Public Policy Challenges Facing Higher Education in the American West

Public Policy Challenges Facing Higher Education in the American West is the first regional public policy study of American higher education. Presidents of the Western State Commission for Higher Education and the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, alongside nationally recognized policy analysts and current western campus presidents, provosts, and administrators, tackle seven key public policy issues facing postsecondary education in the American West: student access, federal research funding, state governance, state financing, state appropriations and their relationship to institutional tuition, distance education and technology, and the role of community colleges. These analysts, researchers, and administrators offer a clear and complete analysis of the facts of each policy situation, the public policy options, and their connections to state and university relationships. Fifteen western states, including Alaska, California, and Hawaii, comprise the expansive region under discussion. With its companion volume, Higher Education in the American West: Regional History and State Contexts, this book is essential reading for higher education policymakers, scholars, and anyone who wants to know what the relationship between states and universities in the West has been and where it is going.

"Although the volume has a regional theme, it should interest policy analysts not only in the affected states but also in other states and in national groups. The authors also analyze the influence of the region's 'political culture,' institutional arrangements for higher education, and attitudes toward public taxation astutely, while making appropriate distinctions among the states." - William M. Zumeta, Professor of Public Affairs and Higher Education, University of Washington, USA, and former President of the Association for the Study of Higher Education "The editors and the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education WICHE are to be commended for the substantive and cogent narrative and analysis presented. I am confident that scholars interested in regional history and public policy will eagerly embrace these works and that they will use them in their own teaching, writing, and research." - Amy Wells Dolan, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Higher Education, University of Mississippi, USA

Cheryl D. Blanco, Southern Regional Education Board, USAMikyung Ryu, Center for Policy Analysis, American Council on Education, USAAims C. McGuiness, Jr., National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, USADennis P. Jones, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, USACharles S. Lenth, State Higher Education Executive Officers, USAKathleen J. Zaback, State Higher Education Executive Officers, USAAndrew M. Carlson, State Higher Education Executive Officers, USAAllison C. Bell, National Center for Education Statistics, USASally M. Johnstone, Western Governors University, USAJ. Ritchie Boyd, Montana State University, USACheryl D. Lovell, Rocky Vista University, USA