Designing Retention Research for Assessment and Enhanced Competitive Advantage

Tertiary Education and Management - Based on a longitudinal study of entering freshmen at a selective, private college in northeastern USA, this article provides a model for designing retention...     

Why Faculty-Student Interaction Matters in the First Year Experience

Tertiary Education and Management - This paper presents a model for assessing the impact of interaction with faculty on student outcomes. Based on analyses of 1,500 freshman responses to Your First...     

State Spending on Higher Education Capital Outlays

This paper explores the role that state spending on higher education capital outlays plays in state budgets by considering the functional form of the relationship between state spending on higher education capital outlays and four types of state expenditures. Three possible functional forms are tested: a linear model, a quadratic model, and the balance wheel model. The balance wheel model posits that in good economic times, higher education is funded at a higher rate than other state budget categories. In bad economic times, higher education is often one of the first state budget categories to be cut and is cut more deeply than other state budget categories due, in part, to its ability to tap into alternative revenue streams. We find that capital outlays do not conform to the balance wheel model. Instead they appear to have a quadratic relationship with other state budget categories. We discuss the policy implications of these findings for both higher education leaders and state policymakers.