A New Policy Agenda For Higher Education

Higher education is at a pivotal moment, with reduced state funding, soaring tuition and student debt, and emerging doubts about the value of a college degree. States, which control the purse strings, license new providers, and serve as the nation’s laboratories of democracy, are the best equipped to enact meaningful change.

Key challenges at the state level include policies that discourage innovation and do not prioritize student success, a lack of transparency, and failure to focus on cost-effectiveness and return on public investment.

States must explore innovations in data collecting, credit-transfer policies, incentives, measuring student outcomes, and even the delivery of higher education if they are to meet the new challenges in the higher education realm.