State Governance Reform of Higher Education: Patterns, Trends, and Theories of the Public Policy Process

Abstract

The American campus–state relationship typically is cast in terms of a fundamental, even paradoxical, tension between the dual demands of institutional autonomy and public accountability, or between the university’s right to regulate its affairs from within and the state’s authority (and responsibility) to regulate the university’s affairs from without (Bailey, 1975; Berdahl, 1971; Carnegie Foundation, 1982; Glenny and Schmidtlein, 1983; Graham, 1989; Hines, 1988; Millet, 1982; Mortimer and McConnell, 1982; Newman, 1987; Volkwein, 1987). Because neither absolute autonomy of the campus from the state nor complete accountability of the campus to the state is likely to be feasible, the vexing question confronting policymakers is where, precisely, the line should be drawn between campus and state. The dominant pattern of the twentieth century was one of increasing involvement and intervention by state governments in the higher educa- tion sector. A large volume of literature has amassed around the interac- tions between higher education and state governments, focusing particularly on the development and functioning of different governance arrangements for higher education and on the effects of these different arrangements upon various institutional and state policy outcomes. (p. 57).