Sandy Baum

Sandy Baum is an independent higher education policy analyst and consultant. Senior Fellow at the George Washington School of Education and Human Development and Professor Emerita of Economics at Skidmore College, Sandy earned her B.A. in sociology at Bryn Mawr College and her Ph.D. in economics at Columbia University. She has written and spoken extensively on issues relating to college access, college pricing, student aid policy, student debt, affordability, and other aspects of higher education finance.

Sandy is a senior associate at the Institute for Higher Education Policy and Affiliated Consultant for HCM Strategists. She has worked with numerous organizations including the advisory committee on Student Financial Assistance, the Association of Governing Boards (AGB), Canada Student Loans Program, the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators (NASFAA). Sandy has managed and co-authored the annual publications, Trends in Student Aid and Trends in College Pricing for the College Board since 2002. She also developed and co-authors Education Pays: The Benefits of Higher Education for Individuals and Society for the College Board. She co-chaired the Rethinking Student Aid study group, which issued comprehensive proposals for reform of the federal student aid system and is managing a study of the impact of student aid simplification on states, funded by the Lumina Foundation. Other recent work includes studies of concepts of college affordability, the non-financial barriers to college access, and tuition discounting in public and private colleges and universities.