This grant funds a team of researchers led by John Campbell of Harvard University and Kaye Husbands Fealing of Georgia Tech to integrate comprehensive new research on the financial challenges facing higher education institutions in the United States. The team will commission 10 papers from a diverse selection of independent researchers on such topics and trends as: the stagnating number of college-age domestic students; growing student debt burdens; the imperative to deliver more diverse, equitable, and inclusive outcomes; the rise of remote learning; the implications of public-private partnerships in funding research; and low expected safe returns in capital markets. Findings will be presented, debated, and refined at a conference and the results disseminated in both the popular media and in scholarly publications including an edited volume. The entire effort will be informed by input from a diverse advisory board, representing all kinds of educational institutions from community colleges and Minority-Serving Institutions to private colleges and state universities. This will help ensure that the resulting scholarship is not only of compelling interest to academics, but also of direct use to college and university leaders, to officials and policy makers, and to everyone concerned with the future of higher education.