This study examined the impact of changes in tax codes on voluntary giving to universities and colleges. While higher education institutions have drawn attention to individual gifts and philanthropic donations as supplementary financial resources, the recent introduction of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 in the United States reduced tax…

This study sheds light on how large-scale school fundraising efforts differ according to locations in unequal and segregated cities, putting a greater burden on schools in under-resourced areas. In particular, we compare the large-scale fundraising campaigns of two high schools in contrastingly unequal urban neighbourhoods in one of Canada's…

Background/Context: The business and philanthropic sectors have been a persistent force in shaping U.S. schools. Recently, they have used their resources to advance policies that embody newer principles of industry--reforms that suggest that competition, choice, and deregulation can spur improvement and effectiveness. This has most notably…

The adoption of Open Educational Resources (OER) can, on the one hand, increase access and quality in higher education, but on the other hand it is raising concerns among universities and researchers about its economic sustainability. This is mainly because, unlike traditional online learning, in OER-based approaches learners do not have to pay to…

The relationship between students and higher education is seen to have become increasingly transactional. We approach the study of the student-HE relationship in a novel way, by focusing on students' behaviour post-university, rather than on student narratives. Conceptually, the article builds on multidimensional views of student engagement and…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have experienced severe cutbacks in funding over the past few years, with universities examining options for alternative funding streams, such as alumni funding. Identifying the factors influencing their alumni's intentions to invest in their alma mater can be of significant importance when establishing a…

Purpose: State funding is being reduced for higher education institutes (HEIs) is linked to several checks such as performance-based incentives (Hagood, 2019). This forces HEIs to look for other options for funding. Endowment funds are now becoming the main source of revenue for HEIs (Sörlin, 2007), largely provided by alumni. Thus, this study…

In an increasingly individualistic society in which the economic forecast has been uncertain for the past several years, independent schools have struggled to understand donors' motivations for giving. In addition, schools continually examine the way their annual giving campaigns articulate how donors' gifts align with the schools' missions and…

Only a few innovations ever successfully scale throughout education systems. Previous research highlights two reasons for this scarcity of success stories: either the innovations are badly designed, or the environment is not conducive to accepting and absorbing the education innovations. Even the best innovations with the most strategic scaling…

This study provides the first systematic analysis of the composition of charter school governing boards. We assemble a dataset of charter school boards in Massachusetts from 2001 to 2013 and investigate the consequences of donor and founder representation on governing boards. We find that the presence of donors on the charter school boards is…

Funds raised from philanthropic giving have become a key element in the long-term finances of higher education institutions around the world, presenting leaders, primarily principals, with a range of novel challenges that have not, hitherto, been key drivers of leadership. This article explores the problem by reporting on qualitative research that…

The Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) annual survey has collected data on fundraising outcomes in higher education institutions in the United States. It is regarded as the definitive source of information on philanthropic support of those institutions. Data from the survey are used to estimate total charitable support of all institutions of…

This article outlines the evolution of the relationship between the emergence of large-scale finance and industry in the American Gilded Age and Progressive eras and the shaping and funding of universities by foundations linked to the emerging industries. Scientism has been a means of gaining and maintaining legitimacy and research funding.…

This is the second year that the Voluntary Support of Education (VSE) survey--the longest-running and most-comprehensive survey of charitable giving to U.S. higher education institutions--has been under the auspices of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). The brief that follows outlines basic findings from the 2019 survey,…

According to 2018 research conducted by APM Research Lab, the research arm of the nonprofit public radio organization American Public Media, most Americans believe that government funding for higher education has increased or at least held firm over the last ten years. That is not the case, however. According to the Center on Budget and Policy…