Publications

This article reviews research on what community colleges and less selective public universities can do to graduate more students at a lower cost without sacrificing access or quality.

Based on findings from a three-year study of Washington State’s Student Achievement Initiative, this policy brief offers lessons for state leaders seeking to design effective higher education performance funding systems.

This article discusses political forces that shaped performance funding policies in eight states: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, California, and Nevada.

This report assesses how and to what extent the Student Achievement Initiative has encouraged two-year public colleges in Washington State to take steps to improve student achievement.

This paper examines the performance of Washington State’s two-year colleges under the Student Achievement Initiative, a policy to reward colleges for improvements in student achievement.

This paper gives a preferred economic definition of college efficiency—fiscal and social cost per degree—and assesses the validity of using IPEDS data to calculate efficiency for a community college system.

Over the past three decades, almost half of all states have implemented some form of performance funding in an effort ...

This policy brief examines key issues raised by Washington State's experience with the Student Achievement Initiative model of performance funding for community and technical colleges.

This report discusses political forces that shaped performance funding policies in eight states: Florida, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, California, and Nevada.

The experiences of three states that dropped performance funding (Missouri, Washington, and Florida) are contrasted with those of a fourth (Tennessee) that has retained it more than 30 years.

This report examines the origins of state performance funding in six states and concludes by drawing lessons for policymakers.

The eligibility of undocumented students to apply for in-state tuition varies by state. This article analyzes the political origins of divergent responses among states, drawing on the advocacy coalition framework and policy entrepreneurship theory of policymaking.

This paper examines how performance funding systems in two states with long-lasting systems have changed over time and what political and social conditions explain the changes.

This report discusses findings and implications of a study commissioned by the College Board to inform the development of the Voluntary Framework of Accountability for Community Colleges.

To investigate the unstable institutionalization of performance funding in higher education, this paper examines the cessation of performance funding programs in Illinois, Washington, and Florida.

This report presents findings from an independent qualitative review of Washington State's Student Achievement Initiative, which rewards colleges for improvements in student outcomes.

In this paper, the author argues for a new paradigm in federal workforce education policy, one that privileges capacity-building over compliance.

This report describes what policies all 50 states have in place with respect to key community college practices in three main areas: access, success, and performance accountability.

This working paper examines the validity of the Student Right-to-Know (SRK) graduation rates as measures of community college performance.

This report provides an audit of state policies in Ohio affecting access to, and success in, community colleges for students of color and low-income students.