Nicholas Hillman is a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, where he also is a faculty affiliate with the Institute for Research on Poverty and the La Follette School of Public Affairs. His research focuses on postsecondary finance and financial aid policy, primarily as they relate to college access and equity. Hillman has testified to the US House of Representatives and the Wisconsin State Assembly on issues related to higher education accountability and finance. He teaches courses in politics of higher education, higher education finance, educational policy, and research methods. He also directs the Student Success Through Applied Research Lab, a research-practice partnership with the University of Wisconsin-Madison Division of Enrollment Management.

Gary Orfield is Distinguished Research Professor of Education, Law, Political Science and Urban Planning at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he is also codirector of the Civil Rights Project he cofounded at Harvard University in 1996. He is a political scientist whose work includes more than a dozen authored or edited books, one of which was cited by the Supreme Court in upholding affirmative action. Orfield's work focuses on equal opportunity and civil rights and has been included in testimony in more than twenty major class action civil rights lawsuits on school segregation, housing discrimination, and other civil rights violations. He has taught at six universities, including Harvard University and the University of Chicago, and is a member of the National Academy of Education.