This paper explores the relationship between tuition differentials and low-income students in Engineering fields at two public, research-intensive universities. Although current reports indicate the need for increased participation within the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) fields, rising tuition prices at the university…

The goals of this study are to examine the relationships between loan knowledge, money management skills, debt tolerance attitudes, and student income potential to their willingness to incur educational debt at a mid-western university. The current study showed that freshmen students lacked personal and general loan knowledge and had unrealistic…

Evidence of greater economic stratification brings challenges to higher education's enrollment of low-income students. With a growing proportion of potential college students coming from low-income households, increasing their post-secondary participation rate is vital in developing and growing the pool of educated individuals for the labor force…

Book vouchers serve as one component of need-based financial aid packages at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN), one of the nation's largest community colleges. This study compared the academic performance of Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) applicants in attendance at CSN during the 2008-09 and 2009-10 academic years. A basic…

Recent studies have questioned the wisdom in blaming college costs for the escalation of student loans. It would appear that less affluent students borrow large amounts because inexpensive subsidized loans are available. This study attempted to verify the claim, estimating a model of the amount of loan received by students as a function of net…

By examining trends in college affordability, this article explores the extent to which the public perception that college is not affordable is justified. First, the article describes trends in national indicators that contribute to ability to pay, including income growth, health care costs, debt burden, and personal savings rates. Trends in…

This article describes what is known from prior research about the impact of student financial aid program design, operations, and marketing on the formation of family (including parents' and children's) college-going aspirations, expectations, and plans, and the resulting college-going behaviors of potential students. The review focuses on the…

This study examined the use of education tax credits at four community colleges using data from the Federal Quality Assurance Program in 1998, the first year of the HOPE Scholarship and Lifetime Learning Tax Credit (LLTC). Preliminary estimates indicated that the two tax credits were expected to primarily benefit middle-income tax filers with…

Financial aid and college preparatory programs are designed in part to allow students from low-income families to have the same choices of institutions as those from middle- and upper-income groups. Unfortunately, despite providing more than $100 billion in financial aid and college preparatory assistance, state and federal policy makers have been…

Reviews issues surrounding college tuition discounting, and outlines sources of confusion, defines various discount types, provides historical background prior to recent changes in fund accounting rules, describes the new rules' impact, outlines different uses of tuition discounting by three groups, and applies the accumulated definitions to an…

A study of the effects of tuition discounting practices on European-American and African-American college students (n=42,793) found that differences in student price response to tuition helps explain differences in persistence rates in the two groups. African Americans were found to be substantially more responsive to tuition than were European…

Discussion of the need for the Perkins Loan Program examines recent trends in borrowing under this and the Stafford Loan Program, comparing demographic characteristics, income levels, educational costs, and financial-need levels of loan recipients. It is concluded that the Perkins program continues to play a vital role in providing need-based aid…

A study investigated the variables associated with high school students' sensitivity to tuition in the college-choice process, interaction of tuition and student aid, relationship of family and student characteristics to this sensitivity, and the roles of student perceptions and student institutional connections in price sensitivity. Subjects were…

Four ways to calculate students' net cost of attending college are presented, and merits and drawbacks of each are discussed. Results suggest college remains affordable for most students, and that students have ways to further reduce their net cost. Results also suggest that financial aid programs have had some success in providing access to…

Analysis of data from National Education Longitudinal Study found that a third of parents of high school seniors had not begun preparing for college costs and a quarter had begun only recently. Most did not expect savings to cover costs and had investigated financial aid but relatively few had applied. Grants, scholarships, and fellowships were…