Higher Education Policy

Virtual Politik: Obstacles To Building Virtual Communities In Traditional Institutions Of Knowledge

Elizabeth Losh
2005

Digital collaborations are often stymied because institutions of higher education are increasingly divided between two cultures: the culture of knowledge and the culture of information. Campuses primarily remain institutions of knowledge, although practices of information acquisition can no longer be ignored, especially since the advent of networked computing and study with digital texts. Yet the traditional division of labor and the ownership of intellectual property within the academy are threatened by digital collaborations; and the claims of information theory, which is...

BEYOND THE MASTER PLAN: The Case for Restructuring Baccalaureate Education in California

Saul Geiser
Richard C. Atkinson
2010

Although a stunning success in many ways, California’s 1960 Master Plan for Higher Education has been a conspicuous failure in one respect: California ranks near the bottom of the states in the proportion of its college-age population that attains a baccalaureate degree. California’s poor record of B.A. attainment is an unforeseen consequence of the Master Plan’s restrictions on access to 4-year baccalaureate institutions. In a cost-cutting move, the framers of the Master Plan restricted eligibility for admission to the University of California and the state colleges (later the...

EXPANDING OFF-CAMPUS ENROLLMENT CAPACITY AT BERKELEY: A Concept Paper by Saul Geiser, UC Berkeley CSHE 2.17 (February 2017)

Saul Geiser
2017

Like Berkeley, the UC system as a whole is quickly running out of space to accommodate the next generation of Californians who will be reaching college age by mid-century. Even with the added capacity at UC Merced, the UC system will run out of space on existing campuses in the next decade. In the normal course of events, this would trigger planning for another new general campus. Yet at a time when the university is still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession, the wisdom of an expensive new general campus is questionable. The need now is to rebuild and reinvest in existing...

THE EVOLUTION OF FLAGSHIP UNIVERSITIES: From the Traditional to the New by John Aubrey Douglass, UC Berkeley CSHE 11.16 (December 2016)

John Aubrey Douglass
2016

In the face of the dominant World Class University rhetoric and ranking paradigm, most academic leaders and their academic communities have had difficulty conceptualizing and articulating their grander purpose and multiple engagements with society. Some seem to wait for the next ministerial edict to help or push them toward greater societal relevancy – often limited to improved global rankings. This essay discusses the evolving idea of the Flagship University, its past and future, and the need to develop and articulate a more holistic and modern narrative regarding the role of these...

DEMOCRATIZATION AND MASSIFICATION OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN TURKEY AND CHALLENGES AHEAD

Bekir S. Gur
2016

The imbalance between supply and demand of higher education has always been the greatest challenge for Turkey. To overcome this challenge, Turkey beginning in 2006 established new public universities, mostly in less developed provinces. Now one in two fresh high school graduates is being admitted to a higher education program. Yet, the rapid growth of higher education triggered debates about the quality of education. Based on an analysis of available statistics and reports, this essay analyzes this process of massification in Turkey, including a brief synopsis of its higher education...

GLOBALIZATION, INTERNATIONALIZATION AND ASIAN EDUCATIONAL HUBS: Do We Need Some New Metaphors? by John N. Hawkins

John N. Hawkins
2015

It is not uncommon when reading about higher education change in the Asia Pacific region to see it described in the context of globalization and internationalization. These terms are sometimes used interchangeably as in “the globalized university”, “internationalization of higher education”, “internationalizing the university in the age of globalization” and so on. Often the use of these terms assumes that the reader knows how to distinguish between them, how they relate to each other, and how these large, somewhat slippery concepts are connected to individual HEIs. This paper...

The Liberal Arts and The University by Nicholas B. Dirks

Nicholas B. Dirks
2015

As the University of California continues to face unprecedented challenges—from state disinvestment, to attempts by the legislature to wrest control of the university, to disruption brought on by new technology, to concerns, valid or otherwise, about the value of college—university leaders must return to fundamental questions about the purposes of higher education to guide us in our decision making. With this essay, I look back at how we arrived at contemporary understandings of undergraduate education in order to show that today’s dominant debates—regarding the purpose of higher...

LIBERALIZING THE ACADEMY: The Transformation Of Higher Education In the United States And Germany

Tobias Schulze-Cleven
2015

Over the past two decades, public higher education has become widely recognized for its contribution to socio-economic adjustment. This paper probes its evolution in two large and affluent democracies, the United States and Germany, whose higher education systems represent distinct ideal types. The analysis argues that public authorities in both countries have liberalized their systems to spur innovation in the provision of higher education. Yet a broad convergence in associated market expansion has coincided with divergence in its modes and consequences. Tracing how the two...

DISCORDANT IMPLEMENTATION OF MULTILATERAL HIGHER EDUCATION POLICIES: Evidence from the case of the Bologna Process

Masataka Murasawa
Jun Oba
Satoshi P. Watanabe
2013

In pursuit of enhanced employability of university graduates, along with their increased mobility in a rapidly globalizing economy, colleges and universities in the world today participate in regional alliances and partnerships in which shared targets with mutually recognized degrees and curricula are sought across boundaries through transnational higher education policies. The Bologna Process is certainly exemplified as one of the most important multilateral efforts in the recent history of higher education, in establishing such a system of quality assurance within the European...

ACCOUNTABILITY IN POSTSECONDARY EDUCATION REVISITED

David E. Leveille
2013

Accountability in the private and public sectors of society has received significant attention in both research and practice, partly because of its importance, but also because it is challenging to define, measure and implement. The nature of accountability is complex, ambiguous and highly context-dependent. As related to postsecondary education (PSE), multiple stakeholders across the nation have been pushing for greater accountability for at least three decades. Various stakeholders, including elected officials at the national and state level seemingly obsessed with achieving a "one...