As the importance of higher education for economic success has grown, it is critical for policy makers to understand the latest research on how institutional and financial factors affect both postsecondary access and completions. Each of the four papers in this panel examines these outcomes from the perspective of different institutional and financial settings and across different groups of students. Two papers focus specifically on institutional frameworks: the Goodman-Hurwitz-Smith paper examines how college entrance examination score thresholds at certain colleges affect college choice and, as a consequence, completions for marginal students; the Bautsch Dickhoner paper looks at concurrent (or dual) enrollment in high school with administrative data from Colorado, finding that the program is associated with greater college entrance and especially so for underrepresented minorities. The other two papers illustrate how financial aid policy interacts with the manner in which it is delivered. The Bartik-Hershbein-Lachowska paper investigates the impact of a universal, place-based college scholarship that pays up to 100 percent of tuition and fees at state colleges and universities, paying particular attention to how the effects vary over time, as familiarity with the program grows, and across students. The Denning paper exploits changes in federal financial aid when students turn 24 and get classified as independent, showing that additional assistance changes college choice and completed credits particularly for lower-income students. The authors of the papers represent diverse backgrounds, including academia, nonprofit research organizations, and state government practitioners. The papers themselves cut across modern methodologies, employing variants of regression discontinuity approaches, differences-in-differences with and without propensity weights, and other advanced panel methods. They draw upon a wide range of high-quality administrative data sources, including student records from local school districts, state educational agencies, and the universe of SAT-takers. Importantly, each paper explores heterogeneous effects for different students, with a notable emphasis on lower-income students and students from underrepresented minorities---the groups that many policies try to target most. Together, they illuminate the role of institutional factors---some seemingly innocuous and others more visible---in influencing postsecondary choices and outcomes for a wide variety of students.