Andrew Kelly

Director of the Center on Higher Education Reform
American Enterprise Institute (AEI)
Washington, DC


Biography: Andrew P. Kelly is a resident scholar in education policy studies and the director of the Center on Higher Education Reform at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works on higher education policy, innovation in education, financial aid reform, and the politics of education policy. Previously, Kelly was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where he received a National Science Foundation research training fellowship and was honored as an outstanding graduate student instructor. Before graduate school, Kelly served as a research assistant at AEI, where his work focused on how to prepare K–12 school leaders, collective bargaining in public schools, and the politics of education. Kelly’s findings have appeared in the American Journal of Education, Education Next, Educational Policy, Policy Studies Journal, and Teachers College Record. He has also been published in popular outlets such as The Atlantic, the Chronicle of Higher Education, Education Week, National Affairs, National Review, and The Wall Street Journal. He has edited many books on higher education, including “Reinventing Financial Aid: Charting a New Course to College Affordability” (Harvard Education Press, 2014),“Stretching the Higher Education Dollar: How Innovation Can Improve Access, Equity, and Affordability” (Harvard Education Press, 2013), and “Getting to Graduation: The Completion Agenda in Higher Education” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2012). In 2011, Education Week’s Policy Notebook blog named Kelly one of its 16 Next Generation Leaders in education policy. Kelly has a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science from the University of California, Berkeley, and an A.B. in history from Dartmouth College.


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