Education Commons^™

The Rise And Fall Of Public Higher Education In The United States: Implications For Socioeconomic Inequality, Chantal Bao-Chau Hoang

CMC Senior Theses

This paper aims to explore how shifting federal, state, and individual priorities have transformed public higher education from a bastion of quality higher education for the greatest number of people to a more privatized state that only provides access and choice to those who can afford them. Decreased public support and state appropriations for public higher education schools have led many institutions to privatize themselves through increasing tuition prices and enrolling more out-of-state and international students who can afford to pay the full sticker price. At the same time, federal financial aid programs have become more and more geared towards …