Student Experience

Anne MacLachlan

Senior Researcher and Visiting Scholars Coordinator

Anne J. MacLachlan is a retired senior researcher at CSHE who continues to be devoted to increasing access, persistence, and success in postsecondary education for underrepresented groups (URM) including domestic minorities, women, and those from uneducated/poor families with an emphasis on those in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM). Her research areas cover the spectrum of postsecondary populations including community college and transfer students, undergraduates in general, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and faculty. Among these, doctoral...

Aashish Mehta

Associate Professor, Global Studies, UC Santa Barbara

Aashish Mehta is a development economist who studies globalization and structural change, and how they influence the role of education in labor markets. He also studies the political-economy of public services provision, and the role of education in social stratification. His publications cover many other aspects of development policy, and appear in a wide variety of economics and public policy journals.

Born and raised in India, he trained in economics and energy policy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he completed his PhD in Agricultural and Applied Economics. Prior...

Igor Chirikov

Senior Researcher and SERU Consortium Director

Igor Chirikov is the Director of the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium and Senior Researcher at CSHE. SERU Consortium is an academic and policy research collaboration based at Center for Studies in Higher Education at the UC Berkeley working in partnership with Etio and member universities. The Consortium is a group of leading research-intensive universities that increase student success by generating and analyzing comparative data on the student experience.

As SERU Consortium Director Igor Chirikov has broad responsibilities for overall SERU Consortium...

John Aubrey Douglass

Senior Research Fellow

John Aubrey Douglass is Senior Research Fellow - Public Policy and Higher Education at the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE), and is a faculty member in the Goldman School of Public Policy, at the University of California - Berkeley. His research focuses on the forces and politics of globalization, the future of Democracy, the role of universities in economic development and socioeconomic mobility, the student experience and...

Inside Higher Ed Report on the Higher Education Cost of Attendance Quoted Jiang-Brittan

November 13, 2025

A recent report by the Inside Higher Education entitled "Beyond Tuition: The Hidden Costs of College and Their Disproportionate Impact" cited CSHE ROPS Editor and External Relations Specialist Shanshan Jiang-Brittan's research on the affordable student housing crisis.

"'High-rise, high-amenity private developments near campuses may be attractive, but affordable they’re not. Often occupied by affluent international and out-of-state domestic students, these properties can also drive up the entire local housing market.' That’s what Shanshan Jiang-Brittan of UC Berkeley, who...

California Community College and University of California student participation in CalFresh food benefits

Castellanos, Karla
Davis, Charles
Dizon-Ross, Elise
Doherty, Anna
Fu, Samantha
Lacoe, Johanna
Rothstein, Jesse
Saucedo, Monica
2022

Food insecurity is widespread among college students in the United States. CalFresh food benefits, known federally as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, can help students in California pay for food, but may not reach all eligible students. CalFresh enrollment rates among students have been difficult to estimate due to incomplete data on California students’ eligibility for and enrollment in the CalFresh...

New ROPS Paper Uncovers Student Housing Crisis as a Hidden Cost of Higher Education

July 15, 2025

BERKELEY, CA – The Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) today announced the release of a new paper in the Research and Occasional Paper Series (ROPS) that critically examines the escalating student housing crisis. The paper, titled "Crisis by Design," delves into how the proliferation of Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA) and the financialization of student housing are reshaping access and equity in higher education.

Authored by Dr. Shanshan Jiang-Brittan, the paper asserts that fast enrollment growths, coupled with insufficient...

Possibility Lab's Powerful Student Narratives on Higher Education

July 15, 2025

Berkeley, CA – The UC Berkeley Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) is delighted to feature the impactful work of the Possibility Lab, a fellow research lab under the Goldman School of Public Policy, in their recent project: "Stories of Resilience and Transformation."

This compelling initiative centers on a collection of student narratives, offering invaluable insights into the lived experiences of students as well as capturing the nuanced realities of navigating higher education today.

The...

Inside Higher Ed Article Featuring SERU Multi-Engagement Report

April 11, 2025

A new article from Inside Higher Education entitled "Data: Students Less Involved on Campus Post-Pandemic" features SERU Multi-Engagement Report.