Higher Education Policy

Report: Civic and Academic Engagement in the Multiversity: Institutional Trends and Initiatives at the University of California, Proceedings of University of California Symposium held June 10, 2005

Proceedings of University of California Symposium held June 10, 2005
2005

Civic engagement is moving to the forefront of higher education discussions as universities seek ways not only to intensify students’ learning experiences but also to forge stronger links with the communities they are meant to serve. Within the University of California system, there are already multiple examples of service-learning, university-community partnerships, and volunteer initiatives.

In June 2005, faculty, academic staff, and student representatives from across the University of California system gathered at a symposium held on the Berkeley campus to discuss and analyze...

Engineers Should Have a College Education

C. Judson King
2006

Many societal trends and needs call for engineers to broaden their outlooks, have more flexible career options, and work closely and effectively with persons of quite different backgrounds. Yet the education and general orientation of engineers have been directed inward toward the profession, rather than outward toward the rest of society and the world. Engineering education should change to create a broader outlook and understanding in graduates and thereby engender capabilities for linkages and more likelihood of advancement into management and/or movement into other areas. The...

RESTRUCTURING ENGINEERING EDUCATION: Why, How and When?

C. Judson King
2011

There is strong interest in broadening engineering education, bringing in more liberal arts content as well as additional subjects such as economics, business and law, with which engineers now have to be familiar. There are also cogent arguments for balancing against what is now the almost exclusively quantitative nature of the curriculum, adding more elements that relate to the actual practice of engineering, and structuring engineering education so as to provide multiple and later entry points, which should enable more informed career choices and make engineering attractive to a...

Online education platforms scale college STEM instruction with equivalent learning outcomes at lower cost

Igor Chirikov
Tatiana Semenova
Natalia Maloshonok
Eric Bettinger
René F. Kizilcec
2020

Meeting global demand for growing the science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) workforce requires solutions for the shortage of qualified instructors. We propose and evaluate a model for scaling up affordable access to effective STEM education through national online education platforms. These platforms allow resource-constrained higher education institutions to adopt online courses produced by the country’s top universities and departments. A multisite randomized controlled trial tested this model with fully online and blended instruction modalities in Russia’s...

ASYMMETRY BY DESIGN? Identity Obfuscation, Reputational Pressure, and Consumer Predation in U.S. For-Profit Higher Education, by Adam Goldstein and Charlie Eaton CSHE 5.20 (May 2020)

Adam Goldstein
Charlie Eaton
2020

This article develops and tests an identity-based account of malfeasance in consumer markets. It is hypothesized that multi-brand organizational structures help predatory firms short-circuit reputational discipline by rendering their underlying identities opaque to consumer audiences. The analysis utilizes comprehensive administrative data on all for-profit U.S. colleges, an industry characterized by widespread fraud and poor (though variable) educational outcomes. Consistent with the hypothesis that brand differentiation facilitates malfeasance by reducing ex ante reputational risks,...

RE-IMAGINING CALIFORNIA HIGHER EDUCATION

John Aubrey Douglass
2010

2010 marks the 50th anniversary of California’s famed Master Plan for Higher Education, arguably the single most influential effort to plan the future of a system of higher education in the annals of American higher education. This essay builds on the analysis offered in a previous CSHE research paper (“From Chaos to Order and Back”) by discussing the major challenges facing California’s higher education system, and offering a possibly pathway to reforms and institution-building essential for bolstering socioeconomic mobility and greater economic competitiveness. Most critics and...

FROM CHAOS TO ORDER AND BACK?A Revisionist Reflection on the California Master Plan for Higher Education@50 and Thoughts About its Future

John Aubrey Douglass
2010

In 1960, California developed a "master plan" for its already famed public higher education system. It was and continues to be arguably the single most influential effort to plan the future of a system of higher education in the annals of American higher education. Despite popular belief, however, the California Master Plan for Higher Education is more important for what it preserved than what it created. There is much confusion regarding exactly how the Master Plan came about, what it said and did not say, and what portions of it are still relevant today. This essay provides a brief...

THE GLOBAL COMPETITION FOR TALENT The Rapidly Changing Market for InternationalStudents and the Need for a Strategic Approach in the US

John Aubrey Douglass
Richard Edelstein
2009

There is growing evidence that students throughout the world no longer see the US as the primary place to study; that in some form this correlates with a rise in perceived quality and prestige in the EU and elsewhere; and further, that this may mean a continued decline in the US’s market share of international students. There clearly are a complex set of variables that will influence international education and global labor markets, including the current global economic recession. Ultimately, however, we think these factors will not alter the fundamental dynamics of the new global...

HIGHER EDUCATION BUDGETS AND THE GLOBAL RECESSION: Tracking Varied National Responses and Their Consequences

John Aubrey Douglass
2010

In the midst of the global recession, how have national governments viewed the role of higher education in their evolving strategies for economic recovery? Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Which nations
have proactively protected funding for their universities and colleges to help maintain access, to help retrain workers, and to mitigate unemployment rates? And which nations have simply made large funding cuts for higher education in light of the severe downturn in tax revenues? This essay provides a moment-in-time review of the...

A Reflection and Prospectus on Globalization and Higher Education: CSHE@50

C. Judson King
John Aubrey Douglass
2007

In the spring of 1957, the Center for Studies in Higher Education (CSHE) at the University of California, Berkeley was formally established as an organized research unit, enabled by an initial grant from the Carnegie Corporation and making it the first academic enterprise in the United States focused on higher education policy issues. Since then, the Center has been an important source for encouraging an international comparative perspective, and this thereby provided a timely scholarly theme for reflecting and projecting the role of higher education in society within a globalizing world...