Two-year public colleges educate more than 50% of all U.S. undergraduates, yet graduation rates (29%) fall far below their 4-year counterparts (63%). It is critical for students of 2-year public institutions that their faculty have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) to effectively guide students toward graduation. This study…

Google Scholar and academic library discovery systems are both popular resources among academic users for finding scholarly information. By conducting an online survey with 975 users from more than 20 public research universities across the United States, this study comparatively investigates how and why academic users use these two resources.…

According to the US Department of Education, adult learners make up 45% of all part-time enrollment in community colleges, compared to only 27% of full-time students. As the enrollment of adult learners in post-secondary education increases across the US, accountability efforts among higher education institutions has prioritized full-time…

As postsecondary institutions increasingly integrate technology into developmental education, it becomes important to understand how technology is used in these programs, what challenges institutions have encountered relating to the technology, and what considerations institutional leaders take into account when deciding whether and how to…

We use data from 2015-2016 to document faculty representation and wage gaps by race-ethnicity and gender in six fields at selective public universities. Consistent with widely available information, Black, Hispanic, and female professors are underrepresented and White and Asian professors are overrepresented in our data. Disadvantaged minority and…

This paper identifies approaches, challenges, and best practices related to planning and designing today's academic library learning spaces. As part of the Project Information Literacy (PIL) Practitioner Series, qualitative data is presented from 49 interviews conducted with a sample of academic librarians, architects, and library consultants.…

The nation's public universities--a key vehicle of upward mobility--must do more to even the playing field for all students. As it currently stands, students from the least advantaged populations earn degrees at a lower rate and are burdened with a greater portion of debt than their peers. However, some standout public universities are reversing…

We study employers' perceptions of postsecondary degrees using a field experiment. We randomly assign the sector and selectivity of institution to fictitious resumes and send them to real vacancy postings on a large online job board. According to our results, a bachelor's degree in business from a for-profit "online" institution is 22…

Outsourcing--defined as an "institution's decision to contract with an external organization to provide a traditional function or service" (IHEP, 2005)--is nothing new to higher education. For decades, institutions have been "contracting out" or "privatizing" a variety of operational functions, hoping to reduce costs,…

Relatively little is known about the presumably thousands of branch campuses and centers represented among U.S. higher education institutions. In an effort to fill this void, the research committee of the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA) conducted a web-based survey targeting the leaders of branch campuses and…

Recently released figures from U.S. Census Bureau make one point with stunning clarity: The face of America is changing. And rapidly. Consider the numbers: The U.S. population grew by about 9 percent between 2000 and 2010, rising from 281 million to nearly 309 million. During that decade, the number of Latino residents increased by 43…

"National CrossTalk" is a publication of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. The National Center promotes public policies that enhance opportunities for quality education and training beyond high school. The primary purpose of "National CrossTalk" is to stimulate informed discussion and debate of higher…

This report lists 11 budgetary principles for higher education institutions, and presents the results of a survey which examined whether the practices of four-year public higher education institutions in California, Florida, Massachusetts, New York, Texas, and Wisconsin followed these precepts during the fiscal problems of the early 1990s. The 11…

Since President Obama took office, he has repeatedly called for the United States to significantly improve its postsecondary education performance. One goal in particular has gained wide attention: the President's declaration that in an ever more competitive global marketplace, the United States must once again lead the world in college…

In the first decade of the 21st century, the nation, the states, and colleges and universities began to grapple with the challenges of globalization, changing demography, the implications of the digital era, and of a less expansive public sector. Although not a transformative period for higher education, the decade saw significant innovations in…