College experiences can contribute to teaching, learning, and instruction within higher education. The framework for this essay treats the college community as prototypic of the U.S. political society. Several aspects of the national political culture have been approximated within a collegiate culture. For example, every political problem within…

What should teachers do on the days after major events, tragedies, and traumas, especially when injustice is involved? This beautifully written book features teacher narratives and youth-authored student spotlights that reveal what classrooms do and can look like in the wake of these critical moments. Dunn incisively argues for the importance of…

This article reports a quasi-experimental study that assessed whether purposeful political engagement efforts in the general education classroom, coupled with co-curricular programming, enhances student interest in politics and political efficacy. The subjects of the study were students in political science general education courses at a…

In the U.S., state politicians directly influence legislation and budget decisions that can substantially affect public education spending and students. Does the political party of elected officials matter for these outcomes? We use a regression discontinuity design to analyze close house and gubernatorial elections from 1982 to 2016 and find that…

In Fall 2022, the U.S. Education Department unveiled a drastic overhaul of federal student loan policies. The new rules serve as a key vehicle to advance the Biden administration's higher education agenda. However, some of the final regulations look quite different from the policy proposals initially outlined in President Joe Biden's campaign…

The study, undertaken in the United States, investigates the lived experiences of instructors whose courses focus on gender/feminism, queer/LGBT, and race/ethnicity studies in response to the post-2016 US election's divisive socio political climate. Instructors' preparation, content, and teaching were influenced by political and pop-culture events…

When U.S. Sen. Barack Obama launched his bold bid in 2007 for the presidency of the United States, the contingency of college-aged voters was paramount to deciding the outcome of the election. As in past big election years, college students mobilized in large numbers, that year mostly rallying to Obama's call to help him lead a major turnaround in…

The 2010 elections marked the 112th time in U.S. history that Americans went to the polls to elect representation at all levels of government. In all, they elected 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, 37 members of the U.S. Senate, 37 governors and more than 6,100 state legislators. Anxious and frustrated voters made their voices…

Viewers tuning into the Republican presidential debate on September 22, 2011, witnessed Texas Governor Rick Perry repeatedly defend his state's policy of offering in-state tuition to some undocumented students against a wave of criticism from the other candidates. The sight of a staunchly conservative governor, a champion of small government,…

In this article, Amy N. Farley, Matthew N. Gaertner, and Michele S. Moses examine the use of ballot initiatives as a particularly attractive form of direct democracy for opponents of affirmative action in higher education. Building on previous scholarship, the authors question whether anti-affirmative ballot initiatives validly reflect voters'…

This article elaborates a model of social democratic and conservative discourses in relation to access, financing, management, and results of higher education. The model is contrasted with the position of the Conservative Party and the Labour Party in the United Kingdom from the late 1970s to 2010 as expressed in their electoral manifestos. The…

Given the importance of the upcoming Presidential election, not only to the nation as a whole but to higher education, this article presents a set of letters to the President-elect from a group of higher-education leaders: Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings; Molly Broad, president of the American Council on Education; Sir John Daniel,…

The next President will make decisions that determine our nation's place in the 21st century. We remain the world's military and economic superpower, yet at home and abroad we face economic and national security challenges to our leadership with serious consequences for future generations of Americans. During the 2008 presidential campaign,…

During the three presidential debates this fall, both John McCain and Barack Obama opened by thanking their university hosts. If not for their locations, it's likely one would not have heard the words "college," "university," or "higher education" even uttered in the debates. Indeed, it wasn't until the final debate that Senator McCain mentioned…

The authors evaluate the positions of the 2008 Presidential Primary Candidates, and rate the quality of information provided by their campaign websites. Personal insights on the issue are offered as well. (Contains 3 tables.) [This document was published by the Educational Policy Institute (EPI).]