Ken Thompson

NASFAA | Analysis: Most Students Face Unmet Need When Paying for College nasfaa.org/news-item/3150…

Example #1,543,001 of the lesson that 'the details matter,' and that well-intentioned legislation can end up having the reverse effect you want. insidehighered.com/news/governmen…

White and Asian students seem to benefit most from institutional “merit” scholarships (aka ‘discounts’). hechingerreport.org/proof-points-s…

Well, at least there is some good news on persistence and retention rates! nscresearchcenter.org/persistence-re…

Do completion grants (not to be confused with emergency aid) help students complete? Apparently not. federalreserve.gov/econres/feds/f…

College Promise Programs as Symbolic Politics. (Paywall, sorry) journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

Merit requirements (even minimal ones) attached to HS performance for College Promise programs don't help to improve HS performance. (at least in this specific program studied) journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.117…

That low income students would be prevented from accessing benefits (like SNAP) solely because they are enrolled in college is evidence of a hugely dated idea of who goes to college, and also the purpose of college (ie. college as sorter of social class). hechingerreport.org/work-rules-for…

Interesting work in the UK, getting to a bare minimum of transparency for the philanthropic sector. ssir.org/articles/entry…

So, a couple of things: 1. college enrollments were expected to slightly decline due to population shifts anyway; 2. a concerted conservative push the past decade to disparage/demonize college and prioritize work; 3. Covid, then booming employment. brookings.edu/blog/brown-cen…

Let's just be honest; without really really strict guidelines that show true value to students' lives, short term Pell will create a land rush of for profit HE grifters. insidehighered.com/news/governmen…

Major racial differences in difference between who wants to go to college, vs. who thinks they will actually go. youthtruthsurvey.org/college23

Clearly, time to start digging more deeply into when nudges work (for whom, under what circumstances) and when they don't. Metastudy, anyone? mdrc.org/publication/po…

There is evidence about what works for increasing equitable college success. The question seems to be whether it will be a funding priority. ticas.org/wp-content/upl…

useful @urbaninstitute research on mandatory FAFSA, but do we know if it is also is unintentionally increasing HS non-completion rates due to adding a new requirement to graduate? Seems important to know. urban.org/research/publi…

Why first dollar #collegepromise grants are such an important design factor. And why that’s still not enough. Nice explainer. static1.squarespace.com/static/63d0977…

Getting “SAPed out;” that about says it all. These rules are outdated, and particularly the timing -related rules no longer make any sense for depriving millions of students annually of Pell. nasfaa.org/news-item/3058…

Yes to everything @philxbuchanan says here. That op-ed is like getting scolded, but never being told what for. And the “principles” seem to go against any outside pressure to change philanthropy…when we all know that philanthropy is very slow to change its own practices.

I find the phrasing of 'supplemental promise' somewhat amusing (as it seems to acknowledge the original promise was not enough), but good results here on the importance of advising and other supports for low income college students. tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.108…