Higher Education Finance

Entrepreneurial President: Richard Atkinson and the University of California, 1995-2003 by Patricia A. Pelfrey (2012)

Patricia A. Pelfrey
2012

Richard C. Atkinson was named president of the University of California in August 1995, barely four weeks after the UC Regents voted to end affirmative action. How he dealt with the admissions wars—the political, legal, and academic consequences of that historic and controversial decision, as well as the issue of governance—is discussed in this book. Another focus is the entrepreneurial university—the expansion of the University’s research enterprise into new forms of scientific research with industry during Atkinson’s presidency. The final crisis of his administration was the...

Tuition as a Path for Affordability? The Pursuit of a Progressive Tuition Model at the University of California

John Aubrey Douglass
Patrick A. Lapid
2018

In an environment of declining public funding and rising tuition rates, many public universities in the US are moving toward a “progressive tuition model” that attempts to invest approximately one-third of tuition income into institutional financial aid for lower-income and middle-class students. The objective is to mitigate the cost of rising tuition and keep college affordable. But is this model as currently formulated working? Utilizing data from the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Survey of undergraduates and other data sources, this study explores these issues by...

SEEKING SUSTAINABLE PUBLIC UNIVERSITIES: The Legacy of the Great Recession

Katharine Lyall
2011

The business models under which most public universities in the U.S. operate have become unsustainable. They were put in place when state economies were stronger and there were fewer programs making competing claims on state funds. The current Great Recession has made things worse, but the unsustainability of current business models derives from longer-term trends that will prevent state investment in higher education from rebounding to prior levels. States and universities are making both incremental and structural changes in response. Incremental changes work within existing...

Former University of California Chancellors Urge New Funding Models for UC

Fiat Lux
2011

In this era of massive budget cuts, the survival of the University of California as a greatinstitution of learninghas become the subject of increasingly urgent debate. Twenty-two of the twenty-nine living former UC chancellors met in San Francisco on June 26-28, 2011 to discuss the current threats facing the University and all of California public higher education. Although the chancellors were not unanimously agreed on every point, there was general consensus regarding the principal recommendations onfunding the University and protecting its quality.On August 4, 2011 they sent UC...

AFTER BROWNE: The New Competitive Regime for English Higher Education

Roger Brown
2011

rom 2012 English universities and colleges will be operating in a more demanding market environment. There will be competition on tuition fees for undergraduate (Baccalaureate) programs for the first time. New private, including “for profit”, providers will be entering the market. There will be much more information about what institutions will be offering to existing and potential students. The Government believes that this will raise quality as well as providing a sustainable basis for the future. However there is little evidence to support these beliefs and considerable grounds...

HIGHER EDUCATION’S NEW GLOBAL ORDER: How and Why Governments are Creating Structured Opportunity Markets

John Aubrey Douglass
2009

In the United States, developing human capital for both economic and social benefit is an idea as old as the nation itself and led to the emergence of world’s first mass higher education system. Now most other nations are racing to expand access to universities and colleges and to expand their role in society. Higher education is growing markedly in its importance for building a culture of aspiration and, in turn, the formation of human capital, the promotion of socioeconomic mobility, and the determination of national economic competitiveness. This paper outlines a convergence of...

College vs. Unemployment: Expanding Access to Higher Education Is the Smart Investment During Economic Downturns

John Aubrey Douglass
2008

In forming a strategy to deal with the severe economic downturn, President-elect Obama and his evolving brain trust of economic advisers should recall the largely successful and innovative efforts by the federal and state governments to avoid a projected steep post–World War II recession – in particular, the key role of higher education. Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Expanding higher education funding and enrollment capacity may be as important as any other policy lever to cope with an economic downturn, including funding for infrastructure...

The Big Curve: Trends in University Fees and Financing in the EU and US

John Aubrey Douglass
Ruth Keeling
2008

Globally, fees and tuition are growing as an important source of income for most universities, with potentially significant influence on the market for students and the behavior of institutions. Thus far, however, there is no single source on the fee rates of comparative research universities, nor information on how these funds are being used by institutions. Furthermore, research on tuition pricing has also focused largely on bachelor’s degree programs, and not on the rapid changes in tuition and fees for professional degrees. This paper offers a brief scan of pricing trends among a...

Origins of the Principles for Review of Executive Compensation 1992-93

Patricia A. Pelfrey
2008

This paper looks at the 1992-3 compensation controversy at the University of California in light of the factors that shaped the board’s policy response to the controversy, the Principles for Review of Executive Compensation. It discusses the events of 1992-3 in the context of the public and political debate over the appropriate model for executive compensation in elite public universities and the special difficulties these universities face in setting, explaining, and defending executive compensation policies and practices. It concludes by assessing the ways in which the University...

The Crisis of Public Higher Education: A Comparative Perspective

Stéphan Vincent-Lancrin
2007

Is public tertiary education really in a crisis, and, if so, what is the crisis about? This paper analyses international aggregated data and examines to what extent there has been a crisis of public tertiary education in OECD countries in the past decade. It first focuses on relative enrolments in the public and private sectors to show that enrolments in the public sector have not significantly declined, and only marginally benefited the private for-profit sector. It then analyzes changes in the funding of tertiary education from the perspectives of tertiary education institutions,...