The Science Of Higher Education State Higher Education Policy And The Laws Of Scale | Education

Perennial conclusions from state-by-state funding-per-student analyses of underfunding and weak state commitment have become so common that they have diluted the potency of the argument to state policymakers for more higher education funding. In addition there has been little in the way of testing or questioning the assumptions embedded in traditional funding per student analysis and its accompanying conclusions. As state legislators balance the competing needs of education health trans­portation and public safety budgets they increasingly ask what return on investment (ROI) they get for the funding they provide including from higher education. The ROI language while potentially unsettling for its corporate-like and neoliberal connotation will persist into the foreseeable future. We must ask questions both of adequacy (How much funding should the states provide?) and benefit (What benefits do states receive for the higher education funding they provide?). The focus on traditional funding per student analysis has remained static for over forty years indicating the need for new ideas and methods to probe questions of adequacy and benefit. The Science of Higher Education is an introduction to a new paradigm that explores state higher education funding enrollment completion and supply (the number and type of institutions in a state) through the lens of what are commonly known as power laws. Power laws explain patterns in biological systems and characteristics of cities. Like cities state higher educa­tion systems are complex adaptive systems so it is little surprise that power laws also explain funding enrollment completion and supply. The scale relationships uncovered in the Science of Higher Education sug­gest the potential benefits state policymakers could derive by emphasizing enrollment completion or capacity policies based on economies of scale marginal benefits and the return state’s get on enrollment and completion for the funding they provide. The various features of state higher education systems that conform to scale patterns do not alone provide definitive answers for appropriate funding levels however. As this book addresses policymakers need to take into account the macro forces from demography to geography and the economy that situate the system as well the interactions between government and market actors that are at the core of every state higher education system and influence the outcomes it achieves. |The Science of Higher Education State Higher Education Policy and the Laws of Scale | Education