Policy Diffusion in U.S. Higher Education

Abstract

Policy ideas are seldom original; they are often borrowed from other jurisdictions and sometimes adapted to the local context. This chapter reviews research on policy diffusion within the U.S. higher education context, with a focus on the diffusion of higher education policies across states. In addition to reviewing existing literature on U.S. higher education policy diffusion, we present findings from a study that examines newspaper language related to state-level performance-based funding policies for higher education. We focus on two states that considered performance-based funding but were among the few states that did not implement this higher education funding approach. By examining these two states, we are able to explore reasons for non-implementation and shed light on the phenomenon of resistance to policy diffusion.