Career development events (CDEs) play an essential role in agricultural education programs and the National FFA Organization. The competitive events are promoted as tools to develop career and college readiness of high school students. This study examined whether participation and performance in agricultural education CDEs in high school can…

Public Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are facing many challenges including state funding, competition, and maintaining the best possible graduation rate. This study: (1) examined the strategic plans and strategic planning processes to explore how, and to what extent, these tool are being used to address these challenges; and (2) explored the…

With increased competition and other market forces affecting higher education, branding has emerged as a strategic imperative for colleges and universities. Branding in academia faces many inherent challenges, including institutions' multi-pronged missions and decentralized organizational structures. In some cases, branding is not widely…

Community colleges enrolled 37 percent of students attending Title IV-eligible, degree-granting institutions in 2000, but by 2012, this had dropped to 33 percent (National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), 2013). At least some of this decline is hypothesized to be due to the rise of for-profit institutions, which enrolled approximately 9…

In this dissertation I analyze the financial behaviors of public and private nonprofit higher education organizations in the U.S. from 1980 to 2010. The three analyses examine organizational change in the financial behaviors of these institutions and the effects of two sources of organizational interdependencies, stakeholder influence and…

Institutional diversity is a long-held value in U.S. higher education with origins dating back 300 years to pre-Revolutionary colonial colleges. Institutional diversity is still valued today, but Institutional theory predicts that institutional organizations, such as universities, will homogenize without intervention to prevent loss of diversity.…

With a growing concern that society's needs are not being met, there are heightened expectations for accountability for public purposes. At the same time higher education institutions are experiencing increasing competition, as well as decreasing state support for public higher education. The concern is that competition for resources is overtaking…

The purpose of this study was to establish a basic understanding of the challenges associated with directing athletic programs at NCAA Division III Institutions. Specifically, this study identified the frequency, intensity, and time allocated to common challenges facing the position of the NCAA Division III AD. The challenges were examined using…

Public universities undertake business activities sometimes considered by private enterprise as unfairly competitive based on nonprofit advantages. This study was an inquiry into the attitudes and actions of chief business officers at public universities regarding these activities. The research population consisted of the 1862 Morrill Act Land…

Past research on strategic planning has been confined largely to for-profit organizations; there is limited research on the strategic planning of nonprofit, public organizations such as institutions of higher education (IHEs), particularly nonprofit, public community colleges. Seminal scholars on strategy have associated social movements,…

I develop and structurally estimate an equilibrium model of the college market. Students, who are heterogeneous in both abilities and preferences, make college application decisions, subject to uncertainty and application costs. Colleges observe only noisy measures of student ability and set up tuition and admissions policies to compete for more…