An insightful, wide-ranging analysis of the economic hurdles facing America’s higher education system.
The US higher education sector faces numerous economic challenges, including the stagnating number of college-age domestic students, geographic mismatch between population growth and the location of colleges and universities, financial pressures, including cutbacks in government support, growing student debt burdens, sticker prices that deter prospective applicants, and the risk of low capital market returns on endowment portfolios. This volume analyzes the responses of students, families, and the financial managers of higher education institutions to these challenges. It presents new insights into the substantial disparities in the financial structure of, and the financial challenges facing, different types of institutions. The volume draws together contributions from financial economics, public finance, and industrial organization, as well as the economics of education.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
John Y. Campbell and Kaye Husbands Fealing
1. The Ebbing Tide: How Will Higher Education Adapt to Demographic Change?
Jacob L. Vigdor
Comment: Francisca M. Antman
2. How Much Can Families Afford to Pay for College?
Peter Hinrichs
Comment: Phillip Levine
3. Predicting College Closures and Financial Distress
Robert Kelchen, Dubravka Ritter, and Douglas A. Webber
4. Endowment Spending Rules
Christopher Avery, Ronald Ehrenberg, Catharine Hill, and Douglas A. Webber
Comment: Jeffrey R. Brown
5. Economic Budgeting for Endowment-Dependent Universities
John Y. Campbell, Jeremy C. Stein, and Alex A. Wu
Comment: Antoinette Schoar
6. The Role of Debt in Financing Higher Education
Matteo Binfarè and Kyle E. Zimmerschied
Comment: Daniel Bergstresser
7. Financing Community Colleges: Current Landscape and Future Directions
Nikki Edgecombe, Elise Swanson, Thomas Brock, Maria Cormier, Christopher
Avery, and Carmen Huynh
8. Distance to Opportunity: Higher Education Deserts and College Enrollment
Choices
Riley Acton, Kalena E. Cortes, and Camila Morales
Comment: Zachary Bleemer
9. Examining the Effects of Tuition Reset Policies on Enrollment and
Institutional Finances at Minority Serving Institutions
James Dean Ward, Daniel Corral, and Catharine Hill
Comment: Bridget Long
Panel Discussion
The Finances of a Public Flagship University
Benjamin E. Hermalin
Strategy-Centered Leadership and Financial Management Is Needed in Research
Universities
Robert A. Brown
Financial Management Challenges in Higher Education
Lisa M. Lynch
Author Index
Subject Index
John Y. Campbell is the Morton L. and Carole S. Olshan Professor of Economics at Harvard University and a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. Kaye Husbands Fealing is a professor in the Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School of Public Policy at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the assistant director of the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
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