States are natural laboratories for experimentation on policy design and implementation. It is instructive to look to states for guidance on how to strengthen federal accountability for financial aid, including federally guaranteed loans. For the past 35 years, state higher education systems have experimented with ways to use outcomes data to share responsibility for improved outcomes. This review of state policies describes how widespread “shared responsibility” policies for college completion are, what emerging or existing evidence of effectiveness exists and which outcomes metrics are used to implement these policies.

A report that answers a series of questions posed about the effectiveness of Indiana’s financial aid programs, the efficiency of the programs’ administrative operations, and the projected costs of the aid programs over the next twenty years.

HCM convened a small group of financial aid, tax and higher education policy experts. The technical panel was charged with examining the overall financial aid system and developing innovative policy ideas that respond to the fiscal, economic and demographic realities the nation faces today.

This report focuses on a group of institutions that play a particularly important role in the face of these challenges— public research universities.

HCM Strategists partnered with Hart Research Associates and The Winston Group to produce this report on beliefs about the importance of college, impressions of the financial aid system, priority for reform, and reactions to potential reform approaches.

A Better Higher Education Data and Information Framework for Informing Policy