The Price of Admission: Rethinking How Americans Pay for College - Softcover

"Kane... has a great command of the facts regarding admissions and financial aid, and he offers suggestions for changes that respond to changing conditions in the economy and higher education. " -- Reference & Research Book News "Kane's major contribution is his sophisticated and strategic understanding of how college is paid for, and the policy tradeoffs for these mechanisms... Kane also contributes to a better understanding of higher education financing in the large, macro, flying-over-the-parking-lot sense. By this, I mean his well-conceived final chapter, where he reviews various features of federal financial assistance and the tradeoffs. He offers several excellent and well-reasoned structural reforms... Let me offer that these suggestions are the 'Brookings-ness' of the book-- well executed economic data and analysis, with no real axe to grind, and tightly drafted and well supported legislative strategies." --Michael A. Olivas, Journal of Higher Education, 9/1/2002 "Kane... provides compelling evidence that [American higher education finance] is in trouble... He has done a masterful job of integrating [many] objectives. Readers of this journal (and others) who are interested in higher education finance and policy making would be well served by reading this book." --Stephen L. DesJardins, University of Iowa, Economics of Education Review 21 (2002) "Increasingly a college education has become the ticket to economic prosperity. And yet more and more parents are finding the price unaffordable. Thomas Kane gives us a comprehensive look at the problem and some solutions. This is an important book for educators, policymakers, and of course parents. " --Thomas H. Kean, President, Drew University Former Governor, New Jersey "An excellent and much needed reappraisal of student financial aid programs in light of changing conditions in the economy and higher education. Kane goes beyond analysis to provide concrete suggestions for reform that deserve widespread discussion and consideration among both legislative and educational leaders around the nation. Opportunity is still very unequal. " --Clark Kerr, Dean, President Emeritus University of California "The American way of paying for college is in trouble. Tom Kane helps us to understand why, and advances some constructive proposals to improve things. Kane's command of the facts is complete and his use of analytical techniques is keen, clear, and persuasive. His policy proposals are bold and well reasoned. This is an important book. " --Michael McPherson, Macalester College

Over the past fifteen years, a college education has become increasingly valuable in the labor market. As a result, the stakes have been raised in the debate over college admissions and student financial aid. With the gap in college enrollment widening by family income, the time has come to examine the strengths and weaknesses of the American system for financing higher education and to rethink its structure from the ground up. This book begins with an overview of the many indirect ways in which Americans pay for college--as taxpayers, students, and parents--and describes the sometimes perverse ways in which state and federal financial aid policies interact. Thomas J. Kane evaluates alternative explanations for the rise in public and private college costs--weighing the role of federal financial aid policy, higher input costs, and competitive pressures on individual colleges. He analyzes how far we have come in ensuring access to all. Evidence suggests that large differences in college enrollment remain between high and low income students, even those with similar test scores and attending the same high schools. Kane promotes a package of reforms intended to squeeze more social bang from the many public bucks devoted to higher education. For example, he advocates "front-loading" the Pell grant program, limiting eligibility to those in their first two years of college, and providing a larger share of federal subsidies by assessing student resources after college rather than evaluating a single year of parents income and assets before college. Copublished with the Russell Sage Foundation