The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) seeks to improve student outcomes by promoting a variety of student success efforts. These efforts include direct programs with well-defined target populations and program participants, offering specific student support services following a program model, and indirect programs aimed at…

Failure to complete is an unfortunately common occurrence in the nation's community colleges, and research demonstrates that not completing a credential is associated with negative student outcomes. In response to these issues, the Guided Pathways institutional redesign reform movement has spread rapidly across the United States over the past…

Over the past 10-15 years, there has emerged a growing consensus, supported by high-quality empirical research, that additional funding improves student outcomes (and funding cuts hurt those outcomes), particularly among disadvantaged students. There are, of course, serious and important debates about how education funding should be spent. Yet…

This is the first study to examine the fiscal effects of the New York property tax levy limit, using variation from the degree of fiscal stringency across school districts and over time in its first five years of implementation. Based on a difference-in-differences estimator, coupled with an event study specification, we find that the tax limit…

Christian colleges and universities are a small but important subset of higher education institutions. Financial pressures at these private four-year institutions continue to drive institutional leaders towards innovation and new sources of revenue in an attempt to achieve financial security. This study applies resource dependence theory as a lens…

Policies on academic probation and dismissal have existed in the American higher education system for decades to maintain academic quality and encourage students to improve their performance. Research has aimed to clarify the relationship between academic probation, dismissal, and retention, yet differing results emerge. Furthermore, the…

Higher education scholars often investigate the policy mechanisms of external accountability, but rarely explore institutional mechanisms of internal accountability. This chapter, which reports select findings from an in-depth case study of institutional budgeting at an American public research university, examines an underexplored mechanism of…

Enrichment programs make up a small but significant part of a community college's offerings. In some cases, their impact can be enormous--especially in rural areas where a community college might be the only source of enrichment for residents. Community enrichment programs also can be challenging to administer. For instance, it can be hard to find…

Research and development spending by academic institutions totaled $89.9 billion in FY 2021, an increase of $3.4 billion (4.0%) from FY 2020 (table 1). R&D expenditures funded from federal sources accounted for $3.0 billion of the total increase. Federally funded R&D expenditures had not increased by $3 billion or more since FY 2011, when…

In this study, we use institution-level data for the period 2004 to 2016 from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System to examine the excess revenues of private, four-year nonprofit institutions. We present data on the magnitude of excess revenues for these institutions over this period, examine how excess revenues are associated with…

Evidence supports increasing student physical activity in school, and Comprehensive School Physical Activity Programs (CSPAPs) can help students meet national physical activity goals to support their physical and mental health. Although strategies and frameworks are readily available to support schools in their efforts to implement successful…

In recent decades, education leaders and researchers have increasingly sought to disaggregate key higher education outcome data--graduation rates, attainment, employment, and income--by race and ethnicity in order to uncover and narrow equity gaps. The same is true, recently, for affordability, especially as it relates to the differential impact…

Through a case study of 25 funded AANAPISIs, this report explores how colleges and universities become AANAPISIs; serve Asian American, Native Hawaiian, & Pacific Islander students; and institutionalize their initiatives. Implications and recommendations are offered for policy, practice, and research. [This report is a publication of the APIA…

This case study uses the theory of academic capitalism (TAC) to explore how a public university known primarily for undergraduate education is incorporating market-oriented practices and structures, and how those changes could impact its curriculum and enrollment profile. Through initiatives to establish an engineering college, expand graduate…

In this reflective piece, representatives of the agencies that funded and managed the Early Learning Systems Research program -- the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) and the World Bank -- take stock of recent global developments in research, policy, and financing by donors for early childhood education (ECE). A rapid increase…