This report presents the policy options for legislative action that were adopted by the California Postsecondary Education Commission at its December 12, 2006, meeting. In adopting these policy options the Commission reviewed findings and recommendations from a Special Panel on Affordability composed of experts and stakeholders appointed by the Commission to examine college affordability in California. The report of the special panel is attached ("Keeping College Affordable in California. A Report of the Special Panel on Affordability to the California Postsecondary Education Commission"). The Commission also considered policy options based on research and expert information compiled by the Commission's staff. Many of the college affordability policy options adopted by the Commission were informed by the work of the panel, but also reflect findings of the Commission based on additional expert sources as well. Appended are: (1) Cost of Attendance, Gift Aid, and Loan Statistics for Need-Based Aid Recipients in Constant Dollars; (2) Dependent Full-Time Undergraduate Students NPSAS Data Indexed to 2005-06; and (3) CSU Comparable Institutions. (Contains 5 displays.).

California's Master Plan for Higher Education represented a promise, of an affordable college education, to every person who could benefit. For decades, California's lawmakers honored that promise. Rapidly increasing college fees, coupled with higher costs for room and board, books, transportation, and healthcare are pricing students out of higher education or burdening them with excessive debt. This anthology of the California Postsecondary Education Commission's research provides insights into why college is less affordable and what California's leaders can do to make higher education affordable once again. There are five Commission documents in this anthology. These include: (1) Recommended Policy Options and a Panel Report on College Affordability (Report 06-22, December 2006); (2) Keeping College Affordable in California: A Report of the Special Panel on Affordability to the California Postsecondary Education Commission (December 2006); (3) Developing a Statewide Higher Education Affordability Policy (June 2006); (4) Development of a New Commission Policy on Higher Education Affordability: A Set of Principles; and (5) Resident Undergraduate Student Fees -- Issues and Options (March 2006).

This book assesses the role of government subsidies for higher education -- especially but not exclusively federal student aid -- in keeping college affordable for Americans of all economic and social backgrounds. The authors examine the effects of student aid policies of the last twenty years.

As Congress debates the reauthorization of the basic federal student aid legislation, and as governors and state legislators cope with increasingly severe budgetary problems of their own, the issues of preserving college opportunity and sharing the burden of college costs are particularly critical and timely. This book assesses the role of government subsidies for higher education—especially but not exclusively federal student aid—in keeping college affordable for Americans of all economic and social backgrounds. The authors examine the effects of student aid policies of the last twenty years. They address several vital questions, including: Has federal student aid encouraged the enrollment and broadened the educational choices of disadvantaged students? Has it made higher education institutions more secure and educationally more effective—or has it raised costs and prices as schools try to capture additional aid? Has federal student aid made the distribution of higher education's benefits, and the sharing of costs, fairer? And what are the likely trends in patterns of college affordability? Drawing on their analysis, the authors highlight some of the principal dimensions of policy choice on which the debate has focused, as well as some that have been relatively neglected. Building upon their conclusion that student aid works, they propose reforms that would bolster the role of income-tested aid in the overall student financing picture. McPherson and Schapiro recommend a number of incremental reforms that could improve the effectiveness of existing federal aid programs and present a proposal to replace a substantial fraction of state-operating subsidies to colleges and universities with expanded federal aid.