Introducing the Balanced Framework, a signature contribution to HCM’s higher education finance policy work and the first in a new paper series on state funding reform. The framework is designed to help state leaders rethink how higher education is funded—and valued.

Incentivizing High-Priority Degrees: The Role of State Funding is the second brief in HCM’s policy series examining pressing issues in state funding formulas and their impact on value, adequacy, and equity.  This series provides frameworks, research, and case studies examining how the role of state funding can advance state priorities and equitable student outcomes while reflecting states’ unique contexts.  

College affordability is an issue that weighs heavily on many people’s minds. And it should. There was a recent story about a public official who was concerned about college affordability. He said he could relate to students who struggle to pay for college because less than 10 years after leaving graduate school, he was still paying off debt for both his undergraduate and graduate degrees. From Harvard.