Reform and Innovation in the Changing

Ecology of U.S. Higher Education

Michael W. Kirst Mitchell L. StevensThomas EhrlichW. Richard ScottEric BettingerKristopher Proctor

http://cepa.stanford.edu/ecology

Current descriptions of higher education

• Currently dominant imagery of higher education is predicated on a hierarchy of selectivity

• Non-selective institutions are often defined by what they lack (selectivity)

• In general, policy research focuses on the demand side rather than on the supply side of higher education

A new description of higher education…

• Realizes that the broad-access sector is the only one capable of significantly enhancing postsecondary degree and credential attainment

• Sets aside inherited concepts of “traditional students” and “traditional institutions”

• Recognizes the wide diversity of organizational forms and missions among broad-access schools

• Focuses on the supply side of broad-access schools to better identify policy levers capable of improving performance

Distribution of Access, by Schools

Source. IPEDS, 2009Description. This figure gives the distribution of schools based on their admission rate. It includes all school not categorized as “open admission” in IPEDS.

Perc

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inst

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Percent of applicants offered admission

Figure 1

Our research agenda…

• Focuses on the earliest stages of the policy process

• Reframes policy problems and the assumptions about how to address them

• Raises awareness and concern so that problems have priority in policy agendas

• Focuses on multiple audiences in the policy system:

• Organizations that fund or research higher education

• Governance structures (e.g., federal and stated governments, trustees, faculty members)

• Networks and brokers that reach multiple audiences (e.g., WICHE, American Association of Community Colleges)

• Uses both direct and indirect means of dissemination—recognizing that knowledge seeps, percolates, and creeps through the policy system

Our Strategy for Actionable Research

Funding agencies

Federal/state governments

Faculty

Other stakeholders

Influence assumptions

Raise awareness/concern

Percolate reform messages to stake holders

Step 1:Reframe the policy problem

Step 2:Cater reform messages to specific audiences

Step 3:Disseminate knowledge through the policy system

Next Steps

• Commission several papers from a roster of top researchers to refocus social science attention on the broad-access sector along several dimensions:

• Variation in organizational forms

• The ecology of control (e.g., governance/regulatory structures)

• Personnel (e.g., training, labor markets)

• Student trajectories through broad-access schools

• New conceptions of student diversity that are appropriate to the sector

• Assemble a panel of policy makers, practitioners, and leaders in the broad-access sector to help guide our research

• Train/recruit new researchers to study the broad-access sectorMore information is available at: http://cepa.stanford.edu/ecology