Topic: Postsecondary value
Issue Brief
October 2, 2019
The Strategic Alignment of State Appropriations, Tuition, and Financial Aid Policies
In response to the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, states reduced their expenditures on many public services and goods, including substantial cuts to higher education spending. Despite a strong economic recovery since the Great Recession and significant increases in student enrollment, most states’ spending on higher education has not returned to pre-recession levels. Reductions in state spending and rising costs have led a number of public colleges and universities to increase tuition, making college less affordable for many students…
Issue Brief
April 9, 2019
Challenges to Higher Education’s Most Essential Purposes
In his 2000 Romanes Lecture, entitled “At a Slight Angle to the Universe, the University in a Digitized, Commercialized Age,” William Bowen anticipated many of the challenges higher education faces today. His incisive summary of the most important purposes of higher education offers a useful framework for assessing how higher education is fulfilling its uniquely important role supporting a vibrant democratic society. Those responsible for higher education’s well-being, including presidents, administrators, trustees, faculty, and government policy makers, would do well…
Blog Post
March 21, 2019
Understanding the Value of the Liberal Arts
Last year, Catharine Bond Hill and Elizabeth Davidson Pisacreta undertook a study on the economic benefits and costs of a liberal arts education on behalf of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. As they note in the report, critics claim that the value of a liberal arts education–in terms of both the increasing costs to delivering higher education and in students’ diminished earnings–is limited, especially compared to alternative…
Blog Post
November 15, 2018
What’s the ROI for Instructional Reform?
New Tool Provides Estimates
Last year, Ithaka S+R published Instructional Quality, Student Outcomes, and Institutional Finances, a white paper commissioned by the American Council on Education (ACE) that explored the relationship between institutional finances and instructional quality, asking whether improvements in instructional quality can increase a postsecondary institution’s net revenue. It’s an important question, as many higher education institutions are under strong pressure to improve student learning outcomes as they face increasing financial constraints. The conventional view is that increases in instructional quality…
Blog Post
May 22, 2018
Taking a Closer Look at College and University Endowments: New Report
A new report from Sandy Baum, Cappy Hill, and myself, out today, provides an overview of college and university endowments. We seek to inform the public policy debate by exploring how endowments are structured and used, and discussing the extent to which the favorable tax policy for higher education institutions serves the public interest. We find that the distribution of endowment assets is highly skewed across institutions. The median endowment per student for all postsecondary institutions is $12,600, while…
Blog Post
November 6, 2017
The Tax Status of Colleges: Who Cares?
Across several survey items, the respondents to Ithaka S+R’s Higher Ed Insights Spring 2017 Survey rated Obama administration policies and enforcement actions against for-profit institutions as having a high and positive impact. In my view, policies such as the gainful employment rule and actions such as revoking the accreditation authority of the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS) for revoking Title IV eligibility for students attending ITT Tech were understandable, on the whole, but had serious shortcomings.
Blog Post
June 8, 2017
How to Assure Quality in Higher Education?
Focus on Innovation, Minimum Standards, and Continuous Improvement
The U.S. quality assurance system—focused mainly on accreditation as a threshold for federal financial aid eligibility—has done a poor job of assuring quality. Barely 60 percent of first-time students complete a bachelor’s degree and 40 percent complete an associate’s degree at the institution where they started. These overall results mask a wide range of outcomes across institutions. As a result, many students, parents, and policymakers question the value of their massive investment in postsecondary education. Can the accreditation process be…
Research Report
June 8, 2017
Quality Assurance in U.S. Higher Education
The Current Landscape and Principles for Reform
The American higher education sector is diverse and creative. In 2014-15, the sector produced over 1 million associate’s degrees, nearly 1.9 million bachelor’s degrees, over 758,000 master’s degrees, and over 178,000 doctoral degrees.[1] The world leader in innovation for decades, the sector continues to produce cutting edge research and contributes mightily to the American economy. Recent estimates concluded that the United States spends a larger percentage of GDP on higher education than any other country.[2] But…
Blog Post
October 21, 2016
ITHAKA Founder and Trustee William G. Bowen Dies
William G. Bowen, October 6, 1933 – October 20, 2016 The world has lost a uniquely gifted leader and friend. Bill Bowen passed away peacefully on October 20, 2016. He dedicated his entire professional life to the world of education, and was founding chairman of JSTOR and ITHAKA and founding trustee of Artstor. We extend our heartfelt sympathies and deepest condolences to his family, friends, and colleagues. Learn more about Bill Bowen’s extraordinary life…
Blog Post
July 20, 2016
Ithaka S+R Welcomes Catharine Bond Hill
Dear Friends, I am thrilled to share the news announced today that Catharine (Cappy) Bond Hill will be the new Managing Director of Ithaka S+R. Cappy, who has served as president of Vassar College for the past decade, is a passionate believer in high-quality education for students at every socioeconomic level. Having served on the ITHAKA Board for the past several years, she knows Ithaka S+R quite well already and her interests, research, and leadership align well with our…
Blog Post
May 13, 2016
How Should Higher Education be Regulated?
The Case for Management-Based Regulation
For much of the 20th Century, the government relied on a command-and-control form of regulation in their oversight of organizations across many sectors. In other words, the government mandated that these regulated entities undertake specific activities and then monitored their compliance. In the late 20th Century, reaction to the burdens and inefficacy of command and control led to a shift in some areas to performance-based regulation. Under this model, the government determines targets for outcomes and regulated entities choose the…
Blog Post
February 2, 2016
To Measure or Not to Measure: Which Student Outcomes Should Make the Cut?
Few would question whether colleges and universities should have administrative systems in place for measuring learning and course outcomes for all students, in ways that can be quantified and used to help institutions meet their goals. But not all outcomes are created equal, and deciding which outcomes schools should systematically measure for all students can be difficult and controversial. When thinking about colleges engaging in systematic quantitative measurement of student outcomes, three core questions come to mind: (1) Is promoting…
Blog Post
December 9, 2015
Parenting as a College Outcome
Amidst the flurry of a vital and long-overdue national conversation surrounding college completion, affordability and debt, and post-graduate employment, it is easy to conceive of the outcomes and value of higher education as mostly economic. Do students learn skills and earn credentials that lead to fruitful labor force participation and economic self-sufficiency? However, as change and innovation sweep across higher education, it is important to keep in mind the broader range of valuable outcomes and goals we hold and ensure…
Blog Post
October 28, 2015
Is Self-Exploration in College an Outdated Concept?
Time and again, the concept of “self-exploration” as a crucial component of the college experience makes its way into discussions about restructuring undergraduate degree programs in the US. Proponents of such self-exploration argue that focused career-training programs and guided pathways programs are too regimented and narrow, denying students the precious gift of self-exploration and discovery that results from exposure to a vast array of courses of their choosing. Recent innovations in higher education may also limit certain exploratory experiences for…
Blog Post
September 21, 2015
Double Trouble
Sweet Briar College and Cooper Union
Lawrence S. Bacow, president emeritus of Tufts University and leader in residence at the Harvard Kennedy School, and William G. Bowen, president emeritus of Princeton University and founding chairman of ITHAKA, have commented recently on the ill-fated interventions by state attorneys general into the operations of American colleges as they attempt to make strategic shifts to address imposing financial challenges. Today in our latest issue brief, Double Trouble: Sweet Briar College and Cooper Union, Bacow and Bowen share…
Issue Brief
September 21, 2015
Double Trouble
Sweet Briar College and Cooper Union
Sometimes, large lessons can be learned from the travails of small institutions. This is, we believe, true of the dramatic sagas of two very different private educational institutions: Sweet Briar College in Virginia and The Cooper Union in New York. The near-demise of Sweet Briar (now attempting to renew itself, but with uncertain prospects) and the struggles of Cooper Union (with big issues of both policy and governance) have much to teach us about the challenges facing both many small…
Blog Post
February 4, 2015
A different appoach to governance at ASU
Locus of Authority deftly chronicles the emergence of shared governance as a means to further university goals, and its ossification into an end in itself and a barrier against which transformative changes crash. As my colleague Deanna Marcum elaborates, university leaders interested in pursuing innovations in online learning and other areas have sought to evade sclerotic shared governance processes through various workarounds, such as new, agile subunits and incentive programs. Such approaches are often marginal, providing an opportunity…
Blog Post
February 2, 2015
Locus of Authority
The Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education
On January 1, Ithaka S+R launched its new Educational Transformation program, which consolidates all of our higher education initiatives into a single, more impactful program. One of the first publications from the program, in conjunction with Princeton University Press, was Locus of Authority: the Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education, by William Bowen and Eugene Tobin. Addressing one of the most important issues in higher education, the authors discuss the evolution of the concept of…