For more than half a century, student financial aid programs have played a crucial role in increasing the number of Americans with access to a college education. Pell Grants, student loans, and G.I. Bill benefits have helped make America one of the most educated nations in the world.

But despite increased spending on financial aid programs, completion rates remain stagnant. Moreover, college tuition growth has eaten away at the purchasing power of grant programs and has saddled students and families with nearly $1 trillion in debt.

Instead of focusing on building new financial aid tools and approaches, contempo - rary education policy debates are prioritizing increasing grant amounts, expanding loan limits, or lowering interest rates. This research conference will push past tired discussions to explore opportunities for a more fundamental rethinking of the way aid is designed and delivered. At this conference, America’s foremost thinkers on financial aid reform will discuss 9 new pieces of research on how innovations in financial aid policy can create a more effective and sustainable system. Agenda

This event will take place at AEI, 12th floor conference center.

MONDAY, JUNE 24

9:00 a.m. Introduction Panel I 9:10 a.m. Back to the Future: Lesson from a Half-Century of Financial Aid Policy Moderator : Sara Goldrick-Rab Sandy Baum, George Washington University W. Lee Hansen, University of Wisconsin-Madison* Diane Auer Jones, Career Education Corporation Daniel Madzelan, US Department of Education (retired) David Mundel, Independent Research Consultant 10:30 a.m. Break

Panel II 10:45 a.m. Beyond Simplification: New Approaches to Access Moderator : Andrew P. Kelly Rodney Andrews, University of Texas at Dallas Regina Deil-Amen, University of Arizona Justin Draeger, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators Ed Pacchetti, US Department of Education Cecilia Rios-Aguilar, Claremont Graduate University* 12:05 p.m. Lunch Panel III 12:35 p.m. Rethinking Grant Aid Moderator : Andrew P. Kelly Sara Goldrick-Rab, University of Wisconsin-Madison Reshma Patel, MDRC* Lashawn Richburg-Hayes, MDRC Lauren Schudde, University of Wisconsin-Madison* Bob Shireman, California Competes Jacob Stampen, University of Wisconsin-Madison* Lesley Turner, University of Maryland 2:00 p.m. Break Panel IV 2:15 p.m. Smarter Student Loan Policies: Innovations in Lending, Borrowing, and Repayment Moderator : Sara Goldrick-Rab Debbie Cochrane, The Institute for College Access and Success Stephen Crawford, George Washington University* Nicholas Hillman, University of Wisconsin-Madison Miguel Palacios, Vanderbilt University Robert Sheets, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne 3:35 p.m. Break Panel V 3:45 p.m. Looking Ahead: Financial Aid Reform Moderator : Andrew P. Kelly Terry Hartle, American Council on Education Arthur Hauptman, Independent Public Policy Consultant Amy Laitinen, New America Foundation Bridget Terry Long, Harvard University Richard Vedder, AEI and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity 5:00 p.m. Adjournment and Wine and Cheese Reception *Denotes co-author who is not sitting on the panel.

1 About the Editors

SARA GOLDRICK-RAB is an associate professor of educational policy studies and sociology at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. She is also the senior scholar at the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education and an affiliate of the Institute for Research on Poverty, the La Follette School of Public Affairs, and the Consortium for Chicago School Research. Goldrick-Rab received the William T. Grant Scholars Award in 2010 for her project “Rethinking College Choice in America.” In 2009 she was the lead author of a Brookings Institution blueprint on transforming community colleges, and in 2006–07, was a National Academy of Education and Spencer Foundation postdoctoral fellow. Her work appears in academic journals such as the Sociology of Education and the Future of Children as well as on her blogs (Education Optimists and the Chronicle of Higher Education’s Conversation). Currently, Goldrick-Rab is directing the “Wisconsin Scholars Longitudinal Study,” an experimental evaluation of the impact of need-based financial aid on college graduation, and she is beginning a new evaluation of Single Stop USA.

ANDREW P. KELLY is a resident scholar in education policy studies at AEI. His research focuses on higher education policy, innovation, financial aid reform, and the politics of education policy. Previously, he was a research assistant at AEI, where his work focused on the preparation of school leaders, collective bargaining in public schools, and the politics of education. His research has appeared in the American Journal of Education , Teachers College Record , Educational Policy , Policy Studies Journal , and Education Next , as well as popular outlets such as Education Week , Inside Higher Education , Forbes , The Atlantic , National Affairs , The Weekly Standard , and Huffington Post. He is coeditor of “Getting to Graduation: The Completion Agenda in Higher Education” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012), “Carrots, Sticks, and the Bully Pulpit: Lessons from A Half-Century of Federal Efforts to Improve America’s Schools” (Harvard Educational Publishing Group, 2012), and “Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation” (Harvard Educational Publishing Group, 2011). In 2011, Kelly was named one of 16 “Next Generation Leaders” in education policy by the Policy Notebook blog on Education Week.

2 Panel I Back to the Future: Lessons from a Half-Century of Financial Aid Policy 9:10 a.m. –10:30 a.m. | Moderated by Sara Goldrick-Rab

Panelists Sandy Baum, George Washington University Diane Auer Jones, Career Education Corporation Daniel Madzelan, US Department of Education (retired) David Mundel, Independent Research Consultant

Paper Abstracts

The Politics of Student Aid by Daniel Madzelan

In the first 40 years of Pell Grants, the US Congress appropriated a third of $1 trillion for the program (half of this amount since 2006 alone). To be sure, Pell Grants have always enjoyed broad bipartisan support, yet the program’s spectacular growth is a recent phenomenon. Except for student loans, other federal student aid programs have not fared nearly as well. However, there is general agreement that the fiscal health of the grant program, as it is currently config - ured, is unsustainable. Policymakers, appropriators, and other stakeholders will demand better student-level outcomes from all of the federal aid programs. This paper aims to explore which groups might be best positioned for advancing policies to achieve evolving program goals. Madzelan provides an anecdotal review of the history and development of the Pell Grant, other federal spending programs, the college tuition tax credits, and the circumstances that led to certain policy preferences being realized. How have these programs’ goals evolved? What did prior efforts to restructure them look like, and how did those efforts fare? More broadly, what created momentum for change in the past? Are the prospects for change affected by the constel - lation of interests (both within government and outside it in the interest-group community)?

Building a Foundation of “Actionable Knowledge”: Research that can Improve the Performance of Federal Student Aid Policies by David Mundel

Funding for federal student aid programs, which were first authorized in the 1960s and 1970s, has increased dramatically. In spite of these increases, the performance of these programs has been disappointing: longstanding inequalities in college attendance, completion rates, and patterns continue. These disappointments have resulted from several market and nonmarket behaviors, some of which federal student aid programs have addressed and many of which remain unaddressed. Despite increases in funding for and the quality of research on federal student aid policies, we know little about the impact of current programs and even less about the possible impact of changes in these programs or new approaches. Given the disappointing results of current student aid policies, the limited understanding of the effects of these and alternative policies, and the increasing likelihood of future funding constraints, an “actionable knowledge base” needs to be developed if future disappointments are to be avoided. This paper focuses on issues that must be addressed in developing such a knowledge base.

3 Panel II Beyond Simplification: New Approaches to Access 10:45 a.m. –12:05 p.m. | Moderated by Andrew P. Kelly

Panelists Rodney Andrews, University of Texas at Dallas Regina Deil-Amen, University of Arizona Justin Draeger, National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators Ed Pacchetti, US Department of Education

Paper Abstracts

The Promise of “Promise” Programs by Rodney Andrews

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of “promise programs,” defined by Andrews as local place-based scholarship programs that offer near-universal access to funding for postsec - ondary education. Despite the burgeoning popularity of these programs, there is little comprehen - sive information on their efficacy as a means of encouraging postsecondary education. In this paper, Andrews first describes the structure of the promise programs and then attempts to answer the questions: How are the Promise Programs financed? Who gives the money, and how is it sus - tained? Using extant research as a guide, are the promise programs in and of themselves a scal - able solution for financial aid reform?

From FAFSA to Facebook: The Role of Technology in Navigating the Financial Aid Process by Regina Deil-Amen and Cecilia Rios-Aguilar

Policy has targeted simplifying the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) with mixed results. However, the FAFSA is just one component of a much larger system of aid eligibility and disbursement that intersects with family structure and college achievement patterns. This paper moves beyond narrow discussions of FAFSA simplification to address larger ongoing processes of aid application and receipt as well as efforts to leverage social media (and similar technologies) to ease information, communication, and timing problems that plague students pursuing aid. Specifically, Deil-Amen and Rios-Aguilar profile the technology resources relevant to financial aid and discuss evolving efforts that use social media to enhance opportunities for community college students to communicate about and navigate the financial aid process. They likewise identify the limits of what social media can accomplish, with particular attention to if and how it can effective - ly serve the needs of disadvantaged students, emphasizing how the criteria and delivery of finan - cial aid has differential consequences for community college and nontraditional students. Need- based financial aid was designed to improve higher education access, but federal and state aid programs require students and families to navigate a time-dependent, information-driven, and procedurally complex process. How have technological innovations tried to help, and where do they fall short?

4 Panel III Rethinking Grant Aid 12:35 p.m. –2:00 p.m. | Moderated by Andrew P. Kelly

Panelists Sara Goldrick-Rab, University of Wisconsin-Madison Lashawn Richburg-Hayes, MDRC Bob Shireman, California Competes Lesley Turner, University of Maryland

Paper Abstracts

Making College Affordable: Rethinking Voucher-Driven Approaches to Federal Student Aid by Sara Goldrick-Rab, Lauren Schudde, and Jacob Stampen Today’s higher education policy defines affordability as making college enrollment opportunities available rather than ensuring equitable chances for degree completion across socioeconomic status - es. The decision made at the inception of Title IV of the Higher Education Act of 1965 to target the distribution of financial aid at individual students—rather than to pursue alternatives such as institu - tional subsidies—contributed to a system with very few incentives to keep college costs low and to encourage college completion rather than access. This paper compares the stated purposes of Title IV financial aid programs to programmatic effects and unintended consequences over time and con - siders the costs and benefits of the status quo. Goldrick-Rab, Schudde, and Stampen consider alter - native organizational models focused on low college costs, institutional cultures of affordability (rather than consumption), and successful college completion. They conclude with a discussion of the need to pilot new approaches through a demonstration program with rigorous evaluation.

Incentivizing Success: Lessons from Experimenting with Incentive-Based Grants by Lashawn Richburg-Hayes and Reshma Patel Financial aid has been a key component in enabling millions of students to access and complete postsecondary education. Yet little is known about whether financial aid causes academic success and, if so, how innovations in this critical tool can be implemented. This paper provides evidence of the effectiveness of incentive-based financial aid from several randomized controlled trials. The find - ings suggest that incentive-based grants—grants contingent on meeting certain academic bench - marks—result in a larger proportion of students meeting academic benchmarks, a greater number of credits earned, and modest effects on grade-point averages in the first year. Richburg-Hayes and Patel’s findings are mixed on persistence into the second year. Their paper also describes several other promising innovations that creatively link financial aid to student success and provides insights gained from experimenting with financial aid. It concludes with implications from this collective body of research for federal and state policy and private charitable giving.

Rethinking Institutional Aid: Implications for Affordability, Access, and the Effectiveness of Federal Student Aid by Lesley Turner While the dramatic increases in college costs over the past three decades have been widely publi - cized, less attention has been paid to an increasingly important component of postsecondary afford - ability—institutional grant aid. As listed tuition and fees rise, institutions have also increased their use of institutional aid to target specific students with individualized discounts. Turner’s paper examines trends in institutional aid, its impact on student behavior, and how it interacts with fed - eral and state financial aid programs. Do institutions tend to use aid in ways that complement or contradict federal and state policy objectives? Do institutions use government aid, such as Pell Grants, to supplant or supplement their own aid? Are there policies that might help combat this tendency to supplant? What levers does the federal government have that might be able to affect institutional aid practice? 5 Panel IV Smarter Student Loan Policies: Innovations in Lending, Borrowing, and Repayment 2:15 p.m. –3:35 p.m. | Moderated by Sara Goldrick-Rab

Panelists Debbie Cochrane, The Institute for College Access and Success Nicholas Hillman, University of Wisconsin-Madison Miguel Palacios, Vanderbilt University Robert Sheets, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champagne

Paper Abstracts

Reforming Repayment: Using Income-Related Loans to Reduce Default by Nicholas Hillman

One in ten borrowers defaults on his or her federal student loans within three years of entering repayment. As a result, federal policymakers, college leaders, and students are growing even more wary of repaying mounting levels of student loan debt. This paper discusses the back - ground and emerging policy issues associated with student loan default, highlighting the potential impact income-related loans could play in preventing and reducing default rates. It describes how the contours of student reliance on loans, student debt, and default have changed dramatically as costs have risen. It also discusses alternative structures for loan programs and repayment, draw - ing insights from international policy experiments. Hillman’s paper concludes by discussing the challenges and opportunities of implementing income-related loans as the standard repayment plan for all federal borrowers in the US, which could help borrowers and the federal government manage default risks and improve consumer protections.

Managing Risk, Reaping Reward: Redesigning Federal Student Loan Policy to Improve Performance in Higher Education by Robert Sheets and Stephen Crawford

The longstanding goal of federal student aid programs has been to expand access to higher edu - cation. This paper argues for adding two other goals: increasing the returns on investments in high - er education and reducing the financial risks that student loans place on borrowers and lenders (taxpayers). Furthermore, Sheets and Crawford’s paper proposes policy changes that would help achieve these new goals by promoting business-model innovation and incentivizing better loan risk management. To ensure continuing efforts to expand access, it recommends moving all student loan subsidies into the Pell Grant program and making the Pell Grant program a true entitlement. Conversely, it calls for consolidating the existing loan programs into one and making that a true loan program—one with the underwriting and incentives needed to promote prudent borrowing and to avoid heavy losses. Finally, the paper explains two prerequisites for operating such a loan system: a national, open-data platform that can support the data analytics needed to calculate risk, provide easy access to relevant consumer information, and enable effective student-institution matching; and accreditation reform that facilitates business model innovation, especially innovation that increases the productivity of higher education. In developing this argument, the paper draws on recent advances in financial risk management and behavioral economics.

6 Panel V Looking Ahead: Financial Aid Reform 3:45 p.m. –5:00 p.m. | Moderated by Andrew P. Kelly

Panelists Terry Hartle, American Council on Education Arthur Hauptman, Independent Public Policy Consultant Amy Laitinen, New America Foundation Bridget Terry Long, Harvard University Richard Vedder, AEI and the Center for College Affordability and Productivity

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7 Panelist Biographies

Rodney Andrews is an assistant professor of economics in the School of Economic, Political, and Policy Sciences at the University of Texas at Dallas and director of the Texas Schools Project. His research interests are in the areas of the economics of education, labor economics, and public finance. He has published research on race-neutral alternatives to affirmative action and the impact of the Kalamazoo Promise on college choice. His current research projects examine the effects of college quality on the distribution of earnings, the relationship between the path to a degree and earnings, and the impact of targeted prekindergarten on academic performance.

Sandy Baum is an independent higher education policy analyst and consultant. She is a senior fellow at the George Washington University Graduate School of Education and Human Development and professor emerita of economics at Skidmore College. She is currently a member of the board of trustees of Bryn Mawr College, and has written and spoken extensively on issues relating to college access, college pricing, student aid policy, student debt, affordability, and other aspects of higher education finance. Baum is a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy, affiliated consultant for HCM Strategists, and consultant to the College Board, where Baum has coauthored the annual publications “Trends in Student Aid” and “Trends in College Pricing” since 2002. She also coauthors “Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society” (College Board Advocacy & Policy Center). She chaired the College Board’s Rethinking Student Aid study group, which issued comprehensive proposals for reform of the federal student aid system in 2008, and the Rethinking Pell Grants study group, which issued recommendations in April 2013. She chaired a Brookings Institution study group that issued its report “Beyond Need and Merit: Strengthening State Grant Programs” in May 2012.

Debbie Cochrane is the research director of the Institute for College Access & Success (TICAS) and its Project on Student Debt and is an expert on financial aid policy and practice. She also leads the organization’s policy and advocacy work on national community college issues and California higher education. Her analyses of how federal and state policy proposals affect low-income students are frequently cited by reporters and policymakers, and she has helped build statewide coalitions to support strong financial aid programs and better outcomes for students. Before joining TICAS’s staff, Cochrane worked as a policy analyst at the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, focusing primarily on community college affordability and finance policy issues, and served in research, direct service, and management roles within other nonprofit settings.

Stephen Crawford is a research professor at George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy. Previously, he served as vice president for policy and research at the Corporation for Enterprise Development; as a nonresident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution; as deputy director of the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program; as director of social, economic, and workforce programs at the National Governors Association; and as executive director of the Governor’s Workforce Investment Board in Maryland. Earlier, he taught at Bates College and the University of Maryland, served as executive director of two research centers, was an assistant dean at the University of Pennsylvania, and served as an infantry officer in the US Army in Vietnam. He also served as a special adviser to the Maryland Higher Education Commission, on the Frederick County Board of Education, and on the Obama-Biden transition team. His publications include “Technical Workers in an Advanced Society” (Cambridge University Press, 1989) and articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Regina Deil-Amen is an associate professor at the University of Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education. She was a research director for “College to Careers,” a Northwestern University

8 study examining how community college occupational programs and comparable private career and technical colleges prepare students for sub-baccalaureate careers. Her coauthored book “After Admission: From College Access to College Success” (Russell Sage Foundation, 2007) details those study findings. Deli-Amen also completed a longitudinal qualitative study of urban, low-socioeconomic status students’ transition from high school to one-, two-, and four-year colleges. Other recent research explores strategies, challenges, and success among lower-income university students, including Latino students’ social networks and career decision making. Through a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation grant, she is currently exploring how community college students use social media to create community and enhance their success. She has published in the Journal of Higher Education , Review of Higher Education , Sociology of Education , Teachers College Record , Journal of Latinos and Education , and Journal of Hispanic Higher Education.

Justin Draeger is president and CEO of the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). He serves as the primary voice of NASFAA and as the liaison between the association and its members, education community partners, the US Congress, the White House, the US Department of Education, other government agencies, and the media. He is regularly featured in several national media outlets including the Today Show on NBC, National Public Radio, C-SPAN, The New York Times , The Wall Street Journal , and in numerous other publications.

W. Lee Hansen, University of Wisconsin (UW)–Madison professor emeritus in economics, taught at the University of California, Los Angeles; held a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of Chicago; was a senior staff economist for the President's Council of Economic Advisers; and had visiting appointments at the London School of Economics, University of Sydney, and Maastricht University. He is a longtime member of the American Association of University Professors and UW–Madison’s independent Committee on Academic Freedom and Rights. He edited the book “Academic Freedom on ‘Trial:’ 100 Years of Sifting and Winnowing at the University of Wisconsin” (University of Wisconsin Press, 1998). His numerous awards include a distinguished teaching award and the Hilldale Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement at UW–Madison. His involve - ment in student financial aid issues dates back to the late 1960s—to the Wisconsin Governor’s Commission on Education and the College Board’s “Carter” Commission.

Terry Hartle, senior vice president at the American Council on Education (ACE), has served for more than 20 years at ACE. He directs comprehensive efforts to engage federal policymakers on a broad range of issues, including student aid, government regulation, scientific research, and tax policy. His work involves representation before the US Congress, administrative agencies, and the federal courts. He is quoted widely in both national and international media on higher education issues. He also oversees the council’s external relations functions and oversees Higher Education for Development, which supports the global development goals of the United States Agency for International Development, primarily by coordinating the engagement of the higher education community to address development challenges. Before joining ACE in 1993, Hartle served for six years as education staff director for the Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources. Before 1987, Hartle was director of social policy studies and resident fellow at AEI and a research scientist at the Educational Testing Service. Hartle has authored or coauthored numerous articles, books, and national studies and contributes regular book reviews to the Christian Science Monitor . He is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, the Garfield Society at Hiram College, and the Hiram College Athletic Hall of Fame.

Arthur Hauptman has been an independent public policy consultant since 1981 specializing in higher education finance issues. He has consulted and written extensively on student financial aid, fee-setting policies, and the public funding of higher education in countries around the world.

9 A consistent theme of his work is the idea that public policies in higher education are more effective when these three key elements of financing are linked systematically. In the US, he has consulted with many federal and state agencies as well as higher education associations and institutions. He has helped develop the rationale for a number of federal programs, including direct loans, income contingent loans, and tuition tax credits. For states, he has argued for developing counter- cyclical policies, tying public sector tuition levels to general income growth and creating funding formulas that pay institutions based of their performance and efficiency. Internationally, he has consulted with governments or funding bodies in more than two dozen industrialized and developing countries to develop financing strategies for tertiary education.

Nicholas Hillman will be an assistant professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, beginning in fall 2013. Hillman’s research interests include higher education finance and financial aid policy analysis. His recent work has examined the impacts of state and institutional aid programs, Colorado’s voucher reform, and state performance funding models. His research also examines trends in student loan default, college savings accounts, and student enrollment demand. Hillman is the associate editor of the Journal of Student Financial Aid and teaches courses on higher education finance, educational policy, and research methods. His work can be found in Research in Higher Education , the Review of Higher Education , Education Finance and Policy , the Journal of Higher Education , among other outlets. Previously, Hillman worked as a policy analyst and researcher with State Higher Education Executive Officers and the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.

Diane Auer Jones is senior vice president for external and regulatory affairs for the Career Education Corporation (CEC) and president of the Career Education Scholarship Fund. Before joining CEC, she served in several public policy roles including as a program director at the National Science Foundation; as professional staffer and acting staff director for the Research Subcommittee of the US House of Representatives Committee on Science; the deputy to the associated director for science at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy; and, most recently, as the assistant secretary for postsecondary education at the US Department of Education. Jones also has an extensive background in higher education, having served as a biology professor at the Community College of Baltimore County and as the director of government affairs at Princeton University.

Amy Laitinen is deputy director for higher education at the New America Foundation. Before join - ing New America, Laitinen was a senior policy analyst for higher education at Education Sector, a nonpartisan education think tank in Washington, DC, where she focused on student financial aid and federal higher education tax policy. Laitinen previously served as a policy adviser to the undersecre - tary and assistant secretary for vocational and adult education at the US Department of Education, where she was responsible for developing policy and budget proposals for postsecondary education, adult and workforce education, and interagency policy. She also led policy design efforts for President Obama's proposed $12 billion American Graduation Initiative and served as a policy adviser in the White House, where she helped plan the White House Community College Summit.

Bridget Terry Long is the Xander Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. As an economist specializing in the study of education, Long examines the transition from high school to higher education and beyond. Her work focuses on college access and choice, fac - tors that influence student outcomes, and the behavior of postsecondary institutions. Current and past projects examine the role of information and simplification in college decisions, the effects of finan - cial aid programs, and the impact of postsecondary remediation on student outcomes. She is a facul - ty research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and served as a visiting scholar at the New England Public Policy Center of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. She received the

10 National Academy of Education/Spencer Postdoctoral Fellowship and has been awarded numerous private foundation and federal research grants. In July 2005, the Chronicle of Higher Education featured her as one of the “New Voices” in higher education, and in 2008, the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators awarded her the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award for excellence in research and published works on student financial assistance. In June 2010, Long was appointed by President Barack Obama and confirmed by the US Senate to serve as a member of the National Board of Education Sciences, the advisory panel of the Institute of Education Sciences in the US Department of Education. She was elected chair of the board in October 2011.

Daniel Madzelan began his federal career with the US Department of Education in 1978 as a program analyst in the campus-based student aid program area. He retired last year as the senior director of the strategic planning, analysis, and initiatives staff in the Office of Postsecondary Education (OPE), where he worked on a variety of program and policy issues including the develop - ment of the department's annual budget request for student financial aid and other programs admin - istered by OPE. Between February 2009 and July 2010, Madzelan was the acting assistant secre - tary for postsecondary education. In this capacity, he was responsible for a staff of 210 in the man - agement and oversight of an annual program budget of nearly $3 billion allocated via grant fund - ing largely to colleges and universities to support students in undergraduate, graduate, and doctoral programs, both at home and abroad. He also had policy responsibility for the student financial assis - tance programs that provided $145 billion in grant, work-study, and loan assistance to 14 million postsecondary education students and their families. In his retirement, Madzelan has worked on areas of interest to higher education and consulting with a number of organizations contemplating reforms to the federal student aid programs to help achieve improved student outcomes.

David Mundel is an independent research consultant whose recent work has focused on higher education policy and the misuse and overuse of statistical significance testing. Before becoming an independent consultant, he was a professor and a senior executive in federal and local government organizations. Mundel’s education research has focused on the design and evaluation of access- oriented higher education policies. His early papers include “Federal Aid to Higher Education and the Poor” (MIT, 1971) and “An Empirical Investigation of Factors which Influence College-Going Behaviors” (Rand, 1974) His recent publications include “What Do We Know about the Impact of Grants to College Students?” (College Board, 2008) and “Do Increases in Pell and Other Grant Awards Increase College-Going among Lower Income High School Graduates?—Evidence from a Natural Experiment” (Brookings Institution, 2008).

Ed Pacchetti is the director of customer analytics for the Customer Experience Office of Federal Student Aid at the US Department of Education. Before this position, he was the special assistant to the senior adviser on the Secretary’s Initiative on College Access at the Department of Education, and before that, he worked for five years in the Office of Postsecondary Education. His dominant interests are college access and completion.

Reshma Patel, a research associate in Young Adults and Postsecondary Education at MDRC, cur - rently serves as the project manager and a data manager for MDRC’s Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration, examining the impact of various scholarships across eight colleges and six states. In addition to this role, she has contributed to various cross-project and cross-policy-area tools and initiatives and to the training of technical staff. Before joining MDRC, Patel worked at Morgan Stanley as a pension risk consultant.

Miguel Palacios is an assistant professor of finance at the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University. His recent work has focused on the intersection of human capital and asset pricing, the size and riskiness of human capital, and the effect that

11 human capital has on the riskiness of firms. Palacios has also worked on innovative instruments for financing education. On this subject, he published “Investing in Human Capital” (Cambridge University Press, 2004) and cofounded Lumni Inc. “Investing in Human Capital,” endorsed by Robert Shiller as “the authoritative work on the revolution that is under way to integrate human capital into our financial system,” which builds the case for using innovative financial instruments based on students’ future earnings to finance education. Lumni is a practical implementation of the ideas presented in his book, currently financing students in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, and the United States.

Lashawn Richburg-Hayes, director of the young adults and postsecondary education policy area of MDRC, works in higher education and focuses on finding ways to increase academic achievement and persistence among low-income students attending community colleges and less selective four-year universities. Current projects in the higher education portfolio include Opening Doors, an evaluation of curricular reforms, enhanced student services, and scholarship programs at six community colleges across the United States as well as Achieving the Dream, a national ini - tiative sponsored by Lumina Foundation for Education to help community colleges make better use of data to improve instruction and services. Richburg-Hayes is a quantitative methods expert and principal researcher of the national Performance-Based Scholarship Demonstration, which evalu - ates the effectiveness of performance-based scholarship programs to increase retention and per - sistence in higher education. She is also the project director and co-principal investigator of the Behavioral Inventions to Advance Self-Sufficiency project, sponsored by the Administration for Families and Children of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Cecilia Rios-Aguilar is an associate professor of education at the School of Educational Studies at the Claremont Graduate University. Rios-Aguilar’s research is multidisciplinary and uses a variety of conceptual frameworks (funds of knowledge and forms of capital) and statistical approaches (regression analysis, multilevel models, GIS, and social network analysis) to study the educational and occupational trajectories of underrepresented minorities, including Latinas and Latinos, English learners, and immigrant and second-generation students. Rios-Aguilar’s applied research also includes the design and evaluation of different programs and policies targeted to underrepre - sented students. She has been published in several journals, including Teachers College Record , Higher Education: Handbook of Theory and Research , Language Policy , Community College Review , and the Journal of Latinos and Education .

Lauren Schudde is a postdoctoral research associate at the Center for Analysis of Postsecondary Education and Employment at Teachers College of Columbia University. Her research examines how the “experiential core” of college life—the social and extracurricular world of postsecondary education—contributes to observed inequalities in collegiate outcomes among students from low- and high-income families.

Robert Sheets is a researcher and consultant in education, workforce, and economic development policy at the federal and state levels. He is currently director of research at Business Innovation Services, University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign. Sheets has conducted research and demonstra - tion projects and consulted for the US Departments of Education, Labor, and Commerce; the National Governors Association; foundations; and states. In addition to publications with those spon - sors, he has published a book and numerous academic articles, including in Administrative Science Quarterly and Public Policy Review. He is currently working on a research project with Stephen Crawford at George Washington University’s Institute of Public Policy on large-scale innovation in higher education. He is also conducting a research project on next-generation workforce develop - ment policy. His two most recent publications are “Harnessing the Power of Information Technology:

12 Open Business Models in Higher Education” (Educause Review, March-April 2012, with Stephen Crawford) and “Rethinking Higher Education Business Models” (Center for American Progress Policy March 2012, with Stephen Crawford and Louis Soares).

Bob Shireman currently directs California Competes, a nonprofit project aimed at addressing California's higher education challenges. Previously, Shireman spearheaded the Obama administra - tion's successful efforts to reform student lending, increase Pell Grants, simplify the financial aid process, strengthen consumer protections, and focus national attention on college completion. In 2004, Shireman launched the Institute for College Access and Success, where his early leadership on the issue of rising student debt prompted Congress to adopt income-based repayment for student loans. Inside and outside of government Shireman has worked to improve campus diversity, reform high schools, recruit new teachers, and renovate crumbling schools. He is a 2012 Money Magazine “hero” award winner for his work on college affordability. His triumphs over powerful special inter - ests earned him the Public Advocates “Voice of Conscience” award in 2012.

Jacob Stampen is emeritus professor of educational leadership and policy analysis at the University of Wisconsin (UW)–Madison and visiting researcher at the Wisconsin Center for the Advancement of Postsecondary Education. Stampen’s 40-year career includes teaching history in high school; serving as director of special projects for the University of Wisconsin System; heading a policy analysis shop serving the three major public higher education associations at the National Center for Higher Education in Washington, DC; and teaching and conducting research on educational planning, program evaluation, and higher education finance at UW–Madison.

Lesley Turner is an assistant professor of economics and faculty associate of the Maryland Population Research Center. Her research applies theory and methods from labor and public economics to topics in the economics of education and broadly considers the role government should play in providing and financing education. She was awarded the Upjohn Institute Dissertation award for the best PhD dissertation in labor economics in 2012. Her work on K–12 education policy has examined the impact of school accountability measures on student achievement and whether incentive pay for teachers increases student achievement and teacher effort. She has pub - lished articles in the Journal of Labor Economics and American Economic Journal: Applied Economics , among others. Current projects include an analysis of the impact of teacher unionization on student achievement and housing prices. Turner has likewise examined how postsecondary institutions strategically respond to need-based student aid to estimate the economic incidence of the Pell Grant Program. Another one of her project tests whether Pell Grant aid affects effort, educational attainment, and borrowing among City University of New York college students. She has published papers examining the impact of school accountability measures on student achievement and the design of teacher incentive pay.

Richard Vedder is the distinguished professor of economics at Ohio University, director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, and an adjunct scholar at AEI. He previously served as a member of former US Department of Education secretary Margaret Spelling’s Commission of the Future of Higher Education. Vedder has written widely on American economic history, authoring such books as “Out of Work: Unemployment and Government in Twentieth- Century America and The American Economy in Historical Perspective” (NYU Press, 1997) and “Going Broke by Degree: Why College Costs Too Much” (AEI Press, 2004). Vedder is also the author of numerous scholarly papers for journals in economics and public policy, as well as shorter pieces for the popular press including The Wall Street Journal , The Washington Post , the Christian Science Monitor , The American, the CATO Journal , and Forbes .

13 Conference Papers

The Politics of Student Aid by Dan Madzelan

Building a Foundation of “Actionable Knowledge”: Research that can Improve the Performance of Federal Student Aid Policies by David Mundel

The Promise of “Promise” Programs by Rodney Andrews

From FAFSA to Facebook: The Role of Technology in Navigating the Financial Aid Process by Regina Deil-Amen and Cecilia Rios-Aguilar

Making College Affordable: Rethinking Voucher-Driven Approaches to Federal Student Aid by Sara Goldrick-Rab, Lauren Schudde, and Jacob Stampen

Incentivizing Success: Lessons from Experimenting with Incentive-Based Grants by Lashawn Richburg-Hayes and Reshma Patel

Rethinking Institutional Aid: Implications for Affordability, Access, and the Effectiveness of Federal Student Aid by Lesley Turner

Reforming Repayment: Using Income-Related Loans to Reduce Default by Nicholas Hillman

Managing Risk, Reaping Reward: Redesigning Federal Student Loan Policy to Improve Performance in Higher Education by Robert Sheets and Stephen Crawford

Papers for this conference are available online at www.aei.org/paper/education/higher-education/reinventing-student-financial-aid