Public higher education in the United States (US) is funded through two primary forms: one is through state higher education appropriation funds, and the other is student financial aid that is directly given to students. Increasing postsecondary full-time equivalent (FTE) enrollment and graduation rate are becoming a crucial economic priority in…

The authors of this statement call for a recommitment to shared governance, including meaningful faculty involvement and the consultation of scholars in the humanities before making decisions to eliminate academic programs. Furthermore, they stand for fair treatment and equitable working conditions for faculty, graduate instructors, and staff…

Higher education has long been seen as a vehicle for social mobility for individuals and an engine for national advancement. Yet, over the years, as governments worldwide have faced competing priorities and declining revenues due to economic challenges, funding for post-secondary institutions has been negatively impacted. For example, in the…

In the past decades, the development of higher education institutions (HEIs) in industrialized countries has become intertwined with innovation policy and the goal of national competitiveness. Focusing on the discourses on innovation by the Ministry of Education and Culture (MEC), this article illustrates the transformation of Finnish higher…

Staff positions are often the first to go when colleges cut budgets. Over time, position elimination can destroy the career ladders on which employees based their plans. This chapter outlines how that dynamic emerged, and how the "guided pathways" movement may push against it.

Due to ongoing financial cuts and budget restraints, community colleges have turned to alumni association fundraising to support their mission and advance their institution. Fundraising for any organization is challenging, but community college alumni institutions have a more difficult time than their university counterparts in recruiting alumni…

State funding for public higher education institutions is crucial in supporting college access and completion, particularly among students from historically under-represented groups, yet little is known about the mechanisms that states use to allocate funds and how they are affected by financial challenges. This article provides the first detailed…

This study examines grading patterns during one intuition's transition to a responsibility center management (RCM) budget model. RCM is intended to focus an institution on resource growth and cost control, and the model incentivizes and rewards these behaviors. The adoption of RCM is becoming more widespread across the United States, especially as…

Last summer, the National Education Association (NEA) developed a New Business Item to explore retrenchment: "The NEA shall make a statistical study on the effect of significant faculty retrenchment at community colleges on future faculty cuts" (NBI 78, 2022). ASA Research (ASA) conducted exploratory research in an attempt to identify…

This article analyses the process of reforming the governance of Danish universities, from an anthropological perspective. Observers saw that the assemblage of steering concepts, tools and mechanisms in the 2003 Danish university law could be articulated in two contrary ways: one would make the university into a "power force" with ideas…

There is a deepening divide between higher education institutions that can sustain themselves fiscally in the wake of declines in state funding and those institutions that are struggling to sustain needed revenues. This research analyzes changes in revenue patterns from 2000-2015 in Midwestern public four-year colleges and universities to the…

This article uses 30 years of investigatory and special reports by the American Association of University Professors' Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure to understand how retrenchment and restructuring practices have been enacted on ways detrimental to both individual and the corporate faculty. Informed by changes in the logics in higher…

College and university leaders are fighting the battle of their lives to maximize their institutions' financial wellbeing. With COVID-19 further weakening institutions' financial positions, are there any hidden sources of savings still to be had? The answer, often, is yes--even for the many institutions who have already made substantial cuts. It…

The purpose of this study is to understand how strategy and strategic decision-making have contributed to financial strength at those small, private, non-profit, less-selective, tuition-dependent institutions with small endowments that have established financial stability. Interviews were conducted of participants at three institutions, including…

Discussion of the rising price of higher education and associated student debt in America has been a key feature of political discourse in recent memory, with renewed interest sparked by the announcement of the student loan forgiveness plan. Federal student debt has increased by 756% since 1995, and total student debt tripled from 2007 to 2022.…