Higher Education Administration Commons^™

Reauthorization Ready: How Nasfaa Influences The Higher Education Policymaking Process, Megan Mcclean Coval

Journal of Student Financial Aid

The Higher Education Act (HEA) is due to be reauthorized by Congress and the higher education policy community is working hard to be a part of those efforts. The National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA) plays a unique role in this process, as the HEA contains the legislation behind all of the federal student financial aid programs. As partisan politics infiltrate Washington D.C., NASFAA is working with its members and association colleagues to put forth innovative recommendations to shape and inform the reauthorization process. This paper examines the reauthorization process; highlights NASFAA’s specific work, including policy recommendations; and …

Preparing For Hea Reauthorization: Recommendations For Practitioners, Brittany Inge, Pamela Fowler, Jacob P. Gross

Journal of Student Financial Aid

The upcoming reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 provides opportunities and presents challenges for financial aid administrators. This article outlines steps that aid administrators can take and challenges they may face in preparing for and responding to new legislation.

Guest Editor’S Column: Preparing For Reauthorization Of The Higher Education Act, Laura W. Perna

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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Introduction: Reauthorization: An Opportunity For Substantive Change In How Students Pay For College, Jacob P. Gross

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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Borrowing And Repaying Student Loans, Nicholas W. Hillman

Journal of Student Financial Aid

This essay synthesizes the most recent and rigorous research on student loan debt. It focuses on basic questions about who borrows, how much, and whether debt affects behaviors. Answers to these questions are necessary for informing federal student loan policymaking, yet the research findings are surprisingly mixed because of poor data quality, research design challenges, and the growing heterogeneity of borrowers. This ambiguity makes federal policymaking difficult when questions about the benefits and burdens of student loan debt are left unanswered. By synthesizing the current research, this essay helps answer some of these questions while calling attention to others.

Back To The Future: What Previous Hea Reauthorizations Might Say About The Next One, Dan Madzelan

Journal of Student Financial Aid

For 50 years, the Higher Education Act has been the primary vehicle for advancing federal higher education policy. Many policymakers and interested observers expect its upcoming reauthorization to address three overarching topic areas: college affordability, institutional quality, and student safety. Indeed, previous reauthorizations have addressed specific issues within each of these areas—expanded financial aid availability and process simplification, third-party (accreditors and states) oversight of institutions, and assurances that students have safe learning environments. Yet we cannot say that these are settled issues. This article describes previously implemented policies in the hope that a better understanding of the past might help …

Book Review: American Higher Education In Crisis? What Everyone Needs To Know, Ben Miller

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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Book Review: The Student Loan Mess: How Good Intentions Created A Trillion-Dollar Problem, Justin Chase Brown

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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Editor's Column, Jacob P.K. Gross

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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Using A Merit-Based Scholarship Program To Increase Rates Of College Enrollment In An Urban School District: The Case Of The Pittsburgh Promise, Robert Bozick, Gabriella Gonzalez, John Engberg

Journal of Student Financial Aid

The Pittsburgh Promise is a scholarship program that provides $5,000 per year toward college tuition for public high school graduates in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania who earned a 2.5 GPA and a 90% attendance record. This study used a difference-in-difference design to assess whether the introduction of the Promise scholarship program directly influenced changes in rates of college enrollment among students graduating from Pittsburgh public high schools in years immediately following the launch of the program. Becker’s (1964) standard human capital investment model, which predicts that youth make cost-benefit calculations to guide their college enrollment decisions, provides the framework for the analysis. …

More Than Access: The Role Of Support Services In The Transitional Experiences Of Underrepresented Students In A Statewide Access Program, Juan Gabriel Berumen, Desiree D. Zerquera, Joshua S. Smith

Journal of Student Financial Aid

While a number of studies have examined outcomes associated with early intervention programs that have a financial aid component, few have examined the experiences of student beneficiaries of those programs and the administrators charged with carrying out state mandates associated with the implementation of the programs. This gap in the literature exists for students and administrators at both the K-12 and higher education institution levels. This qualitative study reports findings from interviews and focus groups with 76 administrators and 150 students from colleges and universities in a Midwestern state that implemented a middle school-to-college access program. Findings highlight the disparity …

Editor's Column, Jacob P. K. Gross

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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Editor's Column, Nick Hillman

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Editor's Column for Volume 44, Issue 3, 2014.

Addressing Information Gaps: Disparities In Financial Awareness And Preparedness On The Road To College, Casey George-Jackson, Melanie Jones Gast

Journal of Student Financial Aid

The rising cost of higher education and questions of affordability are concerns for many families in the United States, but particularly for those from traditionally underrepresented backgrounds. The knowledge of, information about, and perceptions related to how to pay for college can impact preparatory actions taken by families to prepare to pay for college. This commentary reviews literature published on pre-college financial awareness and preparation between 2000 and 2013 to examine what we know about the topic and to highlight existing disparities by race, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Implications are offered for programs and policies seeking to address these inequities, …

Book Review: What Excellent Community Colleges Do: Preparing All Students For Success, Sylvia F. Ramirez

Journal of Student Financial Aid

In What Excellent Community Colleges Do: Preparing All Students for Success, Joshua Wyner offers atypical response to the problems that tend to plague community colleges; insufficient state support and underprepared students. Reviewer discusses Wyner's case studies, suggestions, and ethical impacts of the innovative ideas offered in the book.

Financial Need And Aid Volatility Among Students With Zero Expected Family Contribution, Robert Kelchen

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Students with a zero expected family contribution (EFC) are those with the greatest financial need and least ability to pay for college and now make up more than one in three American undergraduate students. Yet little is known about the year-to-year financial aid volatility of these students, or whether it varies by how the zero EFC was determined. I use nationally-representative data to examine trends in zero EFC receipt over time and then use student-level data from nine colleges and universities to examine zero EFC stability over multiple years by zero EFC status. The results indicate overall stability in zero …

Job Satisfaction Of Professional Staff And Administrators Within The Associated Colleges Of The South : A Study Of Herzberg’S Duality Theory Of Motivation In Higher Education., J. Patrick Noltemeyer 1979-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study examined the ability of four groups of factors to predict the job satisfaction levels of fulltime, exempt, professional staff at four institutions of higher education within the associated Colleges of the South consortium. Based on a similar study of professionals in higher education conducted by Smerek and Peterson (2007), this study used hierarchical multiple regression to determine the amount of variability explained by each group of factors according to the conceptual model. The conceptual model for this study, as well as the study by Smerek and Peterson, was based on the theory of Frederick Herzberg (1959), an industrial …

Book Review: Confessions Of A Community College Administrator, Valerie Culler Edd

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Confessions of a Community College Administrator by Matthew Reed provides readers with an overview of many of the practical day-to-day challenges encountered by community college administrators. The author has more than 10 years of experience working in the community college sector and is also the author of a popular blog, Confessions of a Community College Dean, which is featured regularly in InsideHigherEd.com. Reed’s approach in Confessions of a Community College Administrator is to educate future leaders of community colleges on current and long-term challenges for the sector, by sharing many of his own experiences in the roles of a community …

Student Loan Default: Do Characteristics Of Four-Year Institutions Contribute To The Puzzle?, Karen L. Webber, Sharon L. Rogers

Journal of Student Financial Aid

College student debt and loan default are growing concerns in the United States. For each U.S. institution, the federal government is now reporting a cohort default rate, which is the percent of students who defaulted on their loan, averaged over a three-year period. Previous studies have amply shown that student characteristics are strongly associated with educational debt and one’s ability to repay student loans; however, few studies have deeply examined the relationship between institutional characteristics and student loan default. This study examined characteristics of 1,399 four-year notfor-profit U.S. institutions and found significant differences in the 2010 federal student loan default …

A Comparative Study On Need-Based Aid Policy In Higher Education Between The State Of Indiana And Taiwan, Ching-Hui Lin, Don Hossler

Journal of Student Financial Aid

The question of how the government can best support access to postsecondary education has become a critical issue for education policymakers around the globe, as the practice of cost sharing for funding postsecondary education has been more widely adopted. In this context, this study explores the approaches to implementing current need-based financial aid policies in higher education in Indiana and Taiwan using G.Z.F. Bereday’s (1964) comparative method as the framework. Using a comparative cross-national perspective, the authors explored cost sharing, Rawls’ theory of social justice, and the economic principles of horizontal and vertical equity.

This review revealed that need-based aid …

The “Gainful Employment Rule” And Student Loan Defaults: How The Policy Frame Overlooks Important Normative Implications, Gabriel Serna

Journal of Student Financial Aid

In this essay I examine the empirical considerations and normative aspects that such a proposal engenders and how the policy frame, while useful, misses important normative implications for aid policy. Specifically, I will analyze the policy’s proposed goals, and the normative implications that adoption of such measures entails; which have been omitted from the policy debate. I will also consider how empirical or economic implications have taken center stage in the process of defining the policy’s image and the potential negative consequnces this creates.

Editor's Column, Jacob P.K. Gross

Journal of Student Financial Aid

No abstract provided.

A History Of Financial Aid To Students, Matthew B. Fuller

Journal of Student Financial Aid

The history of financial aid in higher education covers a board range of philanthropic-, scholarship-, and loan-based approaches. This article comprehensively covers the history of American financial aid to students from influences of European medieval institutions to contemporary aid systems. A broad history of financial aid is covered, revealing an evolution from a system primarily based upon local philanthropic efforts, to a more formal system of scholarships and grants, to, finally, a complex federal system of loans. As the history of financial aid is chronologically covered, attention is paid to describing how financial aid policies and practices were a response …

Editor's Column, Jacob P.K. Gross

Journal of Student Financial Aid

No abstract provided.

A Financial Aid Competency Model For Professional Development, Neil Woolf, Mario Martinez

Journal of Student Financial Aid

This research explores the competencies that financial aid officers need to be successful in their jobs. A survey of 30 competencies was distributed to 508 financial aid officers in the Western United States. Respondents were asked to rate 30 job competencies for their relative importance and frequency of use. Using exploratory factor analysis, the emergent competency model was a four-factor solution that groups competencies that are 1) External to Organization, 2) Interpersonal in Nature, 3) Related to Data Analysis, and 4) Related to Project Management. The four-factor solution showed some overlap with another existing competency model for higher education analysts. …

Barriers To Need-Based Financial Aid: Predictors Of Timely Fafsa Completion Among Low-Income Students, Mary Feeney, John Heroff

Journal of Student Financial Aid

Access to financial aid is dependent on a variety of factors, including the time of application; the earlier students apply for financial aid, the greater their access to institutional and often state resources. We use the Illinois Monetary Award Program (MAP) as a case for investigating the economic, social, and academic factors that affect application timeliness, and in turn, access to need-based financial aid. We analyze a stratified sample of 4,000 low-income students who completed the 2003-04 Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and assess the relationships between Expected Family Contribution (EFC), first-generation status, and academic performance in order …

The Kalamazoo Promise: A New Twist On Tuition Guarantees, Nathan J. Daun-Barnett

Journal of Student Financial Aid

In 2005, Kalamazoo, Michigan launched a bold and innovative economic development strategy, The Kalamazoo Promise (KP), which guarantees tuition to every high school graduate in the district. Since KP inception, high school enrollments are up and college attendance has increased, creating national attention. This paper analyzes the benefits and limitations of six types of tuition guarantees, including KP. For those communities hoping to emulate the success of KP, they should recognize that tuition guarantees are neither a new concept nor work equally well across the board. However, drawing from this paper’s analysis, broad themes of examining the nature, scope, and …

Book Review: Privatization And The Public Good: Public Universities In The Balance, Amanda Rutherford

Journal of Student Financial Aid

n/a for book review

An Examination Of The Relationship Between Various Methods Of Financing College Costs And Academic Achievemet, Kenneth Ostberg

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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The Financial Aid Administrator And The Law, Charles T. Bargerstock

Journal of Student Financial Aid

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