SERU: Student Experience in the Research University

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic altered the perception of the management challenges facing universities, globally. It has changed the market for domestic and international students, required institutions to move rapidly to online and remote teaching, and brought into question the funding model for many universities, particularly with the specter of reduced tuition income and state funding under the assumption of a global recession.
But is also true that the pandemic, and its impact on higher education, varies by nation, and even by the collective pan-regional response – e.g., Europe...

In an environment of declining public funding and rising tuition rates, many public universities in the US are moving toward a “progressive tuition model” that attempts to invest approximately one-third of tuition income into institutional financial aid for lower-income and middle-class students. The objective is to mitigate the cost of rising tuition and keep college affordable. But is this model as currently formulated working? Utilizing data from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Survey of undergraduates and other data sources, this study explores these issues by...