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The article examines reforms in state governance of public institutions of higher education in the U.S. between 1985 and 2000. The authors discuss research by public administration scholars and those who research the organization of public higher education, and they investigate why states chose the governance arrangements they did and why some states did not enact reforms. They examine economic and political factors affecting governance reforms and discuss how problems internal to higher education influence decisions. They examine a counter-conventional account of governance reform, which they call the "political instability hypothesis, investigate nine hypotheses of comparative state politics and higher education, and use event history analysis to examine social aspects of the study.