No blog post this time; I was asked by Nick Anderson at the Washington Post to pull together my thoughts about the recent announcement by The Coalition for Access, Affordability and Success.  They are published on the site; just click here to read them.

A few days ago–probably not coincidentally just before the annual NACAC conference–we got a first look at the long-rumored Coalition for Access, Affordability, and Success.  Presumably, this group of about 80 high-profile private and large public institutions was founded to improve access, affordability, and success for populations traditionally underserved by our current admissions process.  Or, […]

One of the very first posts I put on my other blog–the one focused on higher education data–was about the Claremont McKenna test score reporting scandal.  You can take a look at it here if you’d like a summary of the data.  At the time, I thought the difference between the actual scores (which many […]

About July 28th, I was asked to participate on an August 4th panel at The American Enterprise Institute, a think tank in DC, to react to two papers presented at their invitation-only conference, Matching all students to post secondary opportunities: How college choice is influenced by institutional, state, and federal policy.  With just a week […]

You may have read or heard recently that more than 60 organizations have combined to file a complaint with the federal government against Harvard University, alleging that Harvard discriminates against Asian applicants.  And this is not the first time the issue has been raised, of course; late last year a suit was filed in federal court alleging […]

In my last post, I recapped my panel presentation from this year’s IACAC Conference in May.  Most of what I wrote I said, and most of what I said, I wrote, but there were some things I left out of each.  One thing I said but did not write was that the people in admissions […]

Fair warning: This is an intellectual exercise in which you may have to throw out some of your most long-held beliefs.  Be careful!  Stop now if you’re unwilling to consider this modest proposal. I’m a novice when it comes to the study of game theory.  It’s always been very interesting to me, although even in […]

No, don’t worry.  Merit aid is probably not going away. But perhaps–maybe–the term “merit aid” could go away. For years, journalists and other self-proclaimed higher ed wonks have bemoaned the growth in non-need based aid, somehow thinking that financial aid was a pot of money from which dollars were extracted. These types have become fond […]