Donald E. Heller – författare

Affordability, access, and accountability have long been among the central challenges facing higher education-and they remain so today. Here, Donald E. Heller and other higher education scholars and practitioners explore the current debates surrounding these key issues. As students and their families struggle to meet rising tuition prices, and as state funding for higher education dwindles, policymakers confront issues of affordability within state and institutional budgets. Changing demographics and challenges to affirmative action complicate the admissions process even as colleges and universities seek to diversify enrollments. And issues of institutional accountability have forced the restructuring of higher education governing boards and a reexamination of the role of public trustees in governance. This collection analyzes how issues of affordability, access, and accountability influence the way in which state governments approach, monitor, and set public higher education policy.The contributors examine the latest research on pressing challenges, explore how states are coping with these challenges, and consider what the future holds for public postsecondary education in the United States.

This is an opportune time for researchers in higher education to examine policy via cross-state comparative analyses. Momentous court, legislative and policy developments that impact state-level higher education policy are emerging at a rapid rate. The states have emerged as postsecondary policy innovators in the areas of student financing, institutional accountability, and student access.Following political scientists’ "rediscovery" of states as units of analysis--because they constitute unique "natural laboratories" for testing theory and hypotheses about political behavior and policy adoption dynamics--this book introduces this perspective as an increasingly important tool for researchers in higher education.State Postsecondary Education Research provides an in-depth examination of the challenges and opportunities inherent in conducting cross-state higher education policy research. The authors of each chapter use their individual research projects to demonstrate the array of methodological, theoretical, analytical, and political challenges inherent in conducting comparative state-level policy research. Among the innovative methods described is the use of pooled cross-sectional time-series analytic techniques and event history analysis--now widespread within the disciplines of economics and political science--to shift the unit of analysis from the state to the state-year, thus expanding greatly both the statistical power of the models being tested and the data-demands of those models.The goal is to introduce comparative state-level postsecondary policy research to a broader audience, and to contribute to discussions of both the challenges and the importance of this approach to higher education policy research.The book is intended as a resource for researchers in higher education policy and as a text for higher education policy courses. It may also appeal to scholars of educational policy as well as higher education policymakers.

This volume, part of the TIAA-CREF Institute Series on Higher Education, is based on a national conference convened by the Institute in November 2007. The generational issues that were the focus of the conference raise both risks and opportunities with the potential to profoundly affect our cultural environment, both inside and outside academe. Baby Boomers, in their roles as students, parents, professors and administrators, transformed the American higher education system. As Boomers near retirement, Generation X and the Millennials are building on those contributions and making their own impacts. This volume sheds light on a current front-burner issue in higher education: managing the melding of generations, each with its unique needs and approaches to teaching and learning. The result of discussions among presidents, provosts, and other senior-level leaders from the higher education community, as well as the scholarship of leading academics, this lucid and engaging volume addresses intergenerational shifts and their wide-ranging implications for higher education including relevant risks and opportunities for consideration by campus leaders.The type of institution represented in these discussions ranges from small teaching-focused institutions to community colleges and large comprehensive research institutions. The authors offer senior leadership a deeper understanding of these generational challenges and opportunities and provide them with new and actionable information to enhance decision-making and inform strategic planning. They offer scholars new research questions to examine and provide insights to enhance effective reporting on higher education issues. Higher education presidents, chancellors, provosts, CFOs, faculty, researchers and policymakers will find this volume to be of significant value.