Rising tuition has led many states to offer college prepaid tuition plans. These plans are consistent with the trend in higher education policy toward meeting the needs of wealthier households. The paper argues that the public interest in these plans is hard to find; moreover, median voter theory suggests that prepaid tuition plans may have the…

Examines shifts in federal student aid and research and development policies over two decades, and argues that policy changes have converged on public research universities, making them exemplars of Reagan economics marked by privatization, deregulation, and commercialization. Patterns of institutional resource allocation to departments are…