Higher Education Finance Research

There is a void in the literature on how to conduct research in the finance and economics of higher education. Students, professors, and practitioners have no concise document that examines the field, provides history, definitions of terms, sources of data, and research methods. Higher Education Finance Research: Policy, Politics, and Practice fills that void. The book is structured in four parts. The first section provides a brief history and description of the general organization of American higher education, the sources and uses of funds over the last 100 years, and who is served in what types of institutions. Definitions of terms that are unique to higher education are provided, and some basic rules for conducting research on the economics and finance of higher education are established. Although in some ways, conducting research in higher education funding is similar to that for elementary/secondary education, there are some important distinctions that also are provided. The second section introduces guiding philosophies, sources of data, data elements/vocabulary, metrics, and analytics related to institutional revenues and expenditures. Chapters in this section focus on student oriented revenues, institutionally-oriented revenues, and funding formulas. The third section introduces accountability-related concepts by first examining the accountability movement in higher education and performance-based approaches applied in budgeting and funding, then looking at methods to determine public and private returns on investment in postsecondary education, and closing with an examination of finance from the perspective of the primary consumer: students. The fourth and last section of the book focuses on presenting postsecondary finance research to policy audiences to assist in connecting academic research and policy making. Chapters focus on accounting for time considerations in analysis, the placing of data in context to make the data and findings relevant, and ways to effectively communicate findings to various policy-making audiences.

A wide-ranging examination of the governmental and institutional policies and practices, and essential theories and areas of research that in combination establish the foundation, explore and extend the boundaries, and expand the base of knowledge in the field of higher education finance. (Education)

Chapter 1. Financing Higher Education in a Global Market: A Contextual Background Steve O. Michael, Professor of Higher Education Administration and Vice Provost for University Diversity and Academic Initiatives at Kent State University Chapter 2. Financing Higher Education in the United States of America: Strategies for the 21st Century Steve O. Michael; and Mark A. Kretovics, Assistant Professor of Higher Education Administration and coordinator of the master's degree in Higher Education at the Graduate School and College of Education, Kent State University, USA Chapter 3. Financing Higher Education In Canada Daniel W. Lang, Professor, Division of Management, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education of the University of Toronto (OISE/UT), Canada Chapter 4. Great Expectations and Declining Resources: Financing Higher Education in Mexico Wietse de Vries. Senior Researcher at the Autonomous University of Puebla (BUAP), Mexico Chapter 5. Higher Education Policy and Finance in Spain Jorge Calero, Professor of Applied Economics (University of Barcelona) and President of the Spanish Association of the Economics of Education (AEDE) Chapter 6. Financing Higher Education in Austria and Future Challenges Hans Pechar, Associate Professor at the Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies (IFF), University of Klagenfurt and head of the department for Higher Education Research; Elsa Hackl, Professor, Department of Political Science, Vienna University Jan Thomas, Research Fellow, Department for Higher Education Research, Faculty for Interdisciplinary Studies, University of Klagenfurt at Vienna (Austria) and associate lecturer at the Ruhr-Universitdt Bochum (Germany) Chapter 7. Financing HigherEducation in South Africa and Future Challenges Prakash Sing, Associate Professor of leadership and strategic management, University of Port Elizabeth, South Africa Chapter 8. Financing Higher Education in India Under Structural Adjustment Jandhyala B.G. Tilak, Professor and Senior Fellow and Head of the Educational Finance Unit at the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration, New Delhi, India Chapter 9. Financing Higher Education in Thailand and Future Challenges Rick Rantz, Director of the Chester Campus of Feather River College in Northern California; and Phasina Tangchuang, Associate Professor of Adult/Non-Formal Education at the Center for Education and Labor Studies (CELS), Chiang Mai University, Thailand

Sponsored by the Association for Education Finance and Policy (AEFP), this groundbreaking new handbook assembles in one place the existing research-based knowledge in education finance and policy, thereby helping to define this evolving field of research and practice. It provides a readily available resource for anyone seriously involved in education finance and policy in the United States and around the world. The Handbook traces the evolution of the field from its initial focus on school inputs and the revenue sources used to finance these inputs to a focus on educational outcomes and the larger policies used to achieve them. It shows how the current decision-making context in school finance inevitably interacts with those of governance, accountability, equity, privatization, and other areas of education policy. Because a full understanding of the important contemporary issues requires input from a variety of perspectives, the Handbook draws on contributors from a variety of disciplines. While many of the chapters cover complex state-of-the-art empirical research, the authors explain key concepts in language that non-specialists can understand.

This ambitious book grows out of the realization that a convergence of economic, demographic, and political forces in the early twenty-first century requires a fundamental reexamination of the financing of American higher education. The authors identify and address basic issues and trends that cut across the sectors of higher education, focusing on such questions as how much higher education the country needs for individual opportunity and for economic viability in the future; how responsibility for paying for it is currently allocated; and how financing higher education should be addressed in the future.

This book analyzes the political economy of higher education finance across a range of OECD countries, exploring why some students pay extortionate tuition fees whilst for others their education is free. What are the redistributional consequences of these different tuition-subsidy systems? Analysing the variety of existing systems, Garritzmann shows that across the advanced democracies “Four Worlds of Student Finance” exist. Historically, however, all countries’ higher education systems looked very much alike in the 1940s. The book develops a theoretical model, the Time-Sensitive Partisan Theory, to explain why countries have evolved from a similar historical starting point to today’s very distinct Four Worlds. The empirical analyses combine a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative evidence, studying higher education policies in all advanced democracies from 1945-2015.

Based on a systematic literature review, the book aims to forecast the investment scale of Chinese higher education and the allocation structure of different types of higher education institutions in the next decade. The authors first introduce the complex setting of Chinese higher education finance, including the background and theoretical foundation, as well as an in-depth literature review. Via international comparative data, they explore the adequacy and equity of the financial resources. By applying quantitative methods, such as panel data analysis and time series analysis, they forecast the public investment scale in higher education and the allocation structure and proportion among different types of higher education institutions. In addition, the book investigates the standards of teaching funding and teacher research funding, which are considered the main funding resources of Chinese universities and individual teachers. As China has become the world’s largest country of higher education, "how to provide adequate and equal funds to meet the increasing demand" is of great interest to scholars and policymakers both from China and abroad. The book will also appeal to postgraduate students who would like to know the overall status of Chinese higher education finance.

How do university finances really work? From flagship public research universities to small, private liberal arts colleges, there are few aspects of these institutions associated with more confusion, myths or lack of understanding than how they fund themselves and function in the business of higher education. Using simple, approachable explanations supported by clear illustrations, this book takes the reader on an engaging and enlightening tour of how the money flows. How does the university really pay for itself? Why do tuition and fees rise so fast? Why do universities lose money on research? Do most donations go to athletics? Grounded in hard data, original analyses, and the practical experience of a seasoned administrator, this book provides refreshingly clear answers and comprehensive insights for anyone on or off campus who is interested in the business of the university: how it earns its money, how it spends it, and how it all works.