The next decade will require an entirely new kind of planning and coordination for statewide systems of higher education. In the past, quantitative growth and fiscal formulas have been stressed; in the future, planning will be forced to emphasize qualitative developments and flexible governance configurations. A Center study on state planning, based on experience in California, Florida, Illinois, and New York, led to some conclusions about its strengths and weaknesses. Some strengths of statewide planning were that it: (1) controlled the expansion of new campuses; (2) served to initiate institutional planning; (3) served to justify increasing budgets; and (4) promoted institutional differentiation. Some of its shortcomings were: (1) it did eliminate unnecessary duplication of programs; (2) it failed to integrate the private with the public sector and promote large scale cooperative efforts; (3) it gave insufficient attention to issues of quality and excellence; (4) in some states, it fragmented the higher education network; and (5) with a few exceptions, it has been an ad hoc process. On the whole, statewide planning has exerted a beneficial influence on the higher education process. To face the changing needs of the 70s, strong educational leadership will be required, as well as increasingly wide participation in planning, and heavy reliance on the special competencies of a wide variety of experts. (AF)