Pennsylvania has historically operated one of the nation's least equitable state school finance systems, and within that system exist some of the nation's most fiscally disadvantaged public school districts. The persistent inequalities of Pennsylvania's school finance system are not entirely a result of simple lack of effort, as…

Community colleges are an essential component of America's higher education system. Last year, they enrolled well over 6 million students, a number that continues to grow. Community colleges have multiple missions, and their performance ultimately needs to be evaluated on multiple metrics. However, one key mission of community colleges is the…

Given the importance of a college education to entering and staying in the middle class and the high cost of obtaining a bachelor's degree, "Who Wins? and Who Pays?" are questions being asked today at kitchen tables and in the halls of government throughout the nation. Using publicly available data, the authors look at who wins and who pays…

The worldwide economic decline in 2008 hit many states hard, and had an especially strong impact on California and its public education system. The purpose of this report is to develop and present baseline information regarding K-12 public education in California prior to this fiscal crisis. This report presents alternative ways of comparing the…

The Obama administration is calling for the United States to regain its status as the nation with the highest concentration of college-educated adults in the world. In response to this challenge, the president, governors, foundations, individual campuses, and many others are pursuing a "college completion agenda" that aims to get more students…

Though the number of districts with student-based funding-type (SBF) policies has grown, the literature on the implementation and possible impacts of these policies is limited. To address this, this report describes the implementation of SBF policies in two California school districts--San Francisco Unified School District and Oakland Unified…

Athletics are big business on many college campuses, but does this come with a price tag? This issue brief looks at academic and athletic spending in NCAA Division I public universities between 2005 and 2010. Among a host of findings, this brief shows that the athletic departments of most public colleges and universities competing in NCAA Division…

The Haiti Scholarship Program is a USAID-funded effort managed by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) and implemented by local Haitian non-profit organization Le Fonds de Parrainage National (FPN) to provide scholarship support to more than 15,000 students in the five Haitian cities of Petit-Goave, Port-au-Prince, Saint-Marc, Gonaives, and…

This report presents the results from a seven-month study of successful schools in California performed by the American Institutes for Research (AIR). It explored some of the concepts underlying the "successful schools" approach to defining education adequacy and considered their implications for analyzing educational adequacy in California. The…

High-end amenities like rock climbing walls on college campuses have become an easy target for those attempting to explain rising tuitions. This Delta Perspective looks beyond the media attention surrounding these "frills" to examine more serious questions about spending on campus facilities, college spending in general, and the real drivers of…

Two years after the onset of the Great Recession, nonprofit colleges and universities found themselves struggling with their finances. Average per-student spending on academics declined in fiscal year (FY) 2010, and despite per-student spending cuts to prerecession levels at four-year institutions, students shouldered a larger share of the cost…

Like many of her classmates, the author was a first-generation student, but that meant something quite different in the late 1960s than it does now. When she attended, college, the jobs parents had with high school degrees allowed them to provide considerable support for college educations. Paying for college was difficult but not as difficult as…

This is one in a series of data briefs developed by the Delta Cost Project at AIR using data from the "IPEDS Analytics: Delta Cost Project Database 1987-2010," which was released on August 14, 2012, by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. The intent of these briefs is to update key tables and figures from…

This is one in a series of data briefs developed by the Delta Cost Project at AIR using data from the "IPEDS Analytics: Delta Cost Project Database 1987-2010," which was released on August 14, 2012, by the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics. The intent of these briefs is to update key tables and figures from…

This report presents the results of the professional judgment component of a seven month project undertaken by American Institutes for Research (AIR) to answer the following question: What is the cost of providing all California public school students with access to the California content standards, thereby achieving appropriate levels of…