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States around the U.S. are increasingly shifting higher education funding away from supporting public institutions and toward providing individual students with need-based financial aid to offset tuition and living expenses. This strategy could diversify and increase the number of students obtaining college degrees, but inherently presents challenges in choosing which income levels are eligible to receive aid, identifying the eligible population at those income levels, and delivering aid at a time and in an amount that will meaningfully support college attainment. This report describes the policy design, implementation, and outcomes of the Wisconsin Grant. In partnership with the state of Wisconsin, RAND Corporation researchers created and analyzed a new database connecting state grant aid applications to the educational attainment of applicants. The author explores the pathways of aid recipients and the effects of recent funding shortages.

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Experts from the RAND Corporation prepared this independent report on New Jersey's Tuition Aid Grant (TAG) program for low-income college students. TAG is the nation's most generous state-funded financial aid program on a per-resident-undergraduate basis. Currently, TAG distributes around

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Improving enlisted service member transitions from active duty to civilian life calls for better information about how service members fare in their transitions. The authors examined the relationship among enlisted service members' military occupations, personal characteristics, and civilian employment outcomes over the first three years after separation from active duty. They used detailed empirical analysis of more than 1 million service records, matched to employment and earnings after separation. The data encompass all separations from the armed forces from 2002 through 2010. Earnings varied markedly in relation to the former service member's military occupation. Individuals who worked in intelligence and information systems consistently appeared in the high tier of post-service earnings. Those who worked in combat arms, medical, supply, and transportation were generally in the moderate or low tier of post-service earnings. These gaps point to military occupations that might need additional support to develop marketable skills, either during the whole of service members' military careers or around the time of transition. Higher levels of education achieved at the time of separation were associated with greater earnings after separation. Separations after poor conduct or substance abuse were associated with lower earnings. Deployment during service had mixed association with post-service earnings, depending on service, gender, and length of service. Service members in most military occupations had lower earnings after leaving the service compared with their final year of active duty. This finding emphasizes the importance of building marketable skills for service members and supporting their transitions into the civilian labor force.

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Community colleges enroll a diverse set of students who often face challenges meeting their basic needs. This report describes the potential benefits and costs of one low-cost and relatively light-touch tool that colleges might use to increase students' access to basic needs assistance. The authors focus on the Findhelp platform, which is modeled as a "social care network" that connects students through an online platform to services that provide help. Findhelp is a website that lists local resources and services, and it is available to anyone affiliated with an institution partnering with the platform. There is little research on Findhelp and similar light-touch resources, so this research documents how the resource was implemented at four community colleges in North Carolina, its implementation costs, and its impacts on student success following implementation. The authors use information from interviews with the campus staff who implemented the platform, administrative student-level data from the North Carolina Community College System on student persistence and credits attempted and completed, and data from Findhelp on how much individual students interacted with the platform. Overall, Findhelp usage rates were low, though usage varied across the participating colleges. Campus staff were enthusiastic about the potential of the platform, and there is some evidence that student success increased when the platform was implemented. In addition, the platform was relatively low-cost to implement compared with other more-intensive approaches for supporting students' basic needs.

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Each year, Medicare allocates tens of billions of dollars for indirect practice expense (PE) across services on the basis of data from the Physician Practice Information (PPI) Survey, which reflects 2006 expenses. Because these data are not regularly updated, and because there have been significant changes in the U.S. economy and health care system since 2006, there are concerns that continued reliance on PPI Survey data might result in PE payments that do not accurately capture the resources that are typically required to provide services. In this final report of the second phase of a study on PE methodology, the authors address how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) might improve the methodology used in PE rate-setting, update data that inform PE rates, or both. The authors conclude that this information is best provided by a survey; therefore, they focus on the advantages and disadvantages of survey-based approaches. They also describe the use of a lean model survey instrument, as well as partnering with another agency to collect data. Finally, the authors describe a virtual town hall meeting held in June 2021 to give stakeholders an opportunity to provide feedback on PE data collection and rate-setting. The system of data and methods that CMS uses to support PE rate-setting is complex; thus, CMS must take into account a number of competing priorities when considering changes to the system. With this in mind, the authors offer a number of near- and longer-term recommendations.