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…

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…

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.…

This paper reports on research conducted with staff employed in the Australian higher education sector during the COVID-19 pandemic. The sector has been significantly impacted, particularly those institutions heavily reliant on revenue from international student enrolments. Universities moved swiftly to introduce cost-savings measures such as,…

Over the past 50 years, student activists and community organizers on college campuses have advocated for divestment as a strategy to enact necessary change. These activists and organizers are often tasked to confront the higher education elite, such as trustees, with these demands. Higher education institutions will only continue to face immense…

Higher education is in crisis. Revenues from all sources are expected to decrease at both public and private universities. The current crisis will raise existential questions for small and mid-tier institutions. Only universities with massive endowments and highly competitive admissions will escape the effects of the coming enrollment cliff.…

After 40 years as a hardworking and productive academic, here I was on a Zoom call fronting two senior colleagues telling me I no longer appeared on the new 'organisational chart'. In short, I was being made redundant. It was no surprise really, as another 40,000 professional and academic staff were to suffer the same fate. And really by then I…

Drawing on a Foucauldian theorisation and an in-depth study with eight disabled student activists in England, this paper explores how persistent marginalisation and ableism in higher education has triggered a wave of activism among disabled students, who, just before the advent of the pandemic, had organised a structured movement, Disabled…

Community social capital is an important mechanism for collective efficacy and civic engagement to address problems of public concern. Using panel data from four periods spanning nearly 20 years, this study investigated the effects of a federal policy supporting service-learning in higher education on community social capital as measured by an…

College and University Instructional Physical Activity Programs (C/U IPAP) are in decline worldwide. Therefore, it has become paramount that leaders in the field of Kinesiology establish effective means of defending, establishing, and growing these instructional physical activity programs. The focus of this article is to provide recommendations…

Public colleges and universities depend heavily on state appropriations and legislatures must decide how much to fund higher education. This study applies punctuated equilibrium theory to characterize the distribution of annual changes in higher education appropriations and defines the threshold for a dramatic budget cut. Using data for the 50…

At a time when universities internationally participate in continual processes of restructuring, repositioning and reprioritising, calls for 'voluntary' redundancy among teaching and learning staff become frequent events. Australian and New Zealand academics, whose stories inform this study, have, particularly, been made subject to severance,…

Much development has happened in the education sector in African countries. In Kenya, there has been a proliferation of institutions of higher learning. Severe cuts in government funding for public higher education have resulted in the privatization of higher education and the need for adjunct faculty as a way to cut costs. Research suggests that…

New America and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) partnered to track responses of state higher education agencies and systems on how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected state funding for public higher education. The pandemic has depressed economic activity and led to increased costs for states, both of which can…