Temple University-APLU Completion Grants Will Help Low-Income Students Graduate

A nearly $4 million Department of Education grant will enable Temple University, in collaboration with the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities, to undertake an initiative focused on small-dollar grants to help cash-strapped, low-income students complete their degrees.

Between Scylla and Charybdis: Navigating the Cost of College

Even with its long-term benefits understood, the challenges for many households to afford college make it clear that the current model cannot simply continue without strategic innovation, writes Geoffrey Brackett, executive vice president of Marist College.

Richmond Joins Effort to Recruit, Graduate More Lower-income Students

The University of Richmond is among the growing number of ACE member institutions participating in the American Talent Initiative, a program dedicated to substantially expanding opportunity and access for low- and moderate-income students. President Ronald Crutcher discusses the importance of committing to the ATI.

New Report Looks at State and Local Tuition- and Debt-Free College Plans

A new report released this week looks at 11 plans that reduce or eliminate the cost of tuition or the need to borrow to cover it, including five at the state and two at the local level. The study summarizes the work of the Task Force on Assessing Tuition- and Debt-Free Higher Education, convened last July by the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators.

College Board Releases 2016 Reports on College Pricing, Student Aid

The College Board today released its annual Trends in Higher Education reports, one focusing on student aid and the other on tuition and fees. The reports showed moderate increases in published tuition and fees, ranging from 2.2 percent to 3.6 percent across all sectors between 2015-16 and 2016-17. However, that still exceeded the growth in… Read more »

To Boost Retention, GSU Gives “Just-In-Time” Grants to At-Risk Students

Nearly a decade ago, Georgia State University (GSU) had an institutional graduation rate of just 32 percent. And low-income students receiving Pell Grants fared even worse, with rates around 15 percent. Instead of accepting these low retention rates, GSU began to investigate ways to help the students being left behind.

The Price We Pay for Bad Data on College Costs

Matthew Soldner of the American Institutes for Research writes about three things senior leaders need to know as they navigate the challenges facing their campuses: institutional spending, and how spending relates to cost and student outcomes. The first post in a series introducing three background papers prepared for a roundtable on financial data in higher education.

VIDEO: Exploring Indirect College Costs

This video accompanies the newly released Quick Hit brief, “Exploring the Topic of Indirect Costs to Today’s Higher Education Students.”

VIDEO: Open Textbooks: The Current State of Play

This video accompanies the newly released paper, “Open Textbooks: The Current State of Play,” which concludes that the use of open textbooks is gaining popularity across different types of colleges and universities. The paper and video are the second installments in a series of eight Quick Hit briefs on current and emerging topics in the… Read more »

Higher Education Policy: Left, Right, and Center

Christopher Nellum, senior policy research analyst for ACE’s Center for Policy and Research Strategy, writes on the Tuesday morning Annual Meeting session that looked at higher education policy across the ideological spectrum.

VIDEO: President Obama Announces Free Community College Plan

For a summary of the proposal and media reaction, see: FRIDAY BUZZ: President Obama Proposes Two Years of Free Community College

University of Baltimore Offering Free Final Semester, Aims to Increase Degree Completion

The University of Baltimore is taking an innovative approach to increase its four-year completion rate through a new program called Finish4Free. Under the initiative, the university will pay for the final semester of tuition for all incoming undergraduate freshmen, both out of state and in-state, on the condition that they graduate within four years.