In 2011, under the Florida College and Career Readiness Initiative (FCCRI), Florida made college placement testing mandatory for 11th-grade students who had scored in the midrange of its standardized 10th-grade assessment. Those with placement test scores below college-ready were assigned in 12th grade to college readiness and success…

We explore institutional change and organizational learning in higher education in the context of a large-scale reform of developmental education in Florida. We use statewide survey data to examine administrators' perceptions of the use and effectiveness of accountability metrics, methods to identify solutions to improve student outcomes, and…

We explore institutional change and organizational learning in higher education in the context of a large-scale reform of developmental education in Florida. We use statewide survey data to examine administrators' perceptions of the use and effectiveness of accountability metrics, methods to identify solutions to improve student outcomes, and…

This study examines the role of governors in the P-16 education reform movement through their influence in the adoption of policies creating statewide P-16 councils. Network theory is used to distill three sets of hypotheses to predict how leadership influences of governors, the structure of state educational governance organizations, and…

Few recent issues in higher education have been as contentious as that of legislation extending in-state college tuition benefits to undocumented students, initiatives now known as in-state resident tuition (ISRT) policies. Building on several strands of literature in political science and higher education studies, we analyze the effects of…

This study, as the first empirical test of P-16 policy antecedents, reports the findings from an event history analysis of the origins of state dual enrollment policies adopted between 1976 and 2005. First, what characteristics of states are associated with the adoption of these policies? Second, to what extent do conventional theories on policy…

Past research from Pew's Economic Mobility Project (EMP) has shown that a college degree quadruples the chances that an individual born into the bottom income quintile will reach the top quintile in adulthood. For community colleges in particular, the project has shown that getting a community college degree increases earnings by an average of…

No empirical studies have attempted to explain why states invest differentially in their research and in their non-research universities, although these differences hold important implications for students, postsecondary systems, and society. Deploying a form of hierarchical-linear modeling, our study examines across-state variation in state…

State funding remains one of the most prominent and debated issues confronting U.S. higher education. In this paper, the authors report the results of a longitudinal analysis of factors associated with state funding efforts for higher education. They begin by developing a conceptual framework that more closely integrates key state political…