As more colleges take the tuition reset plunge, questions around the effectiveness of the strategy remain. Some see immediate and long-term benefits from the practice, with surging enrollments and applications. 

But for many institutions, that growth tapers off in a few years. Plus, the tuition resets are often not enough to produce any real change in their balance sheets.

Photo: Mattia Balsamini

It’s somewhere between a Cinderella story and a “so there” to the academic-science establishment. Decades ago, the University of Pennsylvania demoted Katalin Karikó and told her she wasn’t “faculty quality” after her research failed to secure funding.

Last week, that same research—which paved the way for COVID-19 vaccines—won her a Nobel Prize.

Food insecurity and homelessness affect students everywhere, at all types of colleges and universities. Despite federal and state financial aid, 23 percent of undergraduates—an estimated 4 million students nationally—lack the resources to afford adequate food on a regular basis. 

Yet in too many places, the best students can hope for is a campus food pantry. The basic needs challenge demands a much more comprehensive and effective approach from higher education leaders and policymakers at all levels, writes anti-poverty scholar and activist Sara Goldrick-Rabb in this essay.