Public higher educational institutions, where about 80 percent of all college students and 65 percent of all four-year college students are educated, appear to be in serious trouble. In order to delve more deeply into this topic, the author invited a wide-ranging team of experts to examine changes in public higher education over the last quarter century, and to present their findings at a conference at Cornell University in May 2005. Edited versions of their papers are presented here. The authors of the essays are leading researchers from around the country who have intensively studied the causes of the changing finances of public higher education and the ways in which these changes have affected public higher education institutions, their students, and their potential students. Following a preface and an introduction, this book is divided into three parts and 16 chapters. The first part, Setting the Stage, presents the initial chapters of the book: (1) State Preferences for Higher Education Spending: A Panel Data Analysis (Michael J. Rizzo); (2) Do Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty Matter? (Ronald G. Ehrenberg and Liang Zhang); (3) The Increasing Use of Adjunct Instructors at Public Institutions: Are We Hurting Students? (Eric P. Bettinger and Bridget Terry Long); and (4) The Effect of Institutional Funding Cuts on Baccalaureate Graduation Rates in Public Higher Education (Gary L. Blose, John D. Porter, and Edward C. Kokkelenberg). Next, the second part, Individual State Experiences, continues with chapters: (5) The Effects of a Changing Financial Context on the University of California (Gerald R. Kissler and Ellen Switkes); (6) Assessing Public Higher Education in Georgia at the Start of the Twenty-First Century (Christopher Cornwell and David B. Mustard); (7) Changing Priorities and the Evolution of Public Higher Education Finance in Illinois F. King Alexander and Daniel Layzell); (8) Michigan Public Higher Education: Recent Trends and Policy Considerations for the Coming Decade (Stephen L. DesJardins, Allison Bell, and Iria Puyosa); (9) North Carolina's Commitment to Higher Education: Access and Affordability (Betsy E. Brown and Robert L. Clark); (10) State Support for Public Higher Education in Pennsylvania (Donald E. Heller); (11) The Changing Accessibility, Affordability, and Quality of Higher Education in Texas (Lisa M. Dickson); (12) Higher Tuition, Higher Aid, and the Quest to Improve Opportunities for Low-Income Students: The Case of Virginia (Sarah Turner); (13) Public Higher Education in Washington State: Aspirations Are Misaligned with Fiscal Structure and Politics (William Zumeta); and (14) Consequences of a Legacy of State Disinvestment: Plunging State Support Reduces Access and Threatens Quality at University of Wisconsin System Institutions (David W. Olien). Finally, the last part of the book, Looking to the Future, concludes with the remaining chapters: (15) Why We Won't See Any Public Universities "Going Private" (John D. Wiley); and (16) Concluding Remarks (F. King Alexander). A list of references and an index are also included.