William Zumeta

Effects of key state policies on private colleges and universities: sustaining private-sector capacity in the face of the higher education access challenge

Abstract The relationship between key state policy variables — (1) relative (private–public) tuition prices, (2) state student-aid funding, and (3) public institution density — and the competitive position of private colleges and universities is examined. Elite private schools are found to be nearly impervious to state policy. Large and moderately selective private institutions are adversely affected by public institution density and low public prices. Such prices divert students who would otherwise prefer these private institutions to similar public schools. State student aid funding most affects the enrollment market shares of the small, low-selectivity private colleges enrolling the greatest proportions of minority and modest-income students. The findings suggest state policies in this era of strong demand for higher education and constrained public sector capacity should use price signals (student aid and public institution pricing) to encourage students to consider seriously whether private higher education might serve their needs as well as or better than public institutions.

A Regulatory Model of Governmental Coordinating Activities in the Higher Education Sector.

Abstract In this paper we seek to develop some aspects of the analogy between governmental coordinating activities in the higher education sector and the governmental activities called regulation in other industries. Our purposes are to show the applicability of industrial organization theory-based prescriptive models of regulatory policy to the higher education sector and to suggest, on the basis of both theoretical and empirical analysis, the inappropriateness of dominant current policy trends in higher education coordination and regulation. Although this paper is primarily concerned with the cost behavior of institutions of higher education, its conclusions may be generalized to any public service that can be marketed to customers.

Toward an Aristocracy of Everyone: Policy Study in the High School Curriculum.

Abstract We propose a course of study that would have high school students study and practice a public policy analysis model used by public policy professionals. Presently elected for study by graduate students in public affairs departments, rigorous policy study is saved for the tiny few. This in turn supports a form of democracy where the many are excluded from popular sovereignty. We elaborate the meaning of and rationale for public policy analysis and present a detailed conceptual framework. We argue that competence in this activity by the citizenry as a whole will strengthen popular sovereignty, and we suggest that research and extant curriculum resources generally support the effort.

Private Higher Education and Public Policy: A Global View

Although privatization is a powerful and multi-faceted global phenomenon in many policy fields, few have matched higher education for the scope and drama of privatization. As in some other fields, privatization in higher education occurs in two forms: one is increased privateness within the public sector and the other is growth of private sectors. It is the latter that this special issue treats. Also, as often seen in other policy fields, higher education’s privatization has been evident since roughly the last quarter of the twentieth century. In many cases, from banking to prisons to healthcare, this privatization has followed a long period of ‘‘publicization’’, a growth in the scope of the public sector, with increased state financing and control. The recent public to private reversal is particularly striking in fields like higher education where the belief was once dominant in much of the world that the subject matter in question was a natural public responsibility and that more than minimal private action was illegitimate; indeed that view remains wider and stronger than one might expect from the evident dimensions of higher education’s privatization. A half-century ago, and counting by legal designation, most of the world had small private sectors of higher education or none at all. The United States was the huge exception, indeed about half private in enrollment at the end of World War II, falling to below a quarter in ensuing decades, amid public growth, including that of community colleges. Today the United States is below the global average of 31.3 per cent private, though it still has the largest absolute private enrollment. Asia, at 36.4 per cent private, has by far the largest raw private enrollment among the continents. This includes several countries with large majority private enrollment (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Indonesia, and the Philippines), and Chinese private growth already makes its 20 per cent private share an enrollment giant, sure to boost the private global share still higher in the near future. But it is Latin America that has the highest private proportional share, 48.6 per cent. The private sector of higher education in both Latin America and Asia has historical roots – by 1965, 17 of 20 Latin American countries had some private higher education – but especially in Asia the absolute enrollment has exploded in recent decades. Journal of Comparative Policy Analysis, Vol. 13, No. 4, 345–349, August 2011

State Policies and Private Higher Education in the USA: Understanding the Variation in Comparative Perspective

Abstract Private higher education has a long, proud history in the USA that is of considerable interest globally. As the United States is a federal state where higher education is a state responsibility, it is of interest to examine public policies toward private higher education across the 50 states (which vary widely) comparatively, both for understanding (policy science) and for the sake of illuminating policy choices (policy analysis). This article lays out the relevant state policies, i.e. aid accessible to private students, direct subventions to institutions, involvement in state planning, etc., and offers a basic conceptual framework for understanding how they may cluster into more or less coherent policy postures, called here laissez-faire, central planning and market competitive postures (plus two hybrids). Further, it points to evidence that such postures can be identified empirically and suggests how the framework can be used to illuminate more and less feasible policy regime shifts as state goals evolve. Ideas are also advanced for incorporating the evolution of state policies toward the burgeoning for-profit sector into the framework. Suggestions are offered throughout regarding the applicability of the ideas to non-US settings.

State Support for Higher Education

The purpose of this chapter is to describe and analyse the current environment of governmental support and related policies for higher education in the United States in the context of patterns in other developed countries. The primary focus on the United States here is designed to illuminate in a contemporary, yet historically, conscious way the most salient features of — as well as challenges facing — the American model. Its key components are increasingly influential in animating governmental policies towards higher education in many OECD countries.

Hiring Decisions in Organized Anarchies: More Evidence on Entrance into the Academic Career

report that, in their hiring decisions, academic departments place inappropriate weight on ascriptive criteria (e.g., prestige of the candidate’s doctoral department), which are weak predictors of subsequent research productivity, although a better and more universalistic predictor is available (i.e., pre-employment research productivity). Long et al. hold that using ascriptive criteria leads to an unfair and inefficient allocation of resources in academic research. This article tests the hypothesis that “doctoral institution prestige” has inappropriate weight in academic hiring decisions, and finds consistent evidence that it does. However, the importance of “doctoral institution prestige” appears to be declining, and the misallocation of resources introduced by the use of this criterion in hiring decisions appears to be small.

The State of State College Readiness Policies

Most public policy related to college readiness occurs at the state level, but as with any state-level policy, significant variation exists across the 50 states. To make sense of this variation and advance our empirical knowledge surrounding state college readiness policy, we pose two questions in this study: How do states group together based on their commonalities (or lack thereof) across several college readiness policies? What underlying themes emerge across college readiness policies in the context of variation across states? We find that states cluster around three distinct types of college readiness policy. We also find a significant number of states are best described not by a single college readiness policy but rather by the states’ overall low college readiness policy effort. We review how these findings align with extant research on state-level college readiness policy and discuss possible factors that may drive the variation we observe across states.