J. Fredericks Volkwein

The Cost Structure of American Research Universities

This study estimates translog variable cost functions for 147 American doctorate granting universities, accounting for three major products of these institutions: undergraduate and graduate instruction, and research. Explicit measures of research output and quality are employed. Evidence is found for considerable economies of scale for the average institution, as well as economies of scope related to the joint production of undergraduate and graduate instruction. The public or private ownership of an institution is not significant for the explanation of variable costs. The intensity of state regulation in the public sector does not have a significant impact on production efficiency. Copyright 1991 by MIT Press.

Predictors of Student Commitment at Two-Year and Four-Year Institutions

Examining predictors of student institutional commitment at two-year and four-year institutions, HLM analyses reveal similar relationships between student predictors and institutional commitment, the strongest influences exerted by student academic integration, followed by social integration. Classroom experience is more influential at two-year institutions, while social integration has more impact for students at four-year institutions.

Student-Faculty Relationships and Intellectual Growth among Transfer Students

Increasing costs of higher education and growing competition for good students are placing campuses under pressure to document the educational benefits of programs and services they provide for students. Parents, trustees, state officials, and members of accreditation teams are only some of the individuals interested in assessing the results of the instructional enterprise. There has been an enormous amount of research on college students in the past three decades. The extensive literature reviews by Bowen [2], Feldman & Newcomb [6], Hyman et al. [9], Lenning [11], and Pace [12] reveal that most studies have examined student academic performance, attrition/persistence, and personality development. Only a modest number of studies have addressed the development of intellectual skills during college. At the same time, the higher education community has made many claims regarding the cognitive benefits of attending college, but the evidence supporting these claims is far from complete. What is known on the topic has been based largely on research conducted either on freshmen or on students who begin and complete their education at a single institution. Although that may indeed include a majority of the students in institutions of higher education, one significant subgroup of the college population-the transfer student-is generally not represented in the research on educational outcomes.

Comparing Student Performance and Growth in 2- and 4-Year Institutions

This study examines the organizational characteristics of 51 higher education institutions in relationship to student performance and growth. The study first finds that organizational measures of mission, size, wealth, complexity, and selectivity are statistically represented by the 2-year versus 4-year college mission. Findings indicate that 2-year and 4-year campuses indeed do exert significantly different influences on undergraduate GPA and self-reported intellectual growth. Next, the study uses both OLS regression and HLM to examine these influences. High school percentile rank and college classroom experiences are better predictors of Cum GPA at 4-year institutions, while student effort is a better predictor of GPA at 2-year institutions. Whereas the most important predictors of Cum GPA include precollege measures such as high school percentile rank and SAT score, the most influential predictors of student intellectual growth are campus experiences including classroom vitality, peer support, student effort, commitment, and involvement. Controlling for all other variables, students at 2-year institutions receive higher grades, and students at 4-year campuses experience more growth.

Factors Associated with Student Loan Default Among Different Racial and Ethnic Groups.

Introduction This is the first study that uses a nationally representative data base of student loan borrowers to examine the similarities and differences among Whites, African Americans, and Hispanics. This is an important research and policy area because of the size of the loan default problem and the dominance of race as a correlate of loan repayment and default in other studies. The nations student loan program is plagued by clashes among the competing values and goals of public subsidy, educational opportunity, cost effective investment, and institutional accountability (e.g., Hansen & Stampen, 1981; Volkwein & Szelest, 1995). This policy and value conflict remains unresolved (Hearn, 1993) and is amplified by a relative lack of empirical evidence to validate the policies and claims advanced by the various financial aid stakeholders. For three decades, public investment in higher education has been directed at removing economic barriers to attend and to persist in college. This commitment to educational opportunity produced growth in student financial aid from

INDIVIDUAL AND CAMPUS CHARACTERISTICS ASSOCIATED WITH STUDENT LOAN DEFAULT

557 million in 1963-64 to an astonishing

Changes in Quality among Public Universities.

50 billion in 1995-96 (College Board, 1996). Federal financial aid to college students has increasingly taken the form of publicly subsidized loans (Lewis, 1989). Since 1980 approximately half of all students who attend four-year colleges and more than 60% of students at proprietary schools borrowed at one point in their education (College Board, 1992). These loans must be repaid, and there is public concern about the alarming level of default rates. Knapp and Seaks (1992) have estimated that whereas federal loan volume grew by 58% during the 1980s, the dollar value of default claims grew by about 1200%, accounting for over a fifth of total program costs. Annual student loan delinquency rates, averaging between 17 and 21% through the 1980s and early 1990s, compare unfavorably with other types of consumer loans where the annual delinquency rates since 1980 have ranged from 1.5% to 3.6% for various types of personal consumer credit and automobile loans (American Bankers Association, 1994), and from 4.6% to 5.8% for various types of home mortgages (Mortgage Bankers Association of America, 1994). The higher loan default rates by racial minorities constitutes the most consistent and perhaps most troubling finding across the published studies that have appeared to date. Being African or Native American and coming from a family of little education are characteristics that have default rates generally ranging from 30% to 60%. However, none of these studies examines the extent to which the reasons for default behavior may vary by ethnic group. That is the task we undertake in this study. Theoretical Perspectives Our analyses and model development and variable selection incorporate five perspectives from the research literature. Drawing upon the literature on economic behavior, the first three perspectives reflect related theories of human capital, public subsidy, and the borrowers ability to pay; the fourth perspective is founded upon organizational structural/functional approaches; and the fifth incorporates student-institution-fit models from the literature on college outcomes. Human capital theory emphasizes those variables that reflect an individuals willingness to invest in educational credentials and training that yield a greater return or higher financial compensation (Becker, 1964; Freeman, 1976). Citizens are motivated to pursue postsecondary credentials and training when the benefits outweigh the costs (Manski & Wise, 1983). The benefits include enhanced skills and higher earnings potential. The costs include not only the direct costs like tuition and living expenses, but also the indirect costs of not working. Whereas the costs of higher education must be paid in the present, the benefits can be enjoyed only in the future. Because the economic benefits of education vary by levels of training and by career field, we should expect that loan repayment and default behavior will vary by highest degree earned and by major field of study (Cohn & Geske, 1990). …

The relationship of campus crime to campus and student characteristics

This research addresses the question of whether student loan repayment and default behaviors are more highly related to the characteristics of the college attended or to the characteristics of the individual student aid recipient. Our model development and variable selection is guided by theories of human capital and public subsidy, ability to pay perspectives, organizational structural/functional approaches, and student-institution fit models. To conduct the study, three national databases were merged: the NPSAS study of individual recipients of federal financial aid, IPEDS data containing campus financial and enrollment characteristics, and a third containing College Board Survey data. Our findings erode the basis for current national policies and proposed SPRE legislation that hold institutions accountable for the loan defaults of former students. Loan repayment and default behavior can be substantially predicted by the precollege, college, and postcollege characteristics of individual borrowers. Majoring in a scientific or technological discipline, earning good grades, persisting to degree completion, getting and staying married, and not having dependent children are all actions that substantially increase the likelihood of repayment and lower the likelihood of default. In both populations (all borrowers and nonproprietary), we find virtually no evidence of a direct link between default behavior and type of institution or highest degree offered.

Examining Organizational Climate in Institutions of Higher Education.

At a time when decentralized management is gaining favor in the business world, many public institutions of higher education and state governments are examining the wisdom of current oversight practices. To what extent should organizational authority be decentralized, and what are the appropriate mechanisms of accountability and control? These questions have become important issues in the 1980s and are under active review by corporations, governments, and multicampus systems alike. Contemporary organizational theory stresses the important role of the organizations environment [1, 13, 25]. If public universities are viewed as complex, loosely coupled organizations, their regulatory relationships with state governments form an important feature of the external climate within which these institutions pursue their goals. The Carnegie Commission on Higher Education, in its 1973 report on Governance of Higher Education, concluded that campus autonomy had declined substantially since the end of World War II [6]. In 1976 the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching published a report on The States and Higher Education which identified five major concerns two of them were the increasingly centralized control of public higher education and the erosion of campus autonomy.

State Financial Control of Public Universities and Its Relationship to Campus Administrative Elaborateness and Cost: Results of a National Study.

This research draws upon merged national databases containing federal crime statistics, community demographic data, and campus characteristics. The study displays the trends in campus crime since 1974, and using 1990 data, examines the relationships between three measures of campus crime and 23 predictors developed for this study. The results show that campus rates of both violent crime and property crime are falling, especially since 1985. Moreover, students are considerably safer on campus than in the cities and communities surrounding them. The lowest average crime rates are found at two-year colleges, while the highest overall rates are at medical schools and health science centers. None of the community characteristics, including community crime and poverty rates, are significantly associated with campus crime. While campus organizational measures in general are more highly related to campus crime than are student characteristics, we find differences in the patterns of variables associated with violent crime versus property crime. Factors associated with property crime are partially consistent with existing theory on criminal activity. Factors associated with violent crime are more complex and difficult to predict.