Financial Health

A rare student protest over a tuition increase at one of the world’s most prestigious performing arts schools highlights the tension over tuition discounting.

Without federal stimulus money, states would have cut tax appropriations for higher education by 2.3 percent. But how states are spending the billions in stimulus varies.

Despite the years of increases, state and local funding for public higher education has not fully recovered from cuts made during the 2008 recession, an annual State Higher Education Finance report shows. Experts worry what will come in the future after 2020 turned out better than expected.

For the most part, institutions are resuming the faculty and staff retirement benefits they cut or stopped during the pandemic. Fights over the future of those benefits are being waged on some campuses.

The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated already-existing trends, pushing the average tuition discount rate for first-time undergraduates to 53.9 percent this year. Expect discounting to keep climbing even after the pandemic subsides.

Lafayette College steps out of the box by choosing College Advising Corps leader as its next president. The hire comes as the private college seeks to ramp up financial aid and grow its student body.

Search a list of grants allocated to more than 5,000 colleges and universities after the Department of Education released details on relief funding and which students are eligible to receive emergency support.

President Biden wants $109 billion for two-year colleges, $80 billion addition for Pell Grants, $62 billion for retention and completion efforts, and $39 billion for two free years at minority-serving institutions for most students.