American Public Higher Education Research Articles

Critical Inquiry in and Against 21st-Century Authoritarian Times

This paper forwards critical inquiry as a tool for hope against authoritarian movements in American public higher education. We utilize a speculative case study approach to interrogate the present moment, with its rising tide of authoritarian fascism in the United States and its manifestations in higher education. Rather than viewing this case (and its analogue) as solvable, we orient to it as a predicament. After introducing the problem of authoritarianism in higher education and presenting a speculative case rendering of it, we shift to explore three critical theories: queer theory, futures studies, and speculative feminisms. We use each of these theories to reorient the predicament the case study presents. To read the case with these theories enacts critical anticipatory practices, offering new questions by which to teach and inquire with critical theory in our present fascistic moment. Such enactments spark hope for imagining participatory democratic futures.

A Theory of Public Higher Education

Abstract What would American public higher education look like if it was unencumbered by its own history? What if it were designed from scratch today, in full view of everything we have come to know about student learning, schooling, and our projections about the future of knowledge and work? This thought experiment project does just that. After justifying the need for a thoroughgoing redesign now, the backward-designed axiomatic approach is used to determine the essential features of public education, which are assembled into a model that centers teamed learning and is organized around authentic questions from learners or their community.

Nearly-efficient tuitions and subsidies in American public higher education

A two-stage setting for determining subsidies and tuitions in a public university context is developed where fixed costs introduce an efficiency-enhancing role for taxpayer-financed appropriations. The optimal subsidy per enrollment is shown to be proportional to students’ maximum net willingness to pay. This result extends a well-known result associated with Ramsey pricing to include endogenous appropriations to public higher education. Realistic restrictions are imposed on the subsidy structure, and scenarios for determining tuitions are addressed and illustrated numerically, using budget data for the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan.

The Changing Landscape of Tuition and Enrollment in American Public Higher Education

The Changing Landscape of Tuition and Enrollment in American Public Higher Education

Blacks and Women in Public Higher Education

ABSTRACT In this paper, we analyze the political and socioeconomic factors that may be associated with black and female employment in American public higher education. We develop representation ratios for black females, black males, white females, and white males who serve as full-time faculty members in public higher education institutions in the American states. Our analysis shows that region, in this case the South, provides the best indicator for black female and black male faculty employment in public higher education. The percentage of black state legislators is also associated with black faculty employment. For white women, we found that although they are well represented on faculties, their numbers do not reach their share of the population. None of the variables examined explained their employment as faculty members. Women as a group had a particularly weak presence in state legislatures and continue to have less political power than blacks and white males. We suggest a number of possible avenues for future research to clarify these findings.

American Public Higher Education: Changing Patterns in Governance

An attempt will be made to analyse the rapid changes which have occurred in public university governance in the United States, including the growth, extent and authority of ‘systems’, the emergence of special interest groups among trustees, and the relationship to state agencies and government. The paper will also discuss the role of the president as manager rather than leader and the consequences of that recent trend.

A general pattern for American public higher education

A general pattern for American public higher education