This case study of a single campus of a California public university looks at what involvement faculty want in the financial components of the shared governance of their institution. It explores their real involvement on a campus with a particularly strong shared governance culture and systems, where academic senate subcommittees allow faculty to…

The murder of George Floyd in May 2020 spurred a period of worldwide civil unrest. His death also catalyzed a phase of organizational reckoning and reflection on the pervasiveness of racism, which continues to exist in and influence societal systems. This study aimed to shed light on the budgeting ecosystem at a flagship, public, 4-year university…

The most recent data on tuition, appropriations, and state grant aid present an economic outlook that appears favorable in the West. Tuition rates remained relatively flat for the past decade, total state funding to higher education increased across the region in the past year, and state grant aid continued to increase since 2010-11. Despite these…

The size and cost of US public higher education, funded largely by government, grew continuously for nearly twenty-five years after World War II. In the late 1960s, as the nation's economic growth slowed, the question of who should pay for higher education came under fresh political scrutiny. Decades-old no-tuition policies at the University of…

TICAS partnered with higher education researcher Dr. Donald E. Heller to examine the "affordability gap" that students are facing when paying for college. The report uses federal data to determine the so-called "college affordability gap" in three states--California, Michigan, and New York--with a focus on students who are…

California's public higher education system has catapulted the state into global leadership such that, the state is the 5th largest economy in the world today. A bachelor's degree, in particular, provides unrivaled economic and health benefits for the individual earning the degree and for the state. To better understand how California's public…

A commonly used metric for measuring college costs, drawn from data in the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), is expenditure per full-time equivalent (FTE) student. This article discusses an error in this per FTE calculation when using IPEDS data, especially with regard to community colleges. The problem is that expenditures…

Since establishing its first campus in 1868, the University of California (UC), California's land-grant university, developed into the nation's first multi-campus system in the United States, and is today widely recognized as the world's premier network of public research universities. This short essay provides an historical brief on the role that…

California is home to the nation's largest higher education systems which once served as "the model" for access, affordability, and excellence. However, decades of declining state investment and existing policies are "marginalizing the majority" of California students and perpetuating social stratification across the state.…

Like California, South Korea's system of higher education is a work in progress. Each must evolve and reshape themselves at various points in their histories in their quest for relevancy and, increasingly, to external pressures and demands of governments and, more generally, society. Utilizing California's pioneering higher education system as a…

Since the Spring of 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has upended the lives of billions of people worldwide. Seemingly overnight, colleges and universities transitioned their entire operations online. There is no playbook for how to best respond to this global pandemic. While it is virtually impossible to predict the lasting impact that COVID-19 will…

Most Americans today need some education beyond high school to secure a well-paying job, and higher education is a key factor in social and economic mobility. But higher education is not accessible to all students. To further equalize opportunity, states must understand options for improving the way they fund higher education. America's public…

State funding for higher education has increased in recent years. Per student funding for the California Community Colleges (CCC) is at an historic high and the Cal Grant program is larger than ever. But the state's investment in its public universities remains far lower than in the past. Indeed, California invests less per student (adjusted for…

This report provides comprehensive data about the tuition and fee prices published by public higher education institutions in the West for academic year 2022-23, including changes in tuition and fee rates over the past one-, five-, and 10-academic year periods. Tuition and fee rates in the region appear to have stabilized over the past decade…

The coronavirus pandemic has led to the most difficult semester in generations on college campuses across the United States. With that semester now wrapping up, public colleges and universities are facing costs that already dwarf the $7.6 billion in federal stimulus funds that are on their way to these institutions. Absent dramatic new action from…