Our Work - Current Projects

  • The Project on Student Debt

    The Project on Student Debt

    The Project on Student Debt works to increase public understanding of rising student debt and the implications for our families, economy, and society. Through research, policy development, and advocacy, the Project’s goal is to identify cost-effective solutions that expand educational opportunity, protect family financial security, and advance economic competitiveness

  • Keeping California's Promise

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    California’s Master Plan for higher education, adopted in 1960, guarantees a place in college for every state resident who can benefit. In the face of today’s challenges, the state needs to find new ways to keep that promise. The Institute is starting this work with a focus on the role of financial aid in serving the 2.5 million students at California’s community colleges.

  • Simplifying the FAFSA

    FAFSA

    The Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) is a lengthy and intimidating form that is widely considered more of a barrier to college access than a gateway. The Institute is developing a way, with the applicant's simple persmission, to answer the income questions on the FAFSA with information the government already has. This option would make application for federal aid a much simpler, more accurate process.

  • College InSight

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    College InSight is a unique new web site for higher education data and research. The site is a valuable resource for anyone interested in college affordability, student debt, economic and racial diversity, student success, and other important issues in higher education.

Our Work - Past Projects

 

  • Difficult Dialogues Initiative

    Difficult Dialogues

    The Difficult Dialogues Initiative was a program designed to promote academic freedom and religious, cultural, and political pluralism on college and university campuses in the United States. Supported by the Ford Foundation, 43 institutions are implementing projects that address a wide range of topics. Through the Assessment and Evaluation Development Team (AEDT), the Institute has worked with the Difficult Dialogues Initiative providing technical assistance and support in the areas of assessment and evaluation to grantee institutions. 

  • College Access Marketing

    College Access Marketing

    Working for the Pathways to College Network, the Institute developed a web site to assist agencies and organizations that want to use marketing techniques to help increase college participation. The site allows college access professionals the ability to share effective strategies and materials, avoid common mistakes, and find creative ideas.

  • Student Loan Watch

    Student Loan Watch

    Early on, the Institute studied ways to make the federal student loan programs more cost-efficient, freeing up funds to help more families afford college. That work, previously known as Student Loan Watch, is now part of Higher Ed Watch, a project of the New America Foundation’s Education Policy Program.


Featured Work


poll

Poll: Young Adults Say Higher Education is More Important but Less Affordable

A national bi-partisan survey of adults ages 18-34 reveals that young adults today believe a college education is more important than it was for their parents' generation, that it has become less affordable in the last five years, and that students are leaving school with too much debt.

 

SDR2010

Student Debt and the Class of 2010

College seniors who graduated in 2010 carried an average of $25,250 in student loan debt and also faced the highest unemployment levels for new college graduates in recent history at 9.1 percent.

 

Critical Choices

Our new report looks at promising and problematic practices of financial aid offices when students apply for private student loans.

 

Still Denied

Our new issue brief Still Denied: How Community Colleges Shortchange Students by Not Offering Federal Loans found that more than one million community college students were denied access federal student loans, the safest and most affordable way to borrow for college.

 

Adding It All Up

By the end of October, U.S. colleges must meet a federal requirement to create online "net price calculators." We took an early look at how colleges are approaching this requirement and found mixed results for how easy the calculators were to find, use, and understand. 

 

After the FAFSA

This report sheds light on what happens to federal financial aid applicants after they submit the FAFSA. Using 2007-08 financial aid data from 13 California community colleges, the Institute found that one in three likely Pell-eligible applicants did not receive a Pell Grant.