Analysis On American Federal Student Aid Policy

In recent years, federal student aid policy has become a research hotspot in the academic world. By refreshing and analyzing the existing research achievements, it is found that although the research on the policy itself has been overall enough in China, to go deep into the process of policy making from the perspective of policy analysis has been relatively weak. This paper aims to make a research into the formulation and transition of federal student aid policy from the perspective of policy analysis, and to provide inspirations for the reform of student aid policy and the policy-making in higher education in China.This paper comprises three parts. The first part(Chapter1) is the introduction, including explaining the research backgrounds and significance, literature review, research perspectives and methods, the basic structure the innovation and shortage of this paper. The second part is to discuss the process of policy making based on the different developing stages of the federal student aid policy.Chapter2discusses the formulation of the federal student aid policy. From the1930s to the beginning of the1960s, in order to promote economic instruction, resettle the veterans and strengthen the national defense security, the federal government provided the veterans and the students in specific majors with aids. During that period, the policy had been characterizing in taking accomplishing the national interests as the first point and the comparatively simple aiding mode. From the beginning of the1960s to the end of the1970s, the federal student aid policy in US began to be established and formed. The purpose of the policy in that period was to make the students in poverty get equal higher education opportunities, with the grant as the major aiding mode.Chapter3discusses the development of the federal student aid policy. From the end of the1970s to the end of the1990s, the American economy had been caught in an ongoing economic recession. To cut the fiscal deficit and improve the efficiency in the use of funds, student loan played a leading role gradually. The objective of the federal student aid policy was to improve students'college affordability. The target group of the policy had been enlarging step by step, covering the low income group, the middle income group and even the high income group.Chapter4discusses the transformation of the federal student aid policy. Since the end of the1990s, with the coming of the accountability era, the government and the public have highlighted efficiency and quality more and more, which is a new challenge for the higher education and is also an unavoidable problem in the federal student aid policy. Apart from taking the responsibility in student aiding, the federal government strengthens the supervision in aiding field. In order to accomplish the equal higher education opportunity, many entities such as colleges and universities, lending institutions and state governments are obliged to be responsible for the efficient use of the federal student aiding fund.The third part of the paper analyses the federal student aid policy theoretically and summarizes policy experience and implications. The theoretical analysis(Chapter5) covers the policy system, the process of the policy formulation and the policy transition. Firstly, this part analyses the policy system from the respects of the policy environment, subject and object. Secondly, this part analyses the process of the policy formulation progressively from policy problem confirmation, policy objectives'establishment, policy plans'setting and policy's legalization. Lastly, this part interprets the formulation and transition of the federal student aid policy by choosing four related analysis models. Inspirations and proposals (Chapter6) analyses the experience in policy-making of the federal student aid and makes recommendations to our country's student aid policy.