In recent years, growing numbers of four-year institutions have implemented a new type of need-based financial aid policy directed toward low- and middle-income students. These initiatives--referred to here as Loan Replacement Grant (LRG) programs--greatly reduce or eliminate loans in student aid awards and replace them with grants. This paper…

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…