Search Results
Briefing
Who Values Access to College?
A quantitative model of college enrollment suggests that the value of college access varies greatly across individuals. Forty percent place no value on the option to attend despite large public subsidies, while 25 percent would enroll even without the subsidies. In the model, redirecting public funds from those who attend college irrespective of subsidies to those who don’t attend even with subsidies both preserves college enrollment and improves overall outcomes. While these two groups are clearly visible only in the model, and not in the data, this analysis suggests that more-targeted ...
Working Paper
Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress
In this paper, we assemble the most comprehensive dataset to date on the characteristics of colleges and universities, including dates of operation, institutional setting, student body, staff, and finance data from 2002 to 2023. We provide an extensive description of what is known and unknown about closed colleges compared with institutions that did not close. Using this data, we first develop a series of predictive models of financial distress, utilizing factors like operational revenue/expense patterns, sources of revenue, metrics of liquidity and leverage, enrollment/staff patterns, and ...
Discussion Paper
The Lingering Fiscal Effects of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Higher Education
The unprecedented challenges from COVID-19 present many institutions of higher education with liquidity, and even solvency, concerns. In this report, we provide guidance to institutions and policymakers about the short- and medium-term revenue losses that are likely to materialize as a result of the ongoing pandemic and associated disruptions to revenue and expenses. Using historical data on states’ responses to previous economic downturns and contemporaneous measures of the severity of the current economic predicament, we project state and local appropriation reductions that public ...