The Student Aid Game: Meeting Need and Rewarding Talent in American Higher Education

Description

Student aid in higher education is a controversial issue. This book explains how both colleges and governments are struggling to cope with a rapidly changing marketplace and show how sound policies can help preserve the strengths and remedy the weaknesses of American higher education. The book offers a detailed look at how undergraduate education is financed in the United States, highlighting differences across sectors and for students of differing family backgrounds. It reviews the implications of recent financing trends for access to, and choice of undergraduate college, and gauges the implications of these national trends for the future of college opportunity. The book also examines how student aid fits into college budgets, how aid and pricing decisions are shaped by government higher education policies and how competition has radically reshaped the way in which colleges think. In addition, the attractions and pitfalls of merit aid are considered from the viewpoint of students, institutions and society.

Michael S. McPherson is President of Macalester College. Morton Owen Schapiro is Dean of the College of Letters, Arts and Sciences at the University of Southern California.

"Confusion and apprehension often drive families into the arms of private counselors, who offer, for a price, to help them master the [student aid] system. They would be well advised to save their money and consult McPherson and Schapiro instead."--Donald Kennedy, Atlantic Monthly "Because they are primarily interested in how federal policy might more effectively open the doors to college for low-income youth, McPherson and Schapiro, like good economists, analyze the effects of financial-aid programs on the incentives of colleges and parents, and anticipate the impact of recent changes in the tax code on colleges' tuition and aid policies."--Harvard Magazine