State University No More: Out-of-State Enrollment and the Growing Exclusion of High-Achieving, Low-Income Students at Public Flagship Universities

State flagship universities are facing an identity crisis. Will they continue a historic dedication to economic equity, or will they become instruments of social stratification?Although the admissions practices of private selective colleges are frequently featured in media coverage, public flagship universities enroll seven times as many Pell Grant recipients. However, these "engines of social mobility" are increasingly crowding out high-achieving, low-income students.The Great Recession brought dramatic cuts to higher education appropriations and in response, flagship universities are enrolling more out-of-state students. These students offset university budgets by paying higher tuition but often, they demonstrate lower academic achievement and higher participation in partying

Paying for Default: Change Over Time in the Share of Federal Financial Aid Sent to Institutions with High Student Loan Default Rates

Both federal spending on financial aid and student loan default rates have increased over the past decade. These trends have intensified policymakers’ concerns that some postsecondary institutions— particularly in the for-profit sector—maximize revenue derived from federal financial aid without helping students to graduate or find employment. Prior studies have analyzed federal financial aid disbursements and student loan default rates in isolation from one another. Therefore, little is known about how much federal aid flows through colleges with high student loan default rates. The present study examines change over time and across sectors in the share of federal financial aid disbursed to institutions with “low,” “medium,” and “high” student loan default rates. We found that the share of federal student aid flowing through colleges with medium and high student loan default rates increased substantially from 2007-08 to 2012-13, but declined in 2013-14 as the national job market improved. However, the reduction in federal financial aid disbursed to for-profit institutions with high student loan default rates occurred prior to the national job-market recovery, suggesting that federal regulations helped to divert federal financial aid from poor-performing institutions

In Pursuit of Revenue and Prestige: the Adoption and Production of Master's Degrees by U.S. Colleges and Universities.

I propose a research program on the pursuit of enrollments from desired student populations. Non-prestigious institutions grow enrollments because excess enrollment capacity undermines organizational survival. Prestigious institutions maintain selective enrollments because prestige depends on the academic profile of undergraduate enrollments. Both types of institutions have an incentive to expand master’s degree programs. For non-prestigious institutions, master’s degree programs increase total enrollments while diversifying customer base. For prestigious institutions, revenues from master’s degrees subsidize the pursuit of prestige in undergraduate education. Chapter 3 analyzes the adoption and production of master’s degrees. I derive hypotheses from human capital theory, resource dependence theory, and literature on the pursuit of prestige. I test hypotheses on a panel of institutions from 1975 to 2009. I find that the production of master’s degrees increases in response to declines in alternative revenues (e.g., endowment). Liberal arts colleges respond to declines in their core constituency of freshmen enrollments by adopting interdisciplinary, professional master’s degrees (e.g., business) but not technical degree programs requiring significant prerequisites (e.g., engineering). Chapter 4 investigates “mission drift” in liberal arts colleges. I define mission drift as the abandonment of the liberal arts college “template” in favor of the comprehensive university template. I argue that liberal arts colleges become universities to increase enrollments and diversify their customer base. Becoming a university is defined as deleting the word “college” and adding “university” to the organizational name. I develop a framework to study the causes of becoming a university by drawing on market, institutional, and social network factors. I test hypotheses on a panel of all liberal arts colleges from 1975 to 2009. I find that the probability of becoming a university increases when socially proximate institutions have previously become universities. Strong non-tuition revenues and strong market position decrease the probability of becoming a university, while declines in freshmen enrollments and prior adoption of professional master’s degrees increase the probability. The results for Chapters 3 and 4 complement one another: liberal arts colleges adopt master’s degrees to grow enrollments and diversify customer base (Chapter 3); liberal arts colleges become universities to expand master’s degree production (Chapter 4).Ph.D.Higher EducationUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/89706/1/ozanj_1.pd

Funding for Performance and Equity: Student Success in English Further Education Colleges.

The impact of performance funding on community college student outcomes is a contested issue. Performance funding policies in most U.S. states involve too small a proportion of funding to change college behavior. English further education colleges are similar to U.S. community colleges. 1992 policy reforms in England centralized policy control, and implemented a per-pupil funding formula; 10% of all funding is based on student success but other components of the funding formula pay colleges more money for enrolling disadvantaged students. This research uses five years of student level data to test the impact of these policies. Overall student success rates rose by 10% during the five-year period, with the largest gains made by ethnic minorities, adult basic education students, and students from disadvantaged neighborhoods. Although the English system depends on regulatory agencies that do not exist in the U.S., the major assertion of this research is that market-based funding policies˜if properly designed˜can promote equity in educational achievement

Running in place: Low-income students and the dynamics of higher education stratification. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis

The increasing concentration of wealthy students at highly selective colleges is widely perceived, but few analyses examine the underlying dynamics of higher education stratification over time

A Sociological Analysis of Structural Racism in “Student List” Lead Generation Products

Colleges identify prospective students by purchasing “student lists.” Student list products are selection devices that use search filters to select students. Drawing from the sociology of race, we conceptualize some filters as “racialized inputs,” defined as inputs that are correlated with race because disadvantaged racial groups have historically been excluded from the input. Using a national sample of high school students, we explore the relationship between racialized search filters and the racial composition of included versus excluded students. Using data about actual lists purchased by public universities, we investigate how college administrators utilize racialized search filters. We discuss implications for federal and state policy. We motivate policy research about structural racism embedded in selection devices that allocate students to opportunities.kresge foundationImmediate accessThis item from the UA Faculty Publications collection is made available by the University of Arizona with support from the University of Arizona Libraries. If you have questions, please contact us at [email protected]