To investigate the relationship between Chinese university funding and academic output, we collected data on the scale and the structure of funding and academic output of 36 World-Class universities under construction in China during 2013-21 and 2014-22. Furthermore, we empirically analyzed the effects of funding scale and structure on academic…

Universities face tough choices about how to allocate tight budgets. A frequent question is whether a significant investment in research that is crucial for the university's position in rankings will make the university more popular and lead to higher revenues from tuition. This paper analyses how the ranking and popularity of universities are…

Loneliness represents a serious health risk. However, studies investigating social inequalities in loneliness are rare. Thus, the current study investigates which socioeconomic groups are the most affected by loneliness. Data from the population-based German Aging Survey were used (N = 3,784), with participants being 40+ years old. Education,…

Enrollment management has been adopted by many institutions not only as a strategy, but also as an administrative division responsible for managing enrollment. This study aims to understand how institutional goals and environmental factors contribute to the organizational structure of enrollment management divisions, as well as how the composition…

University rankings envision a level playing field between competing universities, particularly in higher education (HE) systems regulated along market lines. Drawing on social stratification theory, we argue that rankings exacerbate, rather than alleviate, resource inequalities between universities with historically consolidated reputations…

This study used the historical research method to explore the Chinese government's role in building world-class universities. We traced the government's role in pushing policies for: (1) accelerating academic improvement; and (2) enhancing the involvement of provincial governments in achieving universities' world-class status. The findings…

This dissertation comprises three cross-disciplinary essays on information systems, marketing, and financial outcomes research for nonprofit service organizations. In our first essay, we explore service quality impacts on the constructs of positive and negative word of mouth, developing and validating a new measurement scale, testing it…

This dissertation contains three empirical papers that quantify how institutional status hierarchies in postgraduate education relate to professionals' employment and earnings outcomes. Chapter 1 examines the effects of postgraduate educational program status hierarchies on earnings among recipients of postgraduate professional degrees in…

Enrollment Management has been adopted by institutions of higher education as a strategy for managing enrollment to meet institutional goals, and it increasingly manifests as an administrative division that supports students. Many models of Enrollment Management exists, with the Divisional model being the most centralized; however, even within a…

The paper proposes a counterfactual analysis to estimate the causal effects of college expansion on the changes in income and occupational prestige of young people in Taiwan. The public attributes the rapid expansion of higher education in Taiwan in the mid 1990s as a significant cause of stagnant wage growth and high unemployment rates of college…

This study reviews three university ranking methodologies: Quacquarelli Sysmonds University Rankings, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University's Academic Ranking of World Universities. It also aims to suggest two new methodologies, one for World University Ranking and one for Arab University…

The present study presents a formal model of the dynamics of a university's reputation that points to the existence of a snowball effect where alumni donations raise a university's reputation, which in turn generates additional alumni donations. Given that econometric results presented in this study confirm the model's main findings, supporting a…

Researchers, policymakers, and the public are increasingly interested in judging colleges and universities on measures beyond selectivity and prestige. When Opportunity Insights compiled the first-ever dataset to highlight colleges that are the best at promoting economic mobility among students, these groups embraced the new information with…

Studies on faculty income have typically focused on disparities associated with gender and race. Surprisingly, much less attention has been paid to the social class background of university faculty and how it might affect their pathways to the professoriate and their opportunities to access high-paying positions. We attempted to address this gap…

A trend among college football programs is to ascend from the Football Championship Subdivision (FCS) to the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS). While nine football programs have initiated the transition to the FBS since 2012, the football program at Western Kentucky University (WKU) was the only program from 2005 to 2011 to reclassify from the FCS…