Refinancing the College Dream: Access, Equal Opportunity, and Justice for Taxpayers (review)

Given rising tuition costs and decreasing student grant aid, postsecondary access for low-income students is one of the greatest challenges facing higher education policy makers today. Written by one of the most influential financial aid analysts in higher education, Refinancing the College Dream: Access, Equal Opportunity, and Justice for Taxpayers,is timely and well addresses this major and growing concern. With his extensive experience and expertise, Edward St. John offers a significant contribution in our understanding of the role of financial aid policy in accessing higher education over the past decades. Beyond the economics of education, the author discusses financial aid within the context of social responsibility and justice.

The book is broadly divided into two parts. In part 1, "Understanding the Access Challenge," St. John draws upon John Rawls' theory of justice and develops three indicators to evaluate the effects of finances on college access. The three indicators are: (a) access to higher education, as represented by college enrollment rates for high school graduates; (b) equal opportunity, as represented by the disparity in college enrollment rates across race/ethnic or income groups; and (c) tax payer costs, as represented by tax expenditures per student enrolled in postsecondary education. Using these indicators, St. John analyzes the impact of financial aid policy changes at different periods throughout higher education finance history.

The 1970s are defined the period of "equalizing educational opportunity." During this period of time, providing equal educational opportunity was considered a social goal, thus expanding federal and state roles in funding for higher education is justified. His research evidence supports that financial aid in the 1970s sufficiently increased college participation in the 1970s and early 1980s. St. John argues that it was the availability of grants that improved equal opportunity while the availability of loans increased total college participation rates.

Higher education finance experienced significant change in the 1980s, which are defined "middle-class assistance." Beyond focusing on federal and state roles in funding for higher education, policy debates on increasing access and equity moved toward reforming K-12 schools. St. John explains that the increased emphasis on loans in the 1980s expanded the access to postsecondary education for the middle-class and increased efficient use of taxpayer dollars, but it also increased disparity in college enrollment rates across race/ethnic and income groups.

The 1990s, "justice for taxpayers," show a shift on the burden to pay for college from taxpayers to students and their families. Coupled with the rising costs of attending college, the expansion of merit-based programs, the introduction of tax credits, and the decline in federal grants and state support in higher education, further eroded the equity indicator in the 1990s, while middle and upper classes benefited from the policies.

Understanding the importance of academic access along with financial access, St. John provides a "balanced access model" which offers a more complete way of viewing the effects of policy on access. St. John charges that the National Center for Educational Statistics (NCES) analyses, which have been the main propellers in driving national debates on access from financial policies to academic preparation, failed to consider the role of finances and thus reached misinformed conclusions about the causes of the greater inequality in access to postsecondary participation. The greater disparity in postsecondary participation was not caused by the failure of school reform, but by the reduction in need-based grants.

After analyzing the access challenge in part 1, St. John proposes a contingency approach to "meet the access challenge" in part 2. The contingency approach is to inform policymakers about financial and educational reform strategies that can improve access and equalize opportunity in colleges, in states, and at the federal level. The contingency approach is based on the author's effort to balance different values, interests, and concerns as represented in the three indicators: (a) improving access for majority to postsecondary education; (b...