Rethinking Student Aid
Developing policy recommendations for financial aid reform
To generate creative thinking about financial aid reform, the College Board formed the Rethinking Student Aid project, an independent group of leading policy, student aid, and higher education experts.
Led by co-chairs Sandy Baum, senior policy analyst at the College Board and professor of economics at Skidmore College; and Mike McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation, the study group is working to develop a comprehensive set of recommendations for policy reform, coupled with a cost analysis from the Tax Policy Center at the Urban Institute.
Sponsors
The work is supported by the Mellon, Spencer, and Lumina foundations.
The Lumina funding allowed for the commissioning of eight background papers on what makes student aid effective. Topics include grant aid, loan aid, tax benefits, aid and college persistence, aid and academic preparation, aid and nontraditional students, and state and international models.
Related initiatives
The study group is conferring with policy makers, financial aid and admissions professionals, guidance counselors, college access specialists, higher education associations, and other researchers. The group is also meeting with the College Board's membership and its National Commission on Admissions, Access, and Success in Higher Education, National Commission on Community Colleges, and Task Force on Access to College for Low-Income Students. Their final report is scheduled to be release in the summer of 2008.
View a list of members and researchers.