Finland's education system is regarded as one of the most effective in the world. Shared values of the Finnish welfare society continue to influence national education policies that determine how education is organized, governed, and led. Findings from a national study of the superintendency, however, suggest recent demographic and financial…

Most countries in South Asia are either in the middle-income bracket or moving towards it; to move up the value chain towards higher incomes, they need more skilled people and larger investments in infrastructure. The combination of globalization, technological advancement, unprecedented labour mobility, and the demographic dividend offers them…

Schools throughout the United States provide instruction on democracy, voting, and major institutions of government, but often excluded from the curriculum is a central reality of our political system: the role of money in elections. This article provides background information and pedagogical strategies to help teachers foster productive…

When former U.S. congressman and Obama administration chief of staff Rahm Emanuel marched triumphantly into the Chicago mayor's office in 2011, he promised to revamp Chicago Public Schools (CPS) in ways that had barely been contemplated in 16 years of mayoral control over the city's sprawling public-school system. This article discusses…

Ensuring college access amid rising tuition costs has hovered near the top of the nation's education agenda for years. Facing heightened concern about the student debt burden and disappointing college graduation rates, policymakers are hungry for fresh ideas. Federal Pell Grants, the primary means for subsidizing college tuition for…

In today's world characterized by increasingly effective neoliberal policies, not only the sphere of public services is being constricted but also the concept of "public service" --which traditionally has been pointing at a responsible state providing public services based on social principles and methods-- is being transformed. In…

The concern about the United States' education attainment levels as compared with those of other countries, and the consequences of this poor showing, were given visibility by the inclusion of international statistics in the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education publication, "Measuring Up 2008." That concern was…

This article contributes to the analysis of the global spread of support for school choice and to the understanding of how a particular form of policy development reflects and cements this support. It maps the growing dominance of school choice within a reconfiguration of politics, policy making, and research. To establish the nature of this…

Student-Based Budgeting (sometimes called Weighted Student Funding, or Fair Student Funding, depending on the district) differs fundamentally from the traditional funding model, which distributes resources to schools in the form of staff and dollars designated for specific purposes. Student-Based Budgeting (SBB) allocates dollars to schools based…

This article will particularly focus on Norway and the consequences for academic work. Frequently in studies of academic work, focus has been on academics' individual autonomy and to what extent the latter is challenged (Altbach in "Ann Am Acad Pol Soc Sci" 448:1-14, 1980; Shattock in "High Educ" 41:27-47, 2001). One of…

Several wealthy colleges and universities have recently begun removing all loans from low-income students' financial aid packages. This article reports on a study that found that the introduction of "no-loan" policies has positively impacted low-income enrollments, suggesting that this aid strategy may be an effective, though…

The Great Recession contributed to major budget cuts for natural resource Extension programs in the United States. Despite the potentially large cuts, their impacts and how Extension has adapted their programs have not been evaluated. We begin addressing these needs with surveys of Association of Natural Resource Extension Professionals members…

Rising college costs are of increasing concern. At the 12 public universities in Illinois, average increases in tuition were modest, generally in the 4% range, until 1999 when individual campuses begin to increase tuition at double digit rates. In 2002-2003, the overall average increase in tuition/fees more than doubled at 13.79%. In an effort to…

In the current and foreseeable harsh UK higher education environment, aspiring to best-practice financial management will be key to ensuring the prosperity--and indeed the survival--of any university. In this article I argue that good university financial management should provide stability to the institution, allow for investment as well as…

Many state education leaders are taking a fresh look at school finance in hopes of containing costs. Some are reworking transportation formulas, or zeroing in on special education eligibility, or merging districts. Others are investing more in digital learning, charter innovations, and information systems. But state leaders too often overlook a…