Skip to main content

Research Archive

Welcome to Our Research Archive

Search and filter by content type, issue area, author, and keyword

October 20, 2023

Value Needs to be the Next Buzzword in Higher Education

For a long time, advocates and policymakers in the higher education space were fixated on improving “access” to higher education. As a society, we recognized that higher education was a powerful tool for promoting social mobility, and helping people born into lower-income households advance financially and pursue fulfilling careers. We also realized that higher education…

October 2, 2023

Shopping for Colleges Just Got a Little Easier for Some Students

Shopping for college can be a nightmare. As the market for consumer products has gotten easier, more transparent, and faster than ever before (read: Amazon), the market for college degrees has only gotten more and more opaque. The prices listed on college websites aren’t paid by pretty much anyone, and in order to find out…

September 18, 2023

Students’ Lack of Basic Knowledge of US History and Civics Remains a National Embarrassment

A new study from a pair of Penn State researchers finds that passing the US Citizenship Test as a high school graduation requirement does nothing to improve youth voter turnout. Within the last decade more than a third of US states have adopted and implemented a version of the “Civics Education Initiative” (CEI), but according to study…

August 14, 2023

The Narcissism of Small Diffidences

Catherine, a mother living in the New York City suburbs, has a son who flunked out of college. Her story is one of the cautionary tales offered up in Jennifer Breheny Wallace’s Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic—And What We Can Do About It. Catherine left the workforce to raise her two children. The…

July 31, 2023

Biden’s Under-the-Radar Budget Bomb: A New Student Loan Repayment Plan

The Biden administration hasn’t been shy about spending money, and spending on higher education policy has been no exception. The most obvious channel for (attempted) spending was the illegal plan to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 in student debt for most borrowers that was halted by the Supreme Court. But there’s another plan in the works…

July 12, 2023

Rethinking the Impact of the Lockdowns

We are only beginning to make sense of the COVID-19 pandemic and the implications of the lockdowns that forced people to stay home. It is an endeavor that will take years to flesh out.  Eszter Hargittai’s Connected in Isolation  is one of the first large-scale attempts to do just that and looks at how the United States…

July 6, 2023

The End of Affirmative Action Calls for a Renewed Conservatism of Opportunity

Only about 40 percent of adults in their late 20s have a bachelor’s degree, and that’s true of only 25 to 30 percent of blacks and Latinos in that age range. Just 20 to 25 percent of black and Latino men ages 25 to 29 have a bachelor’s degree. Most college graduates attend schools that are minimally selective. All…

June 14, 2023

The Best Argument for School Choice

A new study from the Texas Public Policy Foundation is a reminder that the most persuasive argument in favor of school choice is not the promise of higher test scores, the beneficial effects of competition, or even an escape hatch from failing public schools—it’s the power of choice to make a more satisfying range of school cultures…