Sandy Baum is a nonresident
senior fellow at the Urban Institute and professor emerita of economics
at Skidmore College. 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.
Baum co-authored the College Board’s annual publications
Trends in Student Aid and
Trends in College Pricing from 2002 through 2019.
Through the College Board and the Brookings Institution, she has chaired
major study groups that released proposals for reforming federal and
state student aid. She is the principal researcher on the Urban
Institute’s website on college affordability, and her recent work
includes Urban Institute briefs on Federal Work Study, Parent PLUS
loans, and college endowments. Baum has published numerous articles on
higher education finance in professional journals, books, and the trade
press. She is the author of
Student Debt: Rhetoric and Realities of Higher Education Financing (2016) and co-author with Harry Holzer of
Making College Work: Pathways to Success for Disadvantaged Students (2017). Baum also publishes frequent
blog posts on the Urban Wire.
She earned her BA in sociology at Bryn Mawr College, where she is
currently a member of the board of trustees, and her PhD in economics at
Columbia University.
In 2014, Baum was a co-recipient, with
Michael S. McPherson, of the Allen P. Splete Award for Outstanding
Service from CIC. The award honors significant contributions to higher
education and recognizes national leadership through ideas and
commitment on behalf of private colleges and universities. Baum earned a
BA in sociology at Bryn Mawr College, where she is a member of the
board of trustees, and a PhD in economics at Columbia University.