The 2005-6 executive compensation controversy at the University of California has been explained as the result of a massive breach of compliance with the University’s compensation policies by the Office of the President (UCOP). For more than a decade, the explanation goes, UCOP failed to comply with its own compensation policies, embodied in the 1992-93 Principles for Review of Executive Compensation, and engaged in a longstanding pattern of secrecy and policy violations. This paper argues that both assertions are wrong. It begins by analyzing the issues leading to adoption of the...
This article examines the intellectual history of The Uses of the University, including the influence of José Ortega y Gasset’s ideas about higher education, with a view to exploring Clark Kerr’s vision for the university and how that vision might be expanded to take account of present challenges, in particular, diversity. The paper, which calls for leadership renewal and succession planning, pays special attention to the two types of administrators defined by Kerr--the visionary hedgehog and the shrewd fox. We need to identify the hedgehogs and foxes of the future, who must be as diverse...
Markets or market-like mechanisms are playing an increasing role in higher education, with visible consequences both for the regulation of higher education systems as a whole, as well as for the governance mechanisms of individual institutions. This article traces the history of economists’ views on the role of education, from Adam Smith, John Stuart Mill, Alfred Marshall, and Milton Friedman, to present-day debates about the relevance of market economies to higher education policy. Recent developments in higher education policy reflect both the rising strength of market mechanisms in...
National systems of public higher education are in a state of flux. Throughout the world, a shift is occurring in the support and perception of the purpose of public research universities. Many national governments are attempting to bend their higher education systems to meet their perceived long-term socio-economic needs. At the same time, there are relatively new supranational influences on higher education markets and practices that will grow in influence over time, including the Bologna Agreement, the European Commission, the pending General Agreement on Trade and Services, and...
Variable fees at the graduate and undergraduate levels are a topic of discussion in the US and in the EU as part of a larger movement towards increasing the role of fees in the funding of public universities. This essay describes this relatively new shift and its causes, outlines various funding models related to fee levels, and discusses the possible policy implications of variable fee structures. Here we argue that much of the movement toward increased fees in places such as the US and the UK is being pursued incrementally, without an adequate discussion of the long-term...
Charles Vest gave the first of three Clark Kerr Lectures on the Role of Higher Education in Society on April 19, 2005 on the Berkeley campus. This essay argues that research-intensive public and private universities increasingly have far more similarities than differences in missions, structures, and even financial support. For both, the federal government, despite numerous tensions, remains our indispensable partner. At the same time, the role of state governments toward their public universities has evolved from that of patron to that of partner - sometimes a minor partner financially....
The purpose of this study is to determine the factors shaping the financing of the principal universities of the United States, and to explore the consequences for institutions and for students. Revenues are the lifeblood of these or any other universities. The level of resources that universities command from society determines the level and scope of their activities, and who provides these resources greatly affects their behavior. Moreover, where resources are concerned, both inequality and inconsistency have been the rule. During the 1980s, universities generally were able to lift their...
This essay examines the ways in which nonprofit universities increasingly emulate businesses, focusing on two of the most direct forms of emulation: the creation of internal university markets at the University of Southern California through adoption of variants of resource center management (RCM) and the privatization of public higher education at the University of Virginia.
"What's for sale and what isn't?" The author has no doubt that we will see more corporate involvement in teaching and research. Universities will increasingly sell or rent to corporations those activities to which a dollar value can be attached that is agreeable to both sides. The financial pressures on universities and the value of what they do, as perceived by widening sectors of business, make that close to inevitable. The author, however, is dubious that many universities can be trusted to know the difference between what is marginal and what is central.
Given diminished governmental support, competition from private counterparts, and public demands for access to services, public universities need to respond in an effective manner to take advantage of opportunities and meet the challenges of today’s highly competitive environment. A critical factor in meeting these challenges is the manner in which these institutions are governed. Today’s governance structures must enhance institutions’ ability to generate resources from multiple sources - tuition and fees, gifts from donors, governmental support, and partnerships with the private...