During the last decade, conditional cash transfer programs have expanded in developingcountries as a way to increase school enrollment and deter youth from dropping out of school. However, despite evidence of these programs´ positive impact on school enrollment and attendance, little is known...

Pese a los esfuerzos realizados en los últimos años, en Colombia aún no se constituye un Sistema de Protección Social (SPS) que cumpla sus funciones primordiales: proveer asistencia social a los pobres, asegurar a la población contra choques y proteger a los pobres extremos de los efectos...

Student loan debt and defaults have been steadily rising, igniting public worry about the associated public and private risks. This has led to controversial regulatory attempts to curb defaults by holding colleges, particularly those in the for-profit sector, increasingly accountable for the...

School voucher programs have become a prominent aspect of the education policy landscape in the United States. The DC Opportunity Scholarship Program is the only federally funded voucher program in the United States. Since 2004 it has offered publicly funded private school vouchers to nearly...

Policy makers and researchers are intrigued with but also frequently frustrated by each other. Although these differences are understandable and predictable, it is clear that research on a variety of educational issues has been both influential and valuable in the development of policy and...

Several states and the federal government distribute aid for special education programs based primarily on total district enrollment and a fixed aid amount per student, a method called census funding. In this policy brief, we address three questions to help policy makers, educators, and...

This brief utilizes the most recent and rigorous financial aid research to inform state higher education leaders about innovative and effective financial aid practices. By simplifying aid eligibility requirements, improving the aid application process, and engaging in early awareness efforts,...

Policy briefs written by academics—the kind typically published in Education Finance and Policy—should be a crucial source of information for policy makers. Yet too frequently these briefs fail to garner the consideration they deserve. Their authors are too focused on the potential...

In the academic and policy debates over the merits of charter schools, two things are clear: First, they are here to stay and, second, their quality varies widely. Policy makers therefore need to understand how to design charter laws that promote the creation of high-performing schools. Crucial...

This paper uses student-level data to investigate how the college application behavior of underrepresented minorities (URMs) changed in response to the 1998 end of affirmative action in admissions at the University of California (UC). We show that all URMs experienced a drop in their probability...