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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 shared governance, and specifically the role of the Academic Senate, played in creating an academic culture of excellence and high achievement in pursuing its tripartite mission of teaching and learning, research and knowledge production, and public service. A key component in understanding the critical role of the Senate in UC's evolution from a single campus in Berkeley to now a ten-campus system is the university's unusual designation as a public trust in the state constitution that, beginning in 1879, protected the university at critical times from external political pressures and allowed the university to develop an internal academic culture guided by the Academic Senate. By the 1920s, the emergence of California's unique and innovative public system of higher education, with UC as the sole public provider of doctoral degrees and state funded research, also helps explain the ability of the UC system to maintain its mission and formulate what is termed a "One University" model. The Academic Senate has created coherency and shared values within UC, and a culture and expectation for faculty performance that is unique among universities around the world. This essay also offers a brief reflection on the Academic Senate's past influence, its current status, and prospective role. The overall intent is to provide context for the current academic community and higher education scholars regarding the past and future role of faculty in university governance and management, and what distinguishes UC in the pantheon of major research universities.

This paper is the first to investigate the costs of institution-wide reforms at community colleges. Drawing on data from 12 community colleges implementing comprehensive guided pathways reforms, I use the ingredients method to analyze the resources required to implement such reforms and examine their feasibility and affordability, as well as their value for students. For a typical college with 4,000 full-time equivalent students (FTEs) that implements guided pathways over four years, the total implementation cost beyond business-as-usual operations is estimated at $450 per student each year, or $7.1 million in total, which amounts to 12% of the college's annual budget, or approximately 3% per year. Around one third of this cost is for enhanced student advisement. Extra investments in information technology are also significant. Ongoing operating costs, primarily for student advisement and student success courses, are around $350 per FTE each year. Cost estimates vary depending on how colleges implement guided pathways, but the results are robust to alternative input prices and college characteristics. There is also some evidence of economies of scale. To finance guided pathways, colleges relied mainly on resource reallocation and efficiency gains, extra public funding, and external grants and funds. Increases in tuition/fees were modest, temporary, or delayed until after implementation; increases of just under 1% per year would suffice to support guided pathways reforms. From the student perspective, guided pathways increases the affordability and value for money of community college. With enhanced advising, students take fewer unnecessary courses. Program mapping leads students to take the right courses both at the community college and at any transfer college. Improved advising help students access grants and in-kind services; they also assist with financial plans to pay for college. Overall, the savings these reforms allow for are likely to exceed the modest increase in tuition/fees from guided pathways. [For the companion paper "Funding Guided Pathways: A Guide for Community College Leaders. Report," see ED609234.]

This article is a follow-up to a recent ROPS [Research & Occasional Paper Series] article on strategic budgeting at colleges and universities. In recent years, several colleges and universities have explored alternative strategies for developing operating budgets. In part, this exploration was driven by the desire for transparency among various constituent groups and the need to tie budgeting to campus strategic planning. While developing a new budgeting process can be a very intense and involved process, the ability to implement a new budget process requires the same level of commitment and involvement. A successful implementation process involves an effective communication process combined with training and the commitment of senior campus leadership.

In February 2020, the Congressional Budget Office released a report on the budgetary effects of student loans repaid through income-driven plans. This paper provides additional information on the analysis the agency conducted on the characteristics of borrowers in those plans and the methods the agency used to project borrowers' earnings, repayment, and resulting forgiveness. The results show that income-driven repayment plans are heavily used by borrowers with large balances and low earnings. The typical borrower in income-driven repayment is negatively amortizing, and substantial forgiveness is projected for low-income borrowers in such plans. Overall, increased take-up of income-driven repayment and the negative amortization in those plans explain much of the decline in student loan repayment rates between 2008 and 2017. [This technical paper complements the report "Income Driven Repayment Plans for Student Loans: Budgetary Costs and Policy Options" (ED607182).]

In recent years a number of colleges and universities have explored alternative strategies for developing operating budgets. In part this exploration was driven by the desire for transparency among various constituent groups and the need to tie budgeting to campus strategic planning. With the advent of declining federal and state support, along with changing student demand, the need for a more strategic approach to budgeting has gained momentum. This paper highlights the various budgetary approaches currently in use and provides examples of their application in a variety of university settings. Particular emphasis is given to the process by which universities develop new models.

Motivated by potential financial savings, four-day school weeks have proliferated across the United States in recent years, reaching public schools in 25 states as of 2018. The consequences of the four-day school week for students, schools, and communities are largely unknown. This paper uses district-level panel data from Oklahoma and a difference-in-differences research design to examine the causal effect of the four-day schedule on school district finance and academic achievement. Results indicate that four-day weeks decrease districts' federal and state revenues and their non-instructional and support services expenditures. Decreases are concentrated specifically in food services and transportation expenditures and amount to approximately 1.36% of the average four-day district's budget. I find no detectable effect of the four-day week on academic achievement.

This paper looks at how countries have mobilized additional resources for education and assesses their impact on access and learning outcomes, using the World Bank's new Learning-Adjusted Years of Schooling measure. The paper shows that global spending on education has risen significantly over the past two decades, although spending as a share of gross domestic product has remained relatively unchanged, at about 4.5 percent. However, global trends mask large differences across regions and country income groups. For example, low-income countries recorded the largest increases in terms of the share of GDP spent on education, but the absolute amount they devoted to education remained low compared to other countries. Economic growth has been the main driver of increases in public education spending. Yet, countries that achieved the largest and most rapid spending increases did this through a combination of increases in overall government revenues, a greater prioritization of education in the government budget as well as healthy economic growth. Increases in public education spending did not generally result in major improvements in average education outcomes. Using the available data, the paper shows that a doubling of government spending per child led to an increase in learning-adjusted years of schooling of only half a year. Preliminary findings also show that countries with lower efficiency and spending are expected to get the most from increases in spending in improved education outcomes. The paper concludes by outlining an approach that allows countries to assess their potential for increasing education funding and the expected effects on their education outcomes, based on benchmarks drawing from the data of comparable countries. It also underscores the urgent need to improve data on public education spending and education outcomes, to extend this analysis to cover a wider set of countries and increase the robustness of country-level benchmarks. [This paper is a product of the Education Global Practice.]

As state leaders consider needed updates to the Commonwealth's school funding formula, they should remember just how well the approach taken by Tom Birmingham, former Massachusetts state Senate president, and co-author of the 1993 Education Reform Act worked. Beginning in 1993, Massachusetts' SAT scores rose for 13 consecutive years. The state's scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) shot up, too. By 2005, Massachusetts students became the first to score best in the nation in all four major NAEP categories (fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math). Since then, they have repeated the feat on every subsequent administration of NAEP except one. While American students as a whole lag behind their international peers, the 2007 and 2011 Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study results showed that Massachusetts students were competitive with their counterparts in places like Japan, Korea, and Singapore. In 2007, the Bay State's eighth graders even tied for first place internationally in science. The current formula for funding K-12 public education calculates a "foundation budget," which is the minimum needed for a school district to provide its students with a quality education. Another formula determines how much each district can afford to contribute, and the state fills the gap between that amount and the foundation budget. Some wealthier districts contribute more than is required, but every district receives a minimum annual state contribution of about $1,750 per student. State funding, known as Chapter 70, jumped by 227.4 percent per pupil between 1993 and 2019, rising from $1.592 billion to $5.212 billion (see figure 1). This rate of increase exceeded the rate of increase in per pupil net school spending by municipalities (excluding Chapter 70 funding) of 156.8 percent, rising from $3.704 billion to $9.513 billion during that time frame. It also exceeded growth in statewide enrollment, which rose by 16.3 percent, from 809,496 to 941,411 over that period. It also exceeded the rate of increase of the consumer price index for all urban consumers in Boston-Cambridge-Newton, MA which rose by 83.7 percent over that time period. As legislators contemplate the financial needs of local school districts, they should keep in mind that they face an enormous parallel funding challenge over the next 17 years. Unlike in some other states, the Commonwealth--not municipalities--is responsible for the unfunded liability of two pension funds that serve municipal employees: the Massachusetts Teachers Retirement System (MTRS) and the Boston Teachers Retirement System BTRS). Massachusetts currently faces a combined $41.26 billion unfunded liability for the pension systems of state employees, Massachusetts teachers and Boston teachers. Of that, (figure 5) shows nearly two thirds, or 65.6 percent of the total obligation is attributable to unfunded local teacher pensions. Legislators would be wise to keep these pension and other post-employment benefits (OPEB) obligations in mind as they fashion updates to Chapter 70. As mentioned previously, the foundation funding formula has been revised and updated several times in recent years. Some additional tweaking is warranted, but the fact remains that wholesale changes are not in order. The communities left behind are the older industrialized cities and towns, such as listed in Figure 8, from Worcester and Orange to Springfield and Lawrence. Lawmakers should focus on the fiscal needs of these communities. They should also tie this additional investment to a policy strategy that is most likely to lead to better educational accountability and student outcomes in those key cities and towns. Whatever new funding comes from the state should be tied to reform. Over the last decade, Massachusetts has retreated from some of the key reforms that drove significant progress on student achievement for all students, e.g., adoption of weaker academic standards in English Language Arts (ELA), math, science, and history, the transition to the watered down (Minnesota Comprehensive Assessments) MCAS 2.0, the loss of an independent district accountability agency, and the erosion of legislative support for proven school reform innovations, including charter schools. Over that time, the Commonwealth has experienced declining MCAS and SAT scores, and Massachusetts is among a minority of states in which National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) scores have fallen between 2011 and 2017. The opportunity for change that comes with significant new money should not be lost. To ensure that additional resources provide a return on taxpayer investment, Pioneer offers eight recommendations in this report.

The following essay details a debate between UC Berkeley and a Regent who made charges of discrimination against Asian American students that are similar to the current legal challenges facing Harvard University. The crux of such charges: on average, that one racial or ethnic group is more "qualified" than other groups, often underrepresented minorities, yet they have lower admissions rates. In 2004, Regent John Moores, convinced of discriminatory practices toward Asian-American students in the admissions process at Berkeley, did his own analysis of UC admissions data focused on SAT scores and that he publicized in the "LA Times" and other venues. Moores claimed his investigation provided clear evidence of discrimination. In the aftermath of California's Proposition 209 barring the use of race in admissions, Moores complained that Berkeley's adoption of a "holistic" review of applications reduced the importance of test scores by elevating subjective "measurements" that served as possibly illegal proxies for race and ethnicity. Conjuring memories of charges of discrimination in the 1980s by the Asian-American community regarding Berkeley's admissions processes, Moores asked, "How did the university get away with discriminating so blatantly against Asians?" For anti-affirmative action advocates, like Moores, standardized test scores were, and are, seen as the gold standard of academic ability since it is a "universal" measure unlike grades that are local assessments of abilities and subject to grade inflation. However, when compared to grades in high school, test scores have proven weak indicators of subsequent academic success at highly selective universities that must choose among a large pool of highly qualified students. Test scores also are not necessarily good measures for predicting the future engagement of students in the wide range of experiences and opportunities offered by major universities -- including public service, undergraduate research, and co-curricular activities. Anti-affirmative action advocates largely see admissions as a reward based on test scores and are not terribly concerned with the predictive validity of other admissions criteria. This essay concludes with a brief discussion of the similarities of Moores' analysis and charge of discrimination in admissions with that at Harvard, and the probable legal path toward a new Supreme Court decision on affirmative action.

Despite massive cuts in state funding over the past thirty years, the University of California has managed to keep enrollment on pace with growth in population. With California's population projected to grow 22.5 percent (from 40 to 49 million by 2040), that will no longer be the case, unless UC is able to find a new funding model. Informed by the historical analysis in the report "Approaching a Tipping Point: A History and Prospectus of Funding for the University of California", this essay revisits the options for funding UC from that report, including: reinvestment by California lawmakers and a proposed general bond measure for capital construction; increasing research funding to help subsidize teaching and public service programs; revising the indirect-cost agreement with the State of California; raising undergraduate tuition and fees for upper income students and establishing tuition pricing model tiered by student family income; explore differential fees by major; and reducing the percentage of UC undergraduate tuition income that is "returned-to-aid" in favor of increased fundraising for financial aid. All relate to two central questions: a) can UC afford to grow in its enrollment and academic programs with the state's population and needs? and b) how to identify new sources of revenue and pursue management efficiencies to reduce operating and capital costs? Without a substantial boost in income from the state or other sources, UC may be approaching a crossroads, where it continues to grow in enrollment without adequate funding, or where it instead chooses to halt or limit growth to focus on maintaining quality and productivity, but with serious consequences for California. Any significant state reinvestment will depend on the new California governor. Governors in the past have been key players in creating and building California's pioneering higher education system. A new governor should have ambitions for higher education that match those of Californians.

This paper summarises the evolution of student contributions in Australia since 1989, exploring system redesigns that commenced in 1997, 2005 and 2021. Public and private benefits are recurring themes in setting student contributions, both as high-level justifications for government policy and in pricing specific disciplines. Professor Andrew Norton evaluates five different rationales used by successive Australian governments to satisfy competing policy and political considerations: course costs, private benefits, public benefits, increasing resources per student place, and incentivising course choices. Professor Norton argues that despite using student contributions to guide course choices being central to current funding policy it is never likely to be effective. Student contributions do, however, have practical consequences that seem to be given little consideration by the government. These include how long it takes to repay student debt, how much of that debt the government will eventually write off, and university incentives to enrol students. As the new government reviews the Job-ready Graduates policy, the paper provides a useful basis for discussion, offering lessons from history in what works and what does not, and guiding policymakers towards student contribution systems that minimise problems for students, government and universities.

A significant criticism of the charter school movement is that funding for charter schools diverts money away from traditional public schools. As shown in prior work by Bifulco and Reback (2014) for two urban districts in New York, the magnitude of such adverse fiscal externalities depends in part on the nature of state and local funding policies. In this paper, we build on their approach to examine the fiscal effects of charter schools on both urban and non-urban school districts in North Carolina. We base our analysis on detailed balance sheet information for a sample of school districts that experienced significant charter entry since the statewide cap on charters was raised in 2011. This detailed budgetary information permits us to estimate a range of fiscal impacts using a variety of different assumptions. We find a large and negative fiscal impact from $500-$700 per pupil in our one urban school district and somewhat smaller, but still significant, fiscal externalities on the non-urban districts in our sample.

Like Berkeley, the UC system as a whole is quickly running out of space to accommodate the next generation of Californians who will be reaching college age by mid-century. Even with the added capacity at UC Merced, the UC system will run out of space on existing campuses in the next decade. In the normal course of events, this would trigger planning for another new general campus. Yet at a time when the university is still reeling from the effects of the Great Recession, the wisdom of an expensive new general campus is questionable. The need now is to rebuild and reinvest in existing campuses, not build a new one. These considerations suggest a different strategy for long-term enrollment growth than the UC system has followed in the past: Growing off-campus capacity at mature campuses. This paper describes a range of potential options for off-campus expansion, such as a branch campus at Berkeley. Such a strategy could accommodate the moderate level of enrollment growth projected for UC between now and mid-century and would be far less expensive than a new general campus. Expanding off-campus capacity at mature campuses like Berkeley could also channel new resources where the financial damage to academic programs and infrastructure has been greatest.

Sometimes what colleges and universities must do to generate revenue is consistent with their academic goals. But often they must choose one over the other. The financial transaction that produces most educational revenue in the United States is "cash-for-credits." Many states allocate their own funding by the credit hour as well, amplifying business incentives produced by tuition. With "cash-for-credits," institutions that want to increase revenue either have to raise the price per credit, enroll more students, or sell more credit hours. "Cash-for-credits" does not offer a sustainable foundation for other things that public higher education must do (focus on low-income students, offer courses in high-cost technical and scientific disciplines, invest in advising and long-term academic planning, give credit for work at other institutions, and coordinate with potential employers). This paper discusses: (1) Types of higher education budgets; (2) Existing financial system supports; (3) Alignment and conflict between institutions and students; (4) Incentives and behavioral economics; (5) Aligning incentives in institutional and student revenue sources; (6) Realigning incentives in state and local appropriations; (7) Realigning incentives in tuition and financial aid; (8) Indiana financial aid reform; (9) Monthly payment plans; (10) Aid like a paycheck; (11) Aligning incentives by redefining the higher education service; and (12) Finance, progress, and outcomes.

Policymakers are moving to outcomes-based funding in an effort to inspire public higher education institutions to drive the transformative change required to expand access, increase graduation rates and contain costs. For outcomes-based funding to have a significant effect on student outcomes, system and institutional leaders must successfully translate these policies into action. In an effort to inform the design, development and implementation of future outcomes-based funding policies, this paper presents a real-time account of how the prospect of outcomes-based funding, and the financial incentives that have been put in place by the state of California and the California State University system, have provided a frame for California State University, Fullerton to engage and mobilize its campus community to improve student outcomes, advance the institution's mission and achieve its strategic goals.

Like other states, Michigan has implemented a number of policies to change governance and administrative arrangements in local school districts deem to be in financial emergency. This paper examines two questions: (1) Which districts get into financial trouble and why?; and (2) Among fiscally distressed districts, are there significant differences in the characteristics of districts in which the state does and does not intervene? We analyze factors influencing district fund balances utilizing fixed effect models on a statewide panel dataset of Michigan school districts from 1995 to 2012. We evaluate the impact of state school finance and choice policies, over which local districts have limited control, and local district resource allocation decisions (e.g., average class size, teacher salaries, and spending shares devoted to administration, employee health insurance, and contracted services). Our results indicate that 80% of the explained variation in district fiscal stress is due to changes in districts' state funding, to enrollment changes including those associated with school choice policies, and to the enrollment of high-cost, special education students. We also find that the districts in which the state has intervened have significantly higher shares of African-American and low-income students than other financially troubled Michigan districts, and they are in worse financial shape by some measures.

It is clear from assessment, graduation, and follow-up data that career-vocational technical education (CVTE), as it is practiced in Massachusetts, is a success. CVTE is becoming so popular that there are up to 5,000 more applicants for places in Massachusetts' vocational technical schools than there are openings, creating waiting lists. This paper examines the conditions that have created the present predicament whereby there are waiting lists for vocational education, and 52 Massachusetts cities and towns do not have access to either district or regional career vocational technical programs. It also examines funding for vocational-technical education; while vocational-technical education is more expensive than traditional high school, it would cost the state less than ½% of the FY16 education budget to provide 5,000 more CVTE placements in Massachusetts.

State governments serve as a key funding source for public higher education. An alternative to historically based state subsidies or enrollment-based formulas, outcomes-based funding allows states to convey goals for higher education by allocating state tax dollars based on measures of outcomes. Within higher education institutions, the Responsibility Center Management model engages deans and other mid-level managers in the responsibility and accountability for revenue generation as well as expense management. Policymakers will benefit from understanding this approach and how it could be used in concert with outcomes-based funding to support the development and delivery of new academic paradigms, expand access to underrepresented students, and, ultimately, increase educational attainment for a greater number of people. This article describes the potential alignment between incentives created by the Responsibility Center Management model and goals of outcomes-based funding. With an integration of the two models, there is a greater assurance of achieving the goals of both--fiscal sustainability and student success. By using Responsibility Center Management, college and university administrators are better able to marshal resources to help students complete their degrees and other credentials while also reaping the benefits of an outcomes-based funding system that directs public funding toward institutions that are doing just that.

No state has done more than Tennessee to shift state higher education funding to reflect outcomes rather than inputs. In other states, most of the core funding for higher education, including tuition and state appropriations, flows to colleges based on student enrollment. With a goal to reach the national average in higher education attainment by 2025, Tennessee is at the vanguard of this movement and has aligned its budget with its ambitions. It is the first state to base most state appropriations to colleges and universities on outcomes, with emphasis on progress toward and completion of degrees. Initial results are promising, but still preliminary. Evidence of success will come from information on: (1) degrees awarded; (2) enrollment; (3) grades and credits earned; and (4) progress and other performance benchmarks. Recommendations for other states that emerge from initial findings are included. This brief's appendix table shows how data will become available over the next several years to facilitate review of the impact of formula funding in Tennessee.

One consequence of the Great Recession is that teacher layoffs occurred at a scale previously unseen. In this paper we assess the effects of receiving a layoff notice on teacher mobility using data from Los Angeles and Washington State. We find strong evidence that the receipt of a layoff notice increases the likelihood that teachers leave their schools, even in the absence of actually losing their position due to a layoff. Placebo tests suggest that it is the layoff process that induces "structural churn" rather than differential mobility of the teachers who are targeted by this process.

In 2011, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) founded the Center for Community College Advancement to provide training and resources to help community colleges build and sustain effective fundraising, alumni relations, and communications and marketing programs. A goal for the center is to collect data on best practices at community colleges. This white paper summarizes the results of a survey on foundation operations at community colleges across the United States and Canada. The purpose of the survey was to help community college staff benchmark their foundation experiences and programs with their peers. Participation in the survey was strong, with representatives from 122 foundations in the United States and Canada having contributed data (approximately 10 percent of the universe of institutions). Their responses revealed that foundations have evolved into significant contributors at community colleges through consistent positive results, service to a variety of stakeholders and leveraging of political capital--all while maintaining a low staff count and limited expenditures. Two appendices provide data tables and the survey questions.

After more than two decades of state disinvestment, the University of California faces significant challenges and misunderstandings regarding its operating costs, its wide array of activities, and its mission. Reduced funding from the state for public higher education, including UC, has essentially severed the historic link between state allocations and enrollment, altering the incentive and ability for UC to expand academic programs and enrollment in pace with California's growing population. "To grow or not to grow," that is the question. This macro management and major modification in UC's historical social contract with the people of California confronts the new president, Janet Napolitano, and, more generally, the UC academic community and Californians. On the positive side, there are signs of an improved economy as well as a governor and legislature dealing with fundamental budget issues, such as better controlling public pensions and reducing exorbitant incarceration rates. If California, under a revised Master Plan, floats toward an attempt to recreate a suitable funding and organizational model for public higher education, Napolitano is potentially a powerful political figure who could help drive it to a successful conclusion. To truly reach a solution, public leaders will need to work with lawmakers, not the other way around.

While sparse literature exists investigating the impact of the Great Recession on various sectors of the economy, there is virtually no research that studies the effect of the Great Recession, or past recessions, on schools. This paper starts to fill the void. Studying school funding during the recession is of paramount importance because schools have a fundamental role in fostering human capital formation and economic growth. We exploit unique panel data and trend shift analysis to analyze how New Jersey school finances were affected during the Great Recession and the ARRA federal stimulus period. Our results show strong evidence of downward shifts in both revenue and expenditure following the recession. Federal stimulus seemed to have helped in 2010, however both revenue and expenditure still declined. While total revenue declined, the various components of revenue did not witness symmetric changes. The infusion of funds with the federal stimulus occurred simultaneously with statistically and economically significant cuts in state and local financing, especially the former. Our results also show a compositional shift in expenditures in favor of categories that are linked most closely to instruction, while several non-instruction categories including transportation and utilities declined. Interestingly, budgetary stress seems to have led to significant lay-offs for untenured teachers, leading to a rightward shift of the teacher salary and experience distributions. Heterogeneity analysis shows that high poverty and urban districts sustained the largest falls in the post-recession era, with Abbott districts specifically falling the furthest from pre-recession trends. Of importance, the Abbott districts were the only group in our expansive analysis to show statistically significant negative shifts in instructional expenditure even with the federal stimulus. The findings of this paper contribute valuable insight regarding schools' financial situations during recession and can serve as a guide to aid future policy decisions.

In seeking a better match-up between the mission and the resources of the Colorado Department of Education (CDE), its senior leadership has not only been examining their own responsibility areas, but also the entire Department and how its highly varied components fit together. The starting point for this discussion paper was the State Board of Education's (SBE) Strategic Plan, which is the most global and coherent expression of the SBE/CDE mission. The other key reference point was the annual CDE budget, which comprehensively describes the resource allocation and is the foundation of annual dialogs with both the Executive and Legislative branches over both money and mission. The overview section of this paper examines perspectives on higher education, noting that those in K-12 must also have an understanding of post-secondary education realities. The succeeding sections--"Six Themes"--provides reflections on topics that recur in CBE's meetings and discussions about its work. The six themes are: (1) Prioritizing School Finance: Change in a Constant Cost Environment; (2) Early Childhood: The Unknown Imperative; (3) Literacy: Without Which Little Else Matters; (4) Choice: The Unfolding Revolution; (5) Data and Accountability: A Continuum; and (6) Focus, Intensity, and the Achievement Gap. The final section, "CDE: As We Are and As We Might Better Be," is a status report on the ongoing efforts to bring the mission and resources of CDE into the most realistic and productive relationship possible. An overarching purpose of this paper is to strongly resist the tendency to discuss mission and resources separately. In so doing, this discussion paper intends to bring clarity, strength, and renewed energy to CBE's role in charting a brighter course for the children of Colorado.

Previous research on attrition has focused on the economic consequences of low graduation rates in terms of costs to students and families (from tuition and fees that do not culminate in a credential), lost time, and income and tax losses from low educational attainment in the workforce. However, no systematic attention has been given to another critical aspect of the cost of attrition, which is the cost to institutions (and to their financial supporters) from the "lost" credits that do not lead to degrees or certificates. Attrition clearly adds to the expense of producing college degrees, thus reducing it is crucial to enhancing productivity and increasing educational attainment. How big is this lost investment, and what do these "unfinished degrees" from student attrition look like? Just as completed degrees come in different shapes and sizes, unfinished degrees vary widely from student to student, although there has not been a common language to talk about them nor a method to analyze their costs. The development of a simple definition of attrition, as well as a methodology that can be used with existing data to assign costs to it, is the focus of this effort. Guided by advice from a group of postsecondary education policy and data experts, this work sets forth the following: (1) A clear definition of attrition that can be used by institutions and policymakers to develop benchmarks and measure performance; (2) A methodology for assigning institutional production costs to attrition, both for national data sets and for states that wish to pursue a similar analysis; (3) Identification of benchmarks that can serve as the basis for setting goals and measuring performance in reducing attrition; (4) Suggestions of ways to use data on attrition and its costs to inform state-and system-level policy choices and budgets, including performance funding; and (5) Dissemination of the project's findings to leaders and decision makers around the country. "Beginning Postsecondary/Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System Analysis: Definitions and Methodology" is appended. (Contains 7 tables, 2 figures, and 4 footnotes. A static illustration (a spreadsheet) accompanies this report.)

In 1960, the State of California adopted a Master Plan for Higher Education which was a three tiered plan intended to channel students according to their ability to either the University of California, the California State University or the California community colleges and a plan which limited the doctoral and research missions to the University of California The Master Plan was adopted during the great post World War II growth period in California attendant to an overall optimistic future for the Golden State. In the immediate years following the adoption of the Plan, the University of California leadership expanded the number of UC campuses from six to nine and plunged ahead in anticipation of robust enrollment demand despite concerns and misgivings of many within the established University that such growth would diminish the resource base (and hence the quality) for the established campuses (including Berkeley, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and in addition since the nineteen fifties, Santa Barbara, and Riverside). The campuses born in the 1960s, San Diego, Irvine and Santa Cruz, were intended to adhere to both the teaching and research missions of the University of California and this expectation would clearly demand significant resources. During the tenure of the great President Clark Kerr (1958-1967) additional future campuses were anticipated and discussed, but not actually planned. In the 1980s, a new President, David P. Gardner (1983-1191), also with growth on his mind, introduced a plan to both achieve budget wins in the State Capital, Sacramento, and to expand the number of campuses to continue to meet the Master Plan promise for the top tier of California students bound for college. But by the beginning of the 1990s, California was suffering extensive pangs due to growth, a massive "Tax Revolt", with dire implications for state funded services, rapidly changing demographics and concomitant significant pressure on state and local services, and an emergent environmental movement which challenged unfettered development. Thus when the plan was introduced to build at least one more University of California campus, great skepticism and enormous challenges confronted the various leaders who gradually, very gradually steered the course towards a tenth University of California campus. This paper is a summary of the political history both within the State of California and within the University of California, which led to the eventual successful development of the University of California, Merced, the tenth campus of the UC system. While this effort was eventually successful, very much against the odds, the final word is that with the Great Recession of 2008-09, it unlikely that this feat could be repeated. (Contains 39 endnotes.)

In this paper the author offers practical advice for decision-makers who are struggling to rein in college costs while improving productivity. He provides a step-by-step guide to different approaches for calculating costs, highlights the tremendous variability in cost across programs within institutions, and documents some of the "hidden costs" of higher education. Rather than cut budgets across the board, as many cash-strapped schools have done, the author argues that budget decisions should be grounded in clear and reliable data that prioritize performance and productivity. For policymakers interested in spending higher education dollars more strategically, the author offers five simple "rules of the road" that should inform efforts to link finance more tightly to institutional performance: (1) Not all certificates and degrees cost the same or produce the same benefits; (2) Private universities show where growth is (and isn't) possible without massive subsidies; (3) Seek economies of scale where appropriate; (4) Do not confuse enrollments with degrees; and (5) Past performance may not indicate future results. (Contains 5 tables, 1 figure and 30 endnotes.)

Stories abound about the staffing cuts that will have to be made currently, and in the next couple of years, as the ripple effects of the economic crisis impact local and state education budgets. Major budget cuts make teacher layoffs a near inevitability. This raises two very timely questions: what now determines which teachers are laid off, and is that policy best for students? A significant body of empirical research shows that the specific teachers to which students are assigned can have dramatic effects on their achievement. Research by economist Eric Hanushek (1992), for instance, estimates that the difference between having a very effective versus a very ineffective teacher can be as much as a full year's learning growth. So are the significant differences in teacher effectiveness part of the equation when making tough decisions about which teachers will lose their jobs? The research described in this paper suggests that the answer to this question is a definitive "no." Empirical analysis reflects what is hard-wired into collective bargaining agreements (CBAs): seniority is the most important factor when deciding which teachers are laid off. Not only does this seniority-driven system not consider teacher effectiveness, but it also results in substantially more teachers being laid off to achieve specific budget targets because senior teachers, whose jobs are protected, earn more than novice teachers. This research also tellingly finds that the novice teachers laid off are often more effective than the senior teachers left behind. Looking at Washington state data on teacher effectiveness and teacher layoffs, this research finds that current layoff policy could lead to students losing 2 to 4 months of learning in the year after the layoffs. (Contains 2 tables, 4 figures and 33 endnotes.)

In the midst of the global recession, how have national governments viewed the role of higher education in their evolving strategies for economic recovery? Demand for higher education generally goes up during economic downturns. Which nations have proactively protected funding for their universities and colleges to help maintain access, to help retrain workers, and to mitigate unemployment rates? And which nations have simply made large funding cuts for higher education in light of the severe downturn in tax revenues? This essay provides a moment-in-time review of the fate of higher education among a number of OECD nations and other countries, with a particular focus on the United States, and on California--the largest state in terms of population "and" in the size of its economy. Preliminary indicators show that most nations have not thus far resorted to uncoordinated cutting of funding for higher education that we generally see in US state systems. Their political leaders see higher education as a key to short-term economic recovery, long-term competitiveness, and often their own political viability--particularly in nations with upcoming elections. Further, although this is speculative, it appears that many nations are using the economic downturn to actually accelerate reform policies, some intended to promote efficiencies, but most focused on improving the quality of their university sector and promoting innovation in their economies. One might postulate that the decisions made today and in reaction to the "Great Recession" by nations will likely speed up global shifts in the race to develop human capital, with the US probably losing some ground. The Obama administration's first stimulus package helped mitigate large state budget cuts to public services in 2009-10 and to support expanded enrollments largely at the community college level. But it was not enough to avoid having universities and colleges lay off faculty and staff, reduce salaries and benefits, often eliminating course offerings that slow student progress towards a degree, or making sizable reductions in access in states such as California. States have very limited ability to borrow funds for operating costs, making the federal government the last resort. "In short, how state budgets go, so goes US higher education; whereas most national systems of higher education financing is tied to national budgets with an ability to borrow." Without the current stimulus funding, the impact on access and maintaining the health of America's universities would have been even more devastating. But that money will be largely spent by the 2011 fiscal year (Oct 2010-Sept 2011), unless Congress and the White House renew funding support on a similar scale for states that are coping with projected large budget gaps. That now seems unlikely. The Obama administration announced its proposed 2011 budget in February, including $25 billion in state aid targeted for Medicaid. This is a modest contribution to states that face projected cumulative budget deficits of $142 billion in 2011, and there is uncertainty regarding the final federal budget. This is because Obama's proposal will be debated and voted on in a Congress increasingly focused on stemming the tide of rising federal budget deficits. Without substantially more federal aid to state governments, many public colleges and universities will face another major round of budget cuts. There is the prospect that higher education degree production rates in the US will dip in the near term, particularly in states like California that have substantially reduced access to higher education even as enrollment demand has gone up. (Contains 49 footnotes and 4 figures.) [A version of this paper was presented at the Beijing Forum, University of Peking, November 7, 2009.]

With California's public higher education system facing massive funding cuts and an increasingly diverse demography, the University of California recently established a commission to discuss policy options to shape the future of the ten campus system. The University of California Commission on the Future is chaired by UC Board of Regent Russell S. Gould and consists of other board members, faculty, a number of campus Chancellors, and representatives of the students, staff, alumni, and the business and labor communities. The commission will use working groups to reach out to the entire UC community and an array of experts inside and outside the system--including California State University and the state's community colleges--to re-examine key questions, including: How can UC best meet the needs of California and at the same time maintain access, quality and affordability in a time of diminishing resources? What educational delivery models will both maintain quality and improve efficiency for the university's future? What is the appropriate size and shape of the university going forward?; How can traditional and alternative revenue streams be maximized in support of UC's mission? This paper is a version of the presentation provided by UC President Emeritus Richard Atkinson to the commission on November 12, 2009. (Contains 2 footnotes.)

Enrollment increased slightly at both the California State University and University of California systems in fall 2020, but the effects of the pandemic on enrollment in the California Community College system are mostly unknown and might differ substantially from the effects on 4-year colleges. This paper provides the first analysis of how the pandemic impacted enrollment patterns and the academic outcomes of community college students using administrative college-level panel data covering the universe of students in the 116-college California Community College system. We find that community college enrolment dropped precipitously in fall 2020 -- the total number of enrolled students fell by 4 percent in spring 2020 and by 15 percent in fall 2020 relative to the prior year. All racial and ethnic groups experienced large enrollment decreases in spring and fall 2020, but African-American and Latinx students experienced the largest drops at 17 percent in fall 2020. Enrollment fell the most for first-year students in the community college system, basic skills courses, and fields such as engineering/industrial technology, education, interdisciplinary studies, and art. There were smaller decreases for continuing students, academic courses transferable to four-year institutions, and business and science fields. Enrollment losses were felt throughout the entire community college system, and there is no evidence that having a large online presence in prior years protected colleges from these effects. In terms of course performance, there was a larger disruption to completion rates, withdrawal rates, and grades in spring 2020 than in fall 2020. These early findings of the effects of the pandemic at community colleges, which serve higher percentages of lower-income and minority students, have implications for policy, impending budgetary pressures, and future research. [Note: Data from fall 2020 might overstate enrollment losses due to misinterpretation of data that coincides with variation in college/district submission and verification as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The California Community College Chancellor's Office is reviewing the processes in consultation with college and district stakeholders to produce complete, accurate, and verified revised data.]

Disciplines codify related knowledge and have developed powerful approaches that enable both solutions to a wide variety of problems and efficient further extension of knowledge. Individual disciplines have translated into individual departments within universities. Academic departments tend to turn inward, deepening the knowledge within the discipline. Because of this inwardness, the differing methodological approaches among disciplines, and the reward systems within disciplines and universities, it is difficult for faculty to reach outside their disciplines and departments, so as to share knowledge and/or mine knowledge at the intersections of disciplines. However, world needs and opportunities are increasingly complex and require integrated, in-depth contributions from multiple disciplines for progress. Means for universities to encourage and facilitate multidisciplinary activities include organizational structure, incentive budgeting, and leadership and resources that enable directors of multidisciplinary units to negotiate effectively with academic department chairs. Major competitive initiatives involving large resources have proven particularly effective. New universities have opportunities for multidisciplinary research and teaching that would be much more difficult within existing universities. Today's university graduates must be able to work effectively with persons from other disciplines and understand enough of the basic vocabulary and methodologies of other disciplines to enable that collaboration. A liberal undergraduate education addresses those needs, where the definition of "liberal" encompasses courses reflecting many different disciplines, including the natural sciences and even some engineering. Professions are properly placed at the graduate level, built upon a foundational liberal education. Engineering should join the other professions by changing to that structure. (Contains 23 endnotes.)

In 1960, California developed a "master plan" for its already famed public higher education system. It was and continues to be arguably the single most influential effort to plan the future of a system of higher education in the annals of American higher education. Despite popular belief, however, the California Master Plan for Higher Education is more important for what it preserved than what it created. There is much confusion regarding exactly how the Master Plan came about, what it said and did not say, and what portions of it are still relevant today. This essay provides a brief historical tour on how California developed its pioneering higher education system, what the 1960 Master Plan accomplished, and a discussion on the current problems facing this system in the midst of the Great Recession. The immense success of California's network of public colleges and universities has been its historic accomplishment of what I have called in a previous book, "The California Idea": the goal of broad access combined with the development of high quality, mission differentiated, and affordable higher education institutions first articulated by California Progressives. Historically, this system has been a great success, with an ability to grow with the state's population and effectively meet rising demand for access to higher education. However, the fiscal health and productivity of California's higher education system has eroded over the past three or so decades. The Great Recession has greatly accelerated this trajectory. Over the past two years, public funding for higher education has been reduced by some $1 billion. Tuition and fees have climbed, but have not produced sufficient revenue to mitigate large budget cuts. The University of California and the California State University have limited enrollment for the first time, and in the midst of growing enrollment demand. This has pushed more students toward the California's community colleges, but they too are unable to meet demand as they cut academic staff and reduce course offerings. There is the prospect of a new round of large budget cuts in the 2010-11 fiscal year as federal stimulus funds for state governments are exhausted. California is projected to grow from its current 37 million people to some 60 million in 2050. In addition, President Obama has set a national goal for the US to once again have among the highest educational attainment rates in the world. This would require the nation to produce over 8 million additional degrees; California's "fair share" would be approximately 1 million additional degrees--a number made larger, because of the state's current rank among the bottom ten states in degree production relative to the size of its population. This raises a number of big questions: Can California sustain the system as outlined by the 1960 Master Plan? Even if it can, is it, as the British say, "fit for purpose?" Or is it outdated for producing robust levels of socioeconomic mobility and the trained labor needed for tomorrow's economy? How can California retain the "California Idea" of broad access and quality academic programs? While adequate funding is a major variable, this essay identifies a number of serious problems with the structure of California's higher education system that make meeting Obama's goal extremely difficult, if not impossible to achieve. These include macro effects of too many part-time students, an imbalance in 2-year and 4-year college enrollment, inadequate financial aid, and the need for a new public college and university funding model. A failure to pursue "smart growth" in the public higher education system will lead to a "Brazilian Effect," in which for-profits expand dramatically to help partially fill growing demand for higher education probably at possibly even greater cost to students and government, and with often low-quality academic degree programs. (Contains 25 footnotes and 9 figures.)

The pending Referendum 55 (R-55), allowing for the emergence of charter schools in Washington State, raises questions about the overall fiscal impact of these new public schools at the state and local levels. Specifically, what potential benefits or losses might the State of Washington and local school districts expect if Referendum 55 passes? Utilizing examples from the research and other states where charter schools exist, this paper discusses fiscal implications for the State and finds that: 1) Charter schools will lead to modest increases in state spending; 2) The impact on individual district budgets is likely to be small given the legislation's limit of 45 new charter schools in the state over the next six years; 3) The impact of students transferring to charter schools will likely have a small effect on district budgets compared to the normal enrollment shifts districts face presently as students transfer to new schools outside of their boundaries; and 4) School districts are allowed to keep up to 3% of a charter school's state and local funds to compensate for any additional oversight responsibilities. The three sections of this paper provide an overview of how charter schools in Washington would be funded, followed by discussions of the fiscal implications at the state and local level if the charter law passed by the Washington Legislature in 2004 is implemented as planned.

The federal government's student loan programs for higher education convey substantial financial benefits to borrowers because of their broad availability and favorable terms. Of the various provisions included in a federal student loan contract, the option to consolidate individual loans contributes greatly to a borrower's benefits and the cost of the program to the government and taxpayers. The changes scheduled to take effect in July 2006 fundamentally change the terms of the student loan program, fixing the interest rate on original and consolidated loans at 6.8 percent and 6.875 percent, respectively. This will greatly reduce the cost of these loans to the government. The analysis in this paper illustrates the financial costs to the government that would result from policy alternatives that have existed or been considered in the past. It also applies to options that might be considered by the Congress for use in other credit programs. The following are appended: (1) Assumptions Underlying the Cost Estimates in This Analysis; and (2) The Economics of the Consolidation Option. (Contains 1 table, 1 figure, and 26 footnotes.)

This paper discusses the allocation of resources to retention efforts, and whether community college administrators should utilize a cost/benefit rationale. The author intends to provide a conceptual framework within which a broad range of choices regarding retention rates might be better understood. The author quotes Victor Fuchs in support of his arguments. According to Fuchs, the romantic view of reality assumes that resources are unlimited in relation to human wants. The monotechnic view presumes that most problems have a technological aspect, and those trained in that technology should be allowed to find solutions to the problem. In contrast with the romantic and monotechnic view, economic rationality is concerned with balancing societal costs and benefits of the many demands made upon scarce resources. Here, the social optimum is the point at which the benefit from an additional increment of education equals the cost of the resources used to attain that increment. The paper also presents the Equi-marginal Principle, which suggests that the consumer makes choices that allow "the greatest bang for the buck." This principle should and can be applied to choices within the educational sector, according to the article. (NB)

This paper is designed to provide the reader with a map of how government funding of post-16 education and training provision in Great Britain operates, with a particular focus on Training and Enterprise Council (TEC) and Further Education Funding Council (FEFC) funding streams. It also outlines some consequences current funding arrangements have for skills delivery. Following an introduction, section 2 considers how work-based training supplied by TECs is funded. This covers the way in which funds are allocated from central government to the government offices for the regions and how funds are then passed on to TECs. The section provides evidence on the varied and less than transparent ways that TECs use to fund training providers. These differences are highlighted with examples taken from existing provider contracts. Section 3 reviews evidence on the impact these funding arrangements have for the nature of skills delivery. Sections 4 and 5 shift the focus onto the funding of further education. Section 4 considers how the FEFC provides financial support to the 435 institutions it funds. The impact of the FEFC funding methodology on skills supply is the subject of section 5. The paper concludes with a summary. (Appendixes include lists of abbreviations and 83 references.) (YLB)

This document is a compilation of substantive legislative issues papers concerning the Florida Community College System in 2001. It examines the following six legislative issues, considered to be of high visibility and importance: (1) issues included in the budget, which consist of funding formulas, dual enrollment, and matching grants; (2) issues with funding implications, which include the Associate of Science degree and workforce formula, adult education funding, accelerated workforce education, rates for electronically delivered instruction, in-state tuition for military, information technology training, student fees, in-state tuition and fees, and the diversity inclusion model; (3) education governance reorganization issues; (4) access issues involving financial aid; (5) regulatory licensing issues, which are comprised of nursing ratio, opticianry, and the Florida building code; and (6) other issues that include workforce tax credits, federal workforce funds, the Administrative Procedures Act rulemaking, retirement plans, and reports reduction. The document also examines the two legislative watch issues of contiguous county tuition and apprenticeships. (KP)

This brief was derived from the discussions of [New England Resource Center for Higher Education's] NERCHE's think tank for coordinators of GEAR UP school-college partnerships. The insights of these coordinators point to the principle that it is the quality of the relationships among the partners that determines the effectiveness of multi-institutional collaborations. This means then that those who support and invest in multi-institutional collaborations should also focus on supporting the process of partnership building. But what does this mean in practical terms? It means being strategic right from the beginning in the design of grant structures, and throughout the relationship with the grantees. This brief provides examples of the kinds of structures and purposeful actions that build effective partnerships. The examples and the recommendations that follow are intended primarily for project funders but are relevant for all those involved in higher education collaborations. Both the funders and the grantees need to advocate for partnership building as a sound investment strategy.