Journal 1

How should college be made more affordable?

The Politics of Public College Tuition and State Financial Aid by William R. Doyle

1. In my first article of research Doyle explains the effect of state policies on tuition cost and state financial aid for each state. Every state is different on how their tuition prices are set and how much financial aid can be given out. Some states are strictly policy, where the government comes up with policies explaining how much money the schools must charge and how much money the state will give up for financial aid. Other states don't have to listen to policy and the schools get to choose their tuition cost without listening to what the government has to say. The other states are a mix in between where both the individual schools have a say and the states policy is taken into factor. There are also many different ways financial aid is given out, some states let the schools take in revenue however they want and give it out to the students in need, other states give the school money for financial aid based on number of students or percentage of tuition.
2. Cannot do, this is my first article
3. When I was first thinking about how to make college tuition lower I hadn't even thought about how tuition prices were set in the first place. I had assumed that the schools ran as a business and had a regular economic model to figure out their prices throughout supply and demand. After reading this article it makes sense why some schools that have around the same education level can cost way more or way less depending on what state it's in. Although Doyle did his research, he may have interpreted the figures in different ways than I may have.
4. Is state policy or a states lack of the only thing that sets cost of tuition?
What are the actual figures of how much money each state spends on public education?
These are the main two questions this article made me think about. I am going to look up public government documents that have all of the exact figures and hopefully state the education policy.


Doyle, W. R. (2012). The Politics of Public College Tuition and State Financial Aid. Journal Of Higher Education, 83(5), 617-647.