This issue of WICHE Insights discusses the results of WICHE’s annual survey of tuition and fees in public higher education in the WICHE region, recent trends in state appropriations and fiscal support, and state grant aid programs. Key takeaways from the brief include:

The IPEDS Outcome Measures data, released this past fall, begin to address known limitations with official college graduation rates—which have only represented college outcomes of “traditional” first-time students, while leaving out part-time and the many types of non-first-time students.

Now that the wider diversity of students is represented, this WICHE Insights brief observes important, even surprising trends about student outcomes, including:

In the December 2016 edition of Knocking at the College Door, WICHE projected that the U.S. is headed into a period of stagnation in the overall number of high school graduates it produces, and that high school graduates from private religious and nonsectarian schools would decline. New data have become available, and they confirm WICHE’s overall projections, but modify the projections for private high school graduates (who constitute about 9 percent of the total number of high school graduates in the nation). Specifically, declines in the future number of private high school graduates no longer appear imminent through at least 2018.

Higher education was again fertile ground in 2017 for Western U.S. state legislatures, whose budget and bill dynamics affect students, families and postsecondary institutions across the region.

We dove deep to discern some key trends:

This second supplement to WICHE's 9th edition of Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates (Dec. 2016) incorporates a new WICHE Insights report Impact and Implications: Projections of Male and Female High School Graduates, detailed projections of male and female high school graduates for the nation, region and the states, and an interactive chart dashboard.

WICHE’s 9^th edition of Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates, released in December 2016, describes substantial demographic changes among U.S. youth for the next 15 years with critical implications for higher education, including:

As states and postsecondary institutions confront ongoing concerns about their fiscal health after a brief post-recession respite, colleges and universities across the nation are once again making their recruitment pitches to prospective students. Increasingly, public institutions are aiming these appeals well beyond their home states’ borders, in part because nonresidents (including international students) typically pay significantly more tuition than resident students.

WICHE's Policy Analysis and Research unit has released a new Policy Insights summarizing our most recent survey of published tuition and fees prices in all public institutions in the West in 2015-16, state budget levels, higher education appropriations, state financial aid programs, college affordability and related college finance topics and news.

Download files:
The Policy Insight summarizing the trends (May 2016)
Chart slides

In 2016, there was an increasingly dramatic divergence between state economies in the West. Most states in the region benefited from an ongoing economic recovery, but states reliant on the energy sector for tax revenues were hit hard by the global decline in oil prices. This resulted in varying budget situations in legislatures across the West – outlined in this Policy Insights – with certain states dealing with significant cuts to higher education while others were in a position to make a wealth of new investments. Despite the region’s varied economic outlook, common themes did emerge.

Challenges to closing the gap between findings from academic research and effective policymaking are not new, and they will not be solved overnight. However, as the entire education sector faces mounting pressure to provide high-quality education under tightening fiscal constraints, all while demonstrating improving student outcomes, the time may finally be right for a renewed spirit of collaboration between higher education researchers and policymakers. This Policy Insights is just one component of a partnership between the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) focused on how to better connect rigorous higher education October research and appropriate state-level policy.

WICHE's Policy Analysis and Research unit has released a new Policy Insights summarizing our most recent survey of published tuition and fees prices in all public institutions in the West in 2015-16, state budget levels, higher education appropriations, state financial aid programs, college affordability and related college finance topics and news.

The detailed tuition and fee rate data that are summarized in this Policy Insights brief are available here on the WICHE web site: http://wiche.edu/pub/tf, in PDF and Excel file form.

Targeted Recovery: Recapping 2015 Higher Education Legislative Activity in the West summarizes key policy themes over the past year and highlights emerging issues to watch in future legislative sessions. Affordability was the dominant theme of the 2015 sessions; in an attempt to address affordability, legislators in the WICHE region passed bills freezing or limiting tuition increases and increased need-based aid and even offered low-cost degrees in an effort to improve financial assistance opportunities for students.

This brief provides an overview of key components of the public workforce system that are most relevant for state postsecondary education planners and leaders as they address issues of educational attainment and workforce skill needs, particularly among lower-income or less-skilled segments of their state. Among the most notable features coming from the reauthorization of the public workforce system in 2014 are the facets that pave the way for states to make greater use of cross-system partnerships, career pathway models, performance measurement and data-driven improvement, and other mechanisms for bringing their workforce training and higher education agendas into better alignment.

Over the past five years as the cost and value of higher education have gained increased policymaker, consumer, and media attention, the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) has worked with four of its member states to test how cross-state collaboration and data sharing might inform important questions about the development and mobility of human capital.

This Policy Insight is a supplement to WICHE’s annual Benchmarks indicators, which summarize the West states’ progress with improving access to, success in, and financing of higher education. In this brief, we explore one variant for how WICHE states might meet projected educational attainment goals, such as the 60 percent by 2025 goal set by the Lumina Foundation.

After reaching a low point in 2012, state investment in higher education increased for the second year in a row in 2014 – something that had not happened since the Great Recession of 2008 began. With greater stability in some, though certainly not all, state budgets, many Western legislatures in 2014 looked for new ways to contain college costs for students. In fact, affordability was the key theme of this year’s sessions; in an attempt to address affordability, legislators in the WICHE region passed bills freezing or limiting tuition increases and created new scholarships and other financial aid opportunities for students.

WICHE's Policy Analysis and Research unit has released a new Policy Insight covering our most recent survey of published tuition and fees prices in all public institutions in the West in 2013-14. The report summarizes those findings and discusses state budget levels, higher education appropriations, state financial aid programs and related state finance policy innovations.

After years of tight state budgets, cuts to postsecondary institutions, and rising costs for students, there was good news for higher education in the West in 2013. Increased state revenues allowed some -- though certainly not all -- states to appropriate more money to colleges and universities and look for ways to offer more financial aid and avoid steep tuition increases. By no means are the hard times over, but as long as state legislatures in the West continue to develop innovative approaches to the design and delivery of higher education, access, quality, and success can continue to improve for all students in the region. This Policy Insights brief summarizes key themes from the 2013 legislative sessions and highlights some emerging issues to watch in the West.

This policy brief summarizes the main findings from WICHE's eighth edition of Knocking at the College Door: Projections of High School Graduates publication. The brief places changes in the size and racial/ethnic composition of our nation's graduating classes in the context of the college completion agenda and the need for greater educational attainment. It also addresses how these demographic shifts, coupled with fiscal stress, are impacting the practice of enrollment management. It concludes by offering reflections on how policymakers and institutional leaders can respond to these challenges with policies and practices that align with society's rising needs and expectations for higher education.

While tax revenues in many Western states have improved since FY 2011, the 2012 legislative sessions still experienced what has become the familiar round of funding cuts to higher education, coupled with tuition increases for students. The good news is that the cuts and increases weren’t as severe as in previous years, despite continued aversion to spending by most state legislatures. The bad news is that the loss of stimulus funds and the rising cost of health care, K-12 education, and other public services mean that states still face a tremendous amount of economic pressure. This Policy Insights brief summarizes key themes from the 2012 legislative sessions and highlights some emerging issues to watch in the West.