Tags: research

Karen Webber and Rachel Burns (PhD 2018) appear in Research in Higher Education. Noting the upward trend in borrowing among graduate and professional students, Webber and Burns investigate the implications on students and institutions and on policy development.  Using data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS) and Integrated Postsecondary Education Data (IPEDS), their study examines educational debt…

Research on tracking systems in post-secondary education by Amy Stich appears in the Journal of Higher Education. Her paper, "Beneath the White Noise of Postsecondary Sorting: A Case Study of the 'Low' Track in Higher Education," tackles the seemingly benign language used to perpetuate "organizational foundations, hierarchies, and processes that are constituting and constituted by race." Stich collected data during the 2016–2017 academic year at…

Denisa Gándara (PhD 2016) was quoted in two articles at the end of July on tuition in the pandemic: one in the Washington Post and another in Education Dive.   The Post article, "Discount, Freeze or Increase? How Universities are Handling Tuition this Fall," addresses the multifaceted challenges faced by higher education institutions and share some approaches implemented across the US. "We can't talk about prices…

Kelly Rosinger (PhD 2015) is part of a research team exploring the significance of the "race unknown" reporting category. "What do we know about 'race unknown' appears as a brief in Educational Researcher's June/July 2020 issue. Drawing specifically on studies using the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS), Kelly Ford, Qiong Zhu and Rosinger, found that researchers often remove these responses from their investigations. Over…

The rapid rise in popularity and monetization of Esports (virtual simulations of sports, competitive games, and military operations) in American culture is drawing the attention of higher education leaders. Welch Suggs (PhD), Jennifer May-Trifiletti (PhD student), Jim Hearn, and Julianne O'Connell (PhD student) prepared a research brief for the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) that highlights potential benefits and challenges of…

A team of scholars with ties to the Institute "explore[s] trustees’ involvement in a qualitative comparative case study of four elite US research universities."  The paper, "How University Leaders Shape Boundaries and Behaviors: An Empirical Examination of Trustee Involvement at Elite US Research Universities," by Sondra N. Barringer, Barrett J. Taylor, Karley A. Riffe, and Sheila Slaughter appears online in …

Nathan Moore (PhD 2020) and Rachel Burns (PhD 2018) explore the extent, drivers, and means by which economic development has become a focus of public postsecondary institutions. Using event history analysis and neo-institutional and strategic action fields theoretical frameworks, they track the adoption of vice president-level positions devoted to economic development among the members of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (…

Greg Wolniak formally joined the editorial team at the Journal of Higher Education (JHE) as an associate editor on May 1. Greg has served a member of JHE’s editorial review board since 2013. In response to the announcement he said, “I’m excited to join the editorial team at JHE and honored to have been presented with the opportunity.” Greg noted that he has benefited from the constructive support of editors at core journals,…

Faculty around the Institute of Higher Education know that research is a verb. They seek to connect their investigations to policy initiatives and general improvements in decision making in higher education. Here, IHE professors share a sampling of current projects. Erik Ness | How Can SHEEOs and Intermediary Organizations Work Together? Recently, higher education scholars have highlighted the roles and influence of foundations, think tanks, and…

AERA Open has published new research by Greg Wolniak and co-authors, Laura A. Davis, Casey E. George, and Glen R. Nelson. In "Demystifying Tuition? A Content Analysis of the Information Quality of Public College and University Websites," the team examined how 50 public colleges and universities present financial cost information to the public on their websites. They found detrimental variations in the clarity of language, coherence of…