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Policy Considerations For Enhancing Student Access And Persistence In A World In Which Tuition Keeps Rising, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Policy Considerations For Enhancing Student Access And Persistence In A World In Which Tuition Keeps Rising, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The United States no longer leads the world in college completion rates. Inequality in college access rates by income have barely narrowed over the last 25 to 30 years and inequality in college completion rates have narrowed even less. The groups in the population that are growing the most rapidly are those that have historically been underrepresented in higher education. What types of federal policies might help to address these issues in the face of tuition levels at private colleges and universities that have risen for over a century by an average of 2 to 3.5 percent a year …
Changes In Faculty Composition Within The State University Of New York System: 1985-2001, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Daniel B. Klaff
Changes In Faculty Composition Within The State University Of New York System: 1985-2001, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Daniel B. Klaff
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The last two decades of the twentieth century saw a significant growth in the share of faculty members in American colleges and universities that are part-time or are full-time without tenure-track status. Growing student enrollments faced by academic institutions during tight financial times and growing differentials between the salaries of part-time and non-tenure track faculty on the one hand, and tenured and tenure-track faculty on the other hand, are among the explanations given for these trends. However, surprisingly, there has been no recent econometric evidence to test whether these hypotheses are true. Our study uses institutional level data provided …
The Sources And Uses Of Annual Giving At Selective Private Research Universities And Liberal Arts Colleges, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
The Sources And Uses Of Annual Giving At Selective Private Research Universities And Liberal Arts Colleges, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] While there have been numerous studies of the determinants of total annual giving and of alumni giving to institutions, including those by Bade & Sundberg (1996), Clotfelter (forthcoming), Cunningham & Cochi-Ficano (2002), Dugan, Mullin & Siegfried (1999) and Shulman & Bowen (2000), no study has sought to explain why the shares of annual giving coming from different sources varies over time or across institutions. Similarly no study has sought to explain why the share of giving going to different uses varies over time or across institutions. Our study addresses the determinants of the cross section variation in these shares …
The Changing Nature Of Faculty Employment, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang
The Changing Nature Of Faculty Employment, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The last two decades of the twentieth century saw a significant growth in the shares of faculty members in American colleges and universities that are part-time or are full-time without tenure-track status. Growing student enrollments faced by academic institutions during tight financial times and growing differentials between the salaries of part-time and full-time non-tenure track faculty on the one hand, and tenured and tenure-track faculty on the other hand are among the explanations given for these trends. However, there have been few econometric studies that seek to test these hypotheses. Our paper begins by presenting information, broken down by …
The Sources And Uses Of Annual Giving At Private Research Universities, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
The Sources And Uses Of Annual Giving At Private Research Universities, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] In 1998-99, Cornell University and Duke University were ranked second and third in the nation, respectively, in terms of the volume of giving each received from external donors. That year Cornell reported receiving $341.3 million in annual giving and Duke reported receiving $331.0 million. The similarity in the total volume of giving that the two institutions received is actually very misleading. Fifty-four percent of Cornell’s gift total came from alumni, while only 15.3% of Duke’s gift total came from alumni. Similarly, 79.7% of Cornell’s gift total came from individuals (alumni plus other individuals) while only 26.2% of Duke’s gifts …
The Perfect Storm And The Privatization Of Public Higher Education, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
The Perfect Storm And The Privatization Of Public Higher Education, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
In this paper the author discusses the various factors which have contributed to a substantial decrease in state funding for public colleges and universities, including increased strain on state tax revenues, rising tuition costs, the discrepancy between public and private institutions in endowment revenues, faculty salaries, and expenditures per student. The author argues that this “perfect storm” of contributing factors threatens the very fabric of the public education system, and paints the dire consequences that could result from the privatization of public education.
Financial Prospects For American Higher Education In The First Decade Of The Twenty-First Century, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Financial Prospects For American Higher Education In The First Decade Of The Twenty-First Century, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] In an important paper written for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Harold Hovey pointed out that even if economic growth continued, the outlook for state funding of public higher education might not be as rosy as it had been in the recent past. My objective in this paper is to speculate about the financial futures of both public and private higher education, using Hovey’s paper as a base. After outlining his argument about the hard times ahead for public higher education, I will discuss the responses that campus and system administrators may well undertake. I …
Crafting A Class: The Trade Off Between Merit Scholarships And Enrolling Lower-Income Students, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang, Jared M. Levin
Crafting A Class: The Trade Off Between Merit Scholarships And Enrolling Lower-Income Students, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang, Jared M. Levin
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] It is well-known that test scores are correlated with students’ socio-economic backgrounds. Hence to the extent that colleges are successful in “buying” higher test score students, one should expect that their enrollment of students from families in the lower tails of the family income distribution should decline. However, somewhat surprisingly, there have been no efforts to test if this is occurring. Our paper presents such a test. While institutional level data on the dollar amounts of merit scholarships offered by colleges and universities are not available, data are available on the number of National Merit Scholarship (henceforth NMS) winners …
The Suny Tuition Guarantee Proposal, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
The Suny Tuition Guarantee Proposal, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
In this paper, the author traces the causes and effects of the recent cuts in state funding of the SUNY school system and discusses the strengths and weaknesses of Chancellor Robert King’s effort to slow tuition increases and increase state funding for SUNY in his “SUNY Tuition Guarantee Proposal”.
The Supply Of American Higher Education Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
The Supply Of American Higher Education Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] An extraordinary amount of research has already been directed towards understanding the behavior of selective private institutions; Clotfelter (1996) and Ehrenberg (2000a) are but two recent examples of this research. In spite of the fact that the vast majority of American students attend public institutions, much less is known about their behavior and how the states that support them interact with them and with the private institutions within the states’ boundaries. I turn next to a summary of some of the things that we do know and a set of issues that still needs attention from researchers. In the …
Within State Transitions From 2-Year To 4-Year Public Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
Within State Transitions From 2-Year To 4-Year Public Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] Within many large states there are multiple 2-year and 4-year institutions. In 1998-99, only 19 states had less than 15 public 2-year institutions. Of the 31 states with 15 or more public 2-year institutions, only 3 had 5 or fewer public 4-year institutions. State policymakers and system administrators should want to know how well each 2-year public institution is doing in preparing those of its students who transfer to public 4-year institutions in the state to successfully complete 4-year college study. Similarly, they should want to know how successful each 4-year college in the state is in graduating those …
The Future Of Affirmative Action, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
The Future Of Affirmative Action, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
This paper, presented at the conference on Now What: Affirmative Action and Higher Education in 2004 and Beyond in Ithaca, NY, traces the barriers faced by Jews in obtaining access to higher education in the first half of the 21st century and the history of how those barriers were broken. The author then draws a parallel to the barriers faced by today’s underrepresented minorities in selective higher education and attempts to make gains in the ability of those minorites to attend public and private institutions.
Gender Equity In Intercollegiate Athletics: Determinants Of Title Ix Compliance, Deborah J. Anderson, John J. Cheslock, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Gender Equity In Intercollegiate Athletics: Determinants Of Title Ix Compliance, Deborah J. Anderson, John J. Cheslock, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Using new data on intercollegiate athletes, this article shows that recent improvement in Title IX compliance among NCAA Division I institutions was previously overestimated, and provides the first estimates of compliance in Divisions II and III. In addition, regression analyses investigate how institutional characteristics relate to the extent of non-compliance.
What A Difference A Decade Makes: Growing Wealth Inequality Among Ivy League Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
What A Difference A Decade Makes: Growing Wealth Inequality Among Ivy League Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The eight Ivy League institutions – Brown, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Pennsylvania, Princeton and Yale - are among our nations most selective undergraduate institutions. They also are among its wealthiest. They compete against each other for top faculty, graduate and undergraduate students, as well as on intercollegiate athletic fields. However, this competition has never taken place on a level “playing field” because of the vast differences in endowment resources that have always existed across the institutions. The prolonged stock market expansion during the 1990s magnified these differences in ways that many still do not fully comprehend.
Has The Growth Of Science Crowded Out Other Things At Universities?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Julia Epifantseva
Has The Growth Of Science Crowded Out Other Things At Universities?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Julia Epifantseva
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] While many faculty members associated with the arts and humanities and the social sciences bemoan what appears to be an ever increasing share of campus resources going to science, there is little hard evidence about whether the growth in science has come at the expense of other fields at universities. In this brief paper, we present an initial approach to this question, using data for a recent 20-year period from the colleges of arts and sciences at a set of selective private research universities. Specifically, we examine whether the shares of faculty positions and of the faculty salary bill …
Paying Our Presidents: What Do Trustees Value?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, John J. Cheslock, Julia Epifantseva
Paying Our Presidents: What Do Trustees Value?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, John J. Cheslock, Julia Epifantseva
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] Our study makes use of data from a panel of over 400 private colleges and universities on the salaries and benefits paid to their presidents. These data are reported annually to the Internal Revenue Service on Form 990 by the institutions. The data have been collected by, and reported in, the Chronicle of Higher Education for academic years 1992-93 through 1997-98.7 We use these data through 1996-97 and merge them with data from a number of other sources including the American Association of University Professors, the American Council on Education, Who’s Who in America, the National Association of College …
Graduate Education, Innovation And Federal Responsibility , Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Graduate Education, Innovation And Federal Responsibility , Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
This paper, presented at the ORAU/CGS Conference on Graduate Education and American Competitiveness in Washington, discusses the causes and for the drop in American PhD students across the country, and lists the implications for that trend for American competitiveness. The author argues that the mobility of graduate students, and PhD students in particular, threatens state funding for graduate education, and that an increased federal role is now necessary.
Why Universities Need Institutional Researchers More Than They Realize?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Why Universities Need Institutional Researchers More Than They Realize?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
This paper discusses the benefits of universities maintaining and utilizing institutional researchers, citing specific examples of invaluable research conducted that proved instrumental in providing data and surveys for key papers and discussions by faculty at other institutions, as well as the importance in using offices of institutional research to guide decision-making at universities.
Changes In The Academic Labor Market For Economists, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Changes In The Academic Labor Market For Economists, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] American colleges and universities are increasingly substituting non-tenure track full-time and part-time faculty for full-time tenured and tenure track faculty. Moreover, institutions of public higher education, where almost two-thirds of the full-time faculty members at four-year institutions are employed, are under severe financial pressure. The share of state budgets devoted to public higher education is declining. The salaries of economics department faculty members at public higher education institutions have fallen substantially relative to the salaries of their counterparts at private higher education institutions and it is becoming increasingly difficult for the publics to compete for top faculty in economics. …
Why Do School District Budget Referenda Fail?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Randy A. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith, Liang Zhang
Why Do School District Budget Referenda Fail?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Randy A. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith, Liang Zhang
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] Public elementary and secondary education is financed in many states at least partially at the local level and school district budgets in many states are determined by voter referenda. To date, however, there have been no studies that sought to explain why the proportion of school district budget proposals in a state that are approved by voters in referenda varies over time. Similarly no research has used panel data on school districts to test whether budget referenda failures are concentrated in a small number of school districts within a state and whether the failure of a budget referendum in …
Why Can’T Colleges Control Their Costs?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Why Can’T Colleges Control Their Costs?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] Over 30 years ago William Bowen (1967) studied data from a set of selective private institutions and concluded that their tuition levels had been rising, on average, by 2 to 3 percent more annually than the rate of inflation ever since the turn of the 20th century. He attributed this partially to the increased specialization of knowledge and the growth of new fields of study. But first and foremost, this occurred because the nature of the educational process did not permit academia to share in the productivity gains that were leading to the growth of earnings in the rest …
Do Tenured And Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang
Do Tenured And Tenure-Track Faculty Matter?, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
During the last two decades, there has been a significant growth in the share of faculty members at American colleges and universities that are employed in part-time or full-time non tenure-track positions. Our study is the first to address whether the increased usage of such faculty adversely affects undergraduate students’ graduation rates. Using institutional level panel data from the College Board and other sources, our econometric analyses suggest that the increased usage of these faculty types does adversely affect graduation rates at 4-year colleges, with the largest impact on students being felt at the public master’s level institutions.
Key Issues Facing Trustees Of National Research Universities In The Decade Ahead, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Key Issues Facing Trustees Of National Research Universities In The Decade Ahead, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] Trustees of public and private research universities have a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of their institutions. However, actions that appear to be in the private interests of their institutions may not be in the social interest and these institutions are also expected to serve society as a whole. In deciding what optimal policies are for their institutions, trustees must weigh their institutions’ private interests against the interests of society as whole. In the next section, I discuss seven examples of areas in which trustees will need to make these judgments. Privatization is occurring at both …
Policy Considerations For Enhancing Student Access And Persistence In A World In Which Tuition Keeps Rising, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Policy Considerations For Enhancing Student Access And Persistence In A World In Which Tuition Keeps Rising, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The United States no longer leads the world in college completion rates. Inequality in college access rates by income have barely narrowed over the last 25 to 30 years and inequality in college completion rates have narrowed even less. The groups in the population that are growing the most rapidly are those that have historically been underrepresented in higher education. What types of federal policies might help to address these issues in the face of tuition levels at private colleges and universities that have risen for over a century by an average of 2 to 3.5 percent a year …
The Sources And Uses Of Annual Giving At Selective Private Research Universities And Liberal Arts Colleges, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
The Sources And Uses Of Annual Giving At Selective Private Research Universities And Liberal Arts Colleges, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Christopher L. Smith
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] While there have been numerous studies of the determinants of total annual giving and of alumni giving to institutions, including those by Bade & Sundberg (1996), Clotfelter (forthcoming), Cunningham & Cochi-Ficano (2002), Dugan, Mullin & Siegfried (1999) and Shulman & Bowen (2000), no study has sought to explain why the shares of annual giving coming from different sources varies over time or across institutions. Similarly no study has sought to explain why the share of giving going to different uses varies over time or across institutions. Our study addresses the determinants of the cross section variation in these shares …
The Changing Nature Of Faculty Employment, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang
The Changing Nature Of Faculty Employment, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] The last two decades of the twentieth century saw a significant growth in the shares of faculty members in American colleges and universities that are part-time or are full-time without tenure-track status. Growing student enrollments faced by academic institutions during tight financial times and growing differentials between the salaries of part-time and full-time non-tenure track faculty on the one hand, and tenured and tenure-track faculty on the other hand are among the explanations given for these trends. However, there have been few econometric studies that seek to test these hypotheses. Our paper begins by presenting information, broken down by …
Financial Prospects For American Higher Education In The First Decade Of The Twenty-First Century, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Financial Prospects For American Higher Education In The First Decade Of The Twenty-First Century, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] In an important paper written for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Harold Hovey pointed out that even if economic growth continued, the outlook for state funding of public higher education might not be as rosy as it had been in the recent past. My objective in this paper is to speculate about the financial futures of both public and private higher education, using Hovey’s paper as a base. After outlining his argument about the hard times ahead for public higher education, I will discuss the responses that campus and system administrators may well undertake. I …
Reaching For The Brass Ring: How The U.S. News & World Report Rankings Shape The Competitive Environment In U.S. Higher Education, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Reaching For The Brass Ring: How The U.S. News & World Report Rankings Shape The Competitive Environment In U.S. Higher Education, Ronald G. Ehrenberg
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] So institutions at all places in the selectivity game are thinking about their US News & World Report (USNWR) rankings. In the next section of the paper I will discuss the formula that USNWR used to compute its rankings in its America’s Best Colleges: 2001 issue and show how the elements that constitute it have altered how colleges and universities behave. Sometimes an action taken to improve an institution’s rankings may also make educational sense. However, sometimes it may not and it may also not be in the best interest of our educational system as a whole. In the …
Declining Phd Attainment Of Graduates Of Selective Private Academic Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Jeffrey A. Groen, Matthew P. Nagowski
Declining Phd Attainment Of Graduates Of Selective Private Academic Institutions, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Jeffrey A. Groen, Matthew P. Nagowski
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] On average, the typical American citizen who received a PhD during the last 40 years did so approximately 9 years after she received her bachelor’s degree. Thus, if we divide the number of American citizens receiving PhDs in a year by the number of American citizens receiving bachelor’s degrees 9 years earlier, we obtain an estimate of the fraction of American citizen college graduates in the earlier year who ultimately receive PhDs. This fraction rose from .042 for 1954 bachelor’s recipients (1963 PhDs) to about .07 for 1962 bachelor’s recipients (1971 PhDs). The fraction then plummeted over the next …
Crafting A Class: The Trade Off Between Merit Scholarships And Enrolling Lower-Income Students, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang, Jared M. Levin
Crafting A Class: The Trade Off Between Merit Scholarships And Enrolling Lower-Income Students, Ronald G. Ehrenberg, Liang Zhang, Jared M. Levin
Ronald G. Ehrenberg
[Excerpt] It is well-known that test scores are correlated with students’ socio-economic backgrounds. Hence to the extent that colleges are successful in “buying” higher test score students, one should expect that their enrollment of students from families in the lower tails of the family income distribution should decline. However, somewhat surprisingly, there have been no efforts to test if this is occurring. Our paper presents such a test. While institutional level data on the dollar amounts of merit scholarships offered by colleges and universities are not available, data are available on the number of National Merit Scholarship (henceforth NMS) winners …