What do state policies say about how to fund postsecondary education? This 50-State Comparison answers this question by searching state statutes, state rules and regulations, enacted state budget bills, and state postsecondary education agency policies that address postsecondary education budgeting and funding. According to the content of the…

California had a long tradition of very low tuition for students enrolled in public higher education. The state broke with that policy in the 2000s, when recessions resulted in significant cuts to state funding for public colleges and universities--the University of California (UC), California State University (CSU), and California's community…

Teacher shortages that most severely affect schools serving the least advantaged children have been part of the California education landscape for the last half decade. This brief describes how key teacher supply and demand factors vary across the state, and it provides potential policy solutions to mitigate ongoing shortages. The brief also…

When California students returned to school in fall 2019, hundreds of thousands returned to classrooms staffed by substitutes and teachers who were not fully prepared to teach. In recent years, California has experienced widespread shortages of elementary and secondary teachers as districts and schools seek to restore class sizes and course…

Washington's community and technical colleges (CTCs) play an important role in producing baccalaureate degree graduates in the state through the applied baccalaureate (AB) degree. The key policy goals of the AB degree in Washington state are to increase educational attainment for students and meet employer demand. Compared to the traditional…

West Virginia Code §18B-1D-8 statutorily mandates the West Virginia Higher Education Report Card. This annual accountability report provides year-end higher education statistics for both of the state's higher education systems, the West Virginia Higher Education Policy Commission (Commission) and West Virginia Council for Community and Technical…

This article explores disparities in faculty salaries between metropolitan and nonmetropolitan Texas community colleges. The analysis reveals a significant difference in faculty salaries for the 2000 and 2005 academic years respectively. The study found no significant difference in the rate of change in faculty salaries from 2000 to 2005.…

Distance education is expanding rapidly in higher education, with nearly all colleges and universities offering at least some courses in a distance education format. Still, teaching distance education courses is not a common expectation for faculty at hiring. The lack of faculty skilled in distance education makes it difficult for institutions to…

This paper presents the recommendations of a task force appointed by the Alabama State Board of Education in May of 1997 to guide Alabama's two-year college system's development and direction as it re-engineered itself to enhance services to its constituents. These recommendations are to be used by the State Board of Education, in conjunction with…

This document highlights some of the main problems in using temporary, adjunct, and part-time (TAP) faculty, a practice that is becoming commonplace in higher education, especially at the community college level. Institutions use TAP faculty for several reasons: economic motivation, staffing flexibility in times of fluctuating enrollments,…

This report provides the revised faculty compensation, evaluation, and advancement plan for Pueblo Community College (PCC) in Colorado. Section 1 contains the PCC three-level salary plan and discusses guidelines for initial appointment and level placement of faculty, initial salary computations, and minimum initial employment requirements. Section…

This paper reports estimates of the distribution of individual private rates of return to undergraduate and community college education by field of study for Canada. It is important to know the dispersion of the private rate of return to post-secondary education, as well as its average level. There are very different implications for…

University education is believed to be one of the most controversial public policies in Hong Kong. Numerous changes have also occurred in the university education sector since the 1990s when the rapid expansion of university places was put into force. The most notable changes may include the institutionalization of quality assurance mechanisms,…

The Office of Research and Planning at Pima Community College surveyed 15 community colleges from throughout the United States in order to elicit information on the workload and compensation of full-time faculty. The following 10 findings are based on the 12 colleges that provided data in response to the survey: (1) institutions on a semester…

A staff report to the California Postsecondary Education Commission analyzes the California governor's 1989-90 budget and describes provisions for postsecondary education. Topics of the report are: factors constraining the budget; proposed educational expenditures (for public school expenditures, University of California, California State…