Nearly a year ago, "NEJHE" launched its "New Directions for Higher Education" series to examine emerging issues, trends, and ideas that have an impact on higher education policies, programs, and practices. In this installment, DiSalvio interviews Muriel A. Howard, president of the American Association of State Colleges and…

Colleges and universities have widely responded to the expectation that they should work toward, operate under, and live by principles of sustainability. Eighty-nine of the 260-plus institutions of higher learning in New England (34 percent) have signed the "American College & University Presidents Climate Commitment" to guide their…

American higher education absorbs a larger share of GDP than that of other countries, but it has not produced a particularly high proportion of college graduates. College graduation rates are actually worse than the very low benchmark of high school graduation rates, but higher education institutions are not held accountable. The author writes…

Discussion centers on how major universities, e.g., University of California (Stanford) and the University of Michigan, are cutting costs to operate more efficiently. Questions concerning public vs private incentives to cut costs and cost containment strategies as a function of institutional size are addressed. (DB)

A Department of Education study concluding that a bachelor's degree can cost more at a private college than at a public one was well designed and reported, and has been unfairly criticized by the private sector. (MSE)

The principal characteristics and problems of financing higher education in a developing nation like Colombia are discussed, and several attempts to solve them are reviewed. Differences between the burgeoning private sector and the public sector, areas of inefficiency, and effects of public policy on tuition levels and payment are examined.…

This report addresses the future financing of higher education, focusing primarily on the states and presenting state-by-state data on important trends. It assesses the outlook for state finances, and, in the context of the ongoing needs of other major state services, for state support of higher education. In examining the forecast of state and…

There is an increasingly popular view of government to shift costs of education formerly borne at the national level to the states, and the states, in turn to shift costs and risks to individuals that has created a "perfect storm" of economic and political trends. The idea of privatizing a portion of Social Security and the continuing press for…

Eight common objections to performance funding of public colleges are presented and answered. The arguments focus on the complexity of higher education's goals, diversity of institution type, subjectivity of educational quality, relative power of the allocation amounts linked to performance measures, politics of resource allocation, cost of…

Analysis of the state of public higher education in the United States focuses on government financing of higher education, the high costs of both government and good education, and student attitudes toward their education. A new general education curriculum design at the University of Chicago (Illinois), designed to alleviate some of these…

This book explores the causes of tuition inflation, using Cornell University (New York) as a prototypical institution. There are 9 sections with 20 chapters. Section 1, "Setting the Stage," includes (1) "Why Do Costs Keep Rising at Selective Private Colleges and Universities?" and (2) "Who Is In Charge of the…