator school ties and state funding for higher education. Working paper. (link)

Fitzpatrick, M. D., & Jones, D. (2016). Post-baccalaureate migration and merit-based scholarships. Economics of Education Review, 54, 155-172. (link)

Hillman, N. W. (2016). Why performance-based funding doesn’t work. New York, NY: The Century Foundation. (link)

State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (2017). State higher education finance: FY 2017. Boulder, CO: Author. (skim) (link)

College pricing, tuition revenue, and endowments

Goldrick-Rab, S., & Kendall, N. (2016). The real price of college. New York, NY: The Century Foundation. (link)

Kelchen, R. (2016). An analysis of student fees: The roles of states and institutions. The Review of Higher Education, 39(4), 597-619. (link)

Levin, T., Levitt, S. D., & List, J. A. (2016). A glimpse into the world of high capacity givers: Experimental evidence from a university capital campaign. Cambridge, MA: National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper 22099. (link)

Yau, L., & Rosen, H. S. (2016). Are universities becoming more unequal? The Review of Higher Education, 39(4), 479-514. (link)

Ma, J., Baum, S., Pender, M., & Welch, M. (2016). Trends in college pricing 2016. Washington, DC: The College Board. (skim) (link)

National Association of College and University Budget Offices (2017). 2016 NACUBO-Commonfund study of endowment results. http://www.nacubo.org/Research/NACUBO-Commonfund_Study_of_Endowments/Public_NCSE_Tables.html (skim)

Student debt and financing college

Akers, B., & Chingos, M. M. (2016). Game of loans: The rhetoric and reality of student debt (p. 13-37). Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. (link)

Boatman, A., Evans, B. J., & Soliz, A. (2017). Understanding loan aversion in education: Evidence from high school seniors, community college students, and adults. AERA Open, 3(1), 1-16. (link)

Chakrabarti, R., Haughwout, A., Lee, D., Scally, J., & van der Klaauw, W. (2017). Press briefing on household debt, with focus on student debt. New York, NY: Federal Reserve Bank of New York. (link)

Financial aid practices, policies, and impacts

Watch the Lumina Foundation’s video on the history of the Pell Grant: https://www.luminafoundation.org/looking-back-to-move-forward-3

Carruthers, C. K., & Ozek, U. (2016). Losing HOPE: Financial aid and the line between college and work. Economics of Education Review, 53, 1-15. (link)

Goldrick-Rab, S., Kelchen, R., Harris, D. N., & Benson, J. (2016). Reducing income inequality in educational attainment: Experimental evidence on the impact of financial aid on college completion. American Journal of Sociology, 121(6), 1762-1817. (link)

Baum, S., Ma, J., Pender, M., & Welch, M. (2016). Trends in student aid 2016. Washington, DC: The College Board. (skim) (link)

Free college programs/proposals

Deming, D. J. (2017). Increasing college completion with a federal higher education matching grant. Washington, DC: The Hamilton Project. (link)

Goldrick-Rab, S., & Kelly, A. P. (2016). Should community college be free? Education Next, 16(1), 54-60. (link)

Harnisch, T. L., & Lebioda, K. (2016). The promises and pitfalls of state free community college plans. Washington, DC: American Association of State Colleges and Universities. (link)

Murphy, R., Scott-Clayton, J., & Wyness, G. (2017). Lessons from the end of free college in England. Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution. (link)

Map of college promise/free college programs: https://ahead-penn.org/creating-knowledge/college-promise

Returns to education

Doyle, W. R., & Skinner, B. T. (2017). Does postsecondary education result in civic benefits? The Journal of Higher Education. doi: 10.1080/00221546.2017.1291258. (link)

Ma, J., Pender, M., & Welch, M. (2016). Education pays 2016: The benefits of higher education for individuals and society. Washington, DC: The College Board. (link)

Webber, D. A. (2016). Are college costs worth it? How ability, major, and debt affect the returns to schooling. Economics of Education Review, 53, 296-310. (link)

What Does a Professor Do During the Summer?

It’s safe to say that full-time faculty members at American colleges and universities have work schedules and expectations that are often not well understood by the general public. I often get two kinds of questions from people who are trying to figure out how I spend my time:

(1) You only teach two evenings per week. What do you do the rest of the time?

(2) You really have a three-month summer vacation? How do you fill up all of that free time?

I just finished my fourth year as an assistant professor at Seton Hall University, so right now I hear that second question quite a bit. In this post, I share some insights into what my summer looks like as a tenure-track faculty member at a university with substantial (but not extreme) research expectations. (And yes, I will take some time off this summer, as well.)

You don’t have a 12-month contract?

Like our colleagues in K-12 education, most faculty members are paid to work 9-10 months per year. This means that at least in theory, two or three months per year are completely ours. But although it’s common to say that the best three things about being a teacher are June, July, and August, faculty still have to do work outside the contract window in order to do their job well. My nine-month contract ended May 15, and there is absolutely no way I would meet the research or teaching expectations for tenure without using the summer as a way to get ahead. (Similarly, it’s hard for K-12 teachers to do course preps just within their contract period.) But service expectations grind to a halt during the summer, which does provide more time to do other work.

So what does your summer look like?

My biggest project this summer is to work on a paper looking at whether law, medical, and business schools responded to substantially increased Grad PLUS loan limits after 2006 by raising tuition or living allowances. (This is a new look at the Bennett Hypothesis—and I’ve summarized the existing research here.) I received a grant from the AccessLex Institute and the Association for Institutional Research to support this work, which provides me with a month and a half of additional salary and a grad student to help me with data work for 20 hours per week this summer as well as funds to buy out a course in the fall semester. This is my first successful external grant application after eight failed attempts, so it’s good to have some additional support for the summer.

My other important project on the research front is to put the finishing touches on my forthcoming book on higher education accountability, which should be out in early 2018 through Johns Hopkins University Press. I will spend several weeks working on copy editing, putting together an index, and checking page proofs. While I will get a portion of the book’s sales when it comes out, I can safely say that writing a book isn’t a great get-rich-quick scheme. (But journal articles rarely pay any money.)

I am in a fortunate position in which I can supplement my income as a faculty member with consulting or contract work. Each year since 2012, I have compiled Washington Monthly magazine’s college rankings, which comes with a small stipend along with the more important benefit of building connections with the higher education policy community. I also have the opportunity to write occasional policy briefs or white papers on a contract basis; different organizations ask me to explore a topic of interest to them while leaving me with complete editorial freedom to approach the topic as desired. Some of these turn into well-cited papers or articles, such as a paper I wrote at the request of the American Enterprise Institute in 2015 on the landscape of competency-based education.

While I will not teach any formal classes this summer, I will work with my group of dissertation students over the summer (as they pay tuition to work with me over the summer and I get a small stipend from the university). Based on some of the experiences I had in graduate school, I am getting my students together as a group six times over the course of the summer to share their progress and workshop draft chapters. The first meeting was yesterday, and it was a lot of fun. I will also work to update my higher education finance class for the fall semester, as quite a bit has changed since the last time I taught the class (the spring 2016 syllabus is here). I have a folder of 63 potential new readings to incorporate into the class, so it’ll take me a while to narrow this down to 20-30 articles to use in place of what was the state of the art in late 2015.

Academic summers are a wonderful thing—and the flexibility these summers offer are one of the reasons why many of us like this job so much. But even though we have a lot of flexibility about when we do the work, it still needs to get done. I hope this post provides some insights into what June, July, and August look like for at least a certain type of faculty member, and I’d love to hear what summers look like for other academics in the comments section below.

Why is College So Expensive? (Nearly) Everyone is to Blame

“Why is college so expensive?” “Why does college cost so much?” If I had a dollar for every time I’ve been asked that type of question, I could probably pay the roughly $15,000 it takes to provide a year of college for the typical student at a four-year regional public university. This is the true cost of college—how much the college spends on a given student each year. The public is often more concerned with the price (what students and their families pay), but barring additional massive public spending on higher education, the cost of providing a college education must be brought under control in order for students to see lower price tags.

Any piece written by a member of the higher education community for the general public about college costs is likely to reach a large audience due to deep public concerns about college affordability. A recent piece in the Washington Post by Steven Pearlstein, former journalist and current professor at George Mason University, offers four potential solutions to bending the college cost curve. Below, I discuss each of his four ideas and whether they are feasible. (Note that because the focus is on reducing the cost of educating a student, state funding and additional financial aid aren’t relevant here—although they would reduce the price faced by students.)

Proposal #1: Cap administrative costs. This one seems like a no-brainer; if the goal is to educate students, more money should be spent on instruction compared to various “deanlets” and other administrators. But there are legitimate reasons for additional administrators. First, as Pearlstein notes, increasingly complex government regulations, such as for how financial aid is disbursed, do need specialized individuals. As the college-going population has become more diverse, at least some additional student services are required to serve a student body with different academic and social needs than decades ago.

However, the blame for rising administrative costs can also be shared among students and faculty in addition to administrators and regulators. Some students’ preferences for intercollegiate athletics and recreation facilities (such the infamous climbing walls and lazy rivers) also require a number of additional staff members and administrators to run these endeavors. Additionally, as Andrew Kelly of the American Enterprise Institute noted last week, even student protesters’ demands for additional services at places such as the University of Missouri and Yale could increase total costs. Faculty are also to blame—each time we give up a former part of our jobs (such as advising students, making admissions decisions, or even making copies), someone else does it.

Proposal #2: Use a year-round teaching schedule, five days per week. It’s really hard to argue that college facilities are being used in an efficient manner. Fridays tend to be ghost towns at many colleges, although many less-selective colleges do hold quite a few evening and weekend classes. But residential students tend not to like Friday classes, and faculty with demanding travel schedules also prefer to keep Fridays free for travel. I teach Monday and Wednesday evenings, and I’ll use about half of the Fridays in a given semester to go to meetings and conferences. Technology has the ability to help solve this problem through the use of hybrid classes. Faculty can teach online a few weeks each semester while they are traveling, something which I do on occasion as well as when the weather is bad.

Moving to a year-round teaching schedule, however, is likely to have significant budgetary implications. Most faculty with teaching obligations are on a 9-month or 10-month contract, meaning that they are not expected to work with students during the summer period—let alone teach. Asking faculty to teach in the summer would likely result in contracts needing to be 11 or 12 months per year, which would probably mean increased salaries. After all, if teaching is added to a professor’s schedule in the summer, she probably won’t work for free.

Proposal #3: Teach more and research less. Pearlstein notes that much research is never cited by any other academics, as well as noting that the incentive structure often favors research (which is far easier to quantify than teaching). The blame for the focus on research can be placed on both administrators and faculty, as both groups often prefer research over teaching and may both have input into the tenure and promotion process.

However, Pearlstein’s mention of research showing that “teaching loads at research universities have declined almost 50 percent in the past 30 years” is incorrect. That study, which used the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, was rescinded in 2013 due to concerns about the wording of faculty workload questions changing during the length of the study. While it’s probably the case that faculty teaching loads at more selective institutions have declined somewhat, Pearlstein shouldn’t have used a study that was rescinded a month after it was released.

Proposal #4: Cheaper, better general education. In this section, Pearlstein pushes for more online and hybrid courses to better engage students in the material. This sounds good, but it is far from a certainty that online courses are actually less expensive than in-person courses. (Research on this is nascent and inconclusive.) Additionally, Pearlstein cites government data stating that “more than three-quarters of students at four-year colleges and universities have never taken an online or hybrid course.” As Russ Poulin at WCET notes, 27% of students took a distance education course in 2013 alone, meaning that the percentage of students with some online experience at some point in college is likely far larger than 25%. I’ll be the first to admit that general education is not my strong point as a member of the graduate faculty, but there are lots of good people working on issues of general education.

As the discussion above suggests, nearly everyone (except woefully underpaid adjuncts) is to blame for the rising costs—and prices—of a college education. The challenge is that any solution is likely to be fairly complex and involve negotiations among faculty, administrators, students, and taxpayers. This is why college costs tend to get lip service from the higher education community until revenue sources dry up. But the financial struggles of many small private colleges (let alone many cash-strapped public colleges) make cost-cutting measures necessary, and hopefully the rest of the higher education community can learn from their experiences.