Does Publicness Matter? A Mixed Method Analysis Identifying and Measuring Institutional Contributions to State Goals for Public Higher Education

States founded, control, and fund public postsecondary institutions because higher education helps meet state goals. Public institutions of higher education provide considerable public benefits to states, but these benefits have not been systematically measured. As a result, public conversations about the broad value proposition of higher education do not center the public benefits produced by institutions. Using a framework of empirical and realized publicness, this exploratory sequential mixed-methods study used content analysis of state agency mission and vision statements to identify state goals for public higher education. Quantitative measurements of institutional contributions to common state goals for higher education were developed using exploratory factor analysis. This study examined the extent to which public institutions such as research institutions, regional comprehensive institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, and enrollment-based Minority Serving institutions provide realized publicness outcomes related to states’ goals for higher education. Random-effects and fixed-effects regression models were used to test the impacts of financial publicness, state governance structures, and state accountability on institutional realized publicness outcomes. State goals for public higher education’s contributions to society centered around providing broad access to affordability education regardless of a student’s demographic background, ensuring equal success for all students and boosting state attainment, educating the state’s workforce and providing economic development, and engaging with their communities and providing community development. The various contributions of public institutions to each of these state goals varied by the type of institution and, to a certain extent, varied based on the empirical publicness of the institution. Notably, financial publicness positively impacts institutional access and affordability incomes, and increased state authority has mixed and sometimes negative impacts on access, affordability, and workforce outcomes. This evidence indicates that the long-term trend toward privatization in higher education revenues negatively affects some of states’ primary purposes for higher education. As one of the first analyses of publicness in higher education, this study provides empirical evidence about the connection between publicness and institutional outcomes, which may aid state policymakers as they consider changes in their funding allocations, governance structure, and measures of accountability for higher education

COVID-19, Asian American and Native American-Serving Institutions, and Minority-Serving Institutions: Examining Federal Funding from the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act and the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act

This article examines and interrogates the formulas used to determine funding at both the designation and institutional levels for Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), in the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations Act (CRRSAA); as well as general annual appropriations for MSIs and AANAPISIs. In doing so, the authors aim to facilitate a greater understanding of the current AANAPISI funding landscape, while providing policy makers with new insights and implications to ensure greater equity in future appropriations for AANAPISIs and MSIs. Results indicate that AANAPISIs are severely underfunded, particularly given their large enrollment of Asian American and Pacific Islander students and high number of institutions that meet AANAPISI eligibility