Donald E. Heller, Ed.D. Director, CSHE Full Professor, EPS

Dr. Heller came to Penn State from the University of Michigan where he earned a national reputation for his studies of higher education finance, tuition pricing, financial aid, and student access. Prior to his academic career, he served as an information technology manager for over ten years at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His main areas of expertise include: higher education economics, public policy, and finance, as well as academic and administrative uses of technology in higher education. In addition, Dr. Heller focuses on issues of access and choice in postsecondary education, examining the factors and policies that help to determine whether or not individuals attend college, and what type of institution they attend. Dr. Heller earned an Ed.D. in Higher Education from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, and holds an Ed.M. In Administration, Planning, and Social Policy from Harvard, and a BA in Economics and Political Science from Tufts University.

Dr. Heller devotes much of his work to informing higher education policy organizations, state governing boards, legislative agencies, and the public about postsecondary education policy issues. He has consulted on higher education policy issues with university systems and policy making organizations in California, Colorado, Kansas, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, and Tennessee. He has testified in front of the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislatures, and been interviewed on numerous media events. He has also served as an expert or consulting witness in three federal lawsuits in Michigan and Alabama.

Dr. Heller's research has been published in the Journal of Higher Education , the Review of Higher Education , and the Journal of Student Financial Aid . He is the editor of Condition of Access: Higher Education for Lower Income Students (Praeger Publishers, 2002), and The States and Public Higher Education Policy: Affordability, Access, and Accountability (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2001). In 2001 Dr. Heller received the Robert P. Huff Golden Quill Award from the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, for his contributions to the literature on student financial aid. In 2002 he received the Promising Scholar/Early Career Achievement Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

On September 23, 2002, Don Heller joined President Graham B. Spanier to discuss financing a college education on "To the Best of My Knowledge" on WPSU-FM and WPSX-TV. Joining Spanier and Heller was special guest Ed Elmendorf, Senior Vice President for government relations and policy analysis for the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. To listen to an archived copy of the broadcast please visit http://media2.cac.psu.edu:8080/ramgen/spanier/spanier020923_audio.rm (use Real Time Player).

dheller@psu.edu
Research Brief
Heller Vitae
Personal Web Site

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