U.S. Higher Education during the Great Recession

University Of California-Riverside, Riverside CA

Investigators

Abstract

SES-1155221 Steven Brint University of California, Riverside Abstract U.S. Higher Education during the Great Recession This project explores how U.S. four-year colleges and universities have adapted since 2007, the start of a period of exceptional economic challenges. Specifically, the project collects and analyzes institutional data on how institutions have responded to declines in educational spending , complemented by survey data with presidents and provosts. The project also serves a data infrastructure purposes, adding 42 for-profit organizations to two pre-existing databases, reflecting the growing share of higher education enrollments in the for-profit sector. Previous work by the project team led to the construction of two databases that are widely used by higher education researchers: the Institutional Data Archive on American Higher Education (IDA) and the College Catalog Study (CCS) database. In the process, the project will examine various organizational changes experienced by this sample of institutions: changes in hierarchies and decision-making structures, curricular and programmatic changes, as well as the priorities and outlooks of the institutional leadership. A central hypothesis is that by academic year 2010-11, interdisciplinary programs were growing most rapidly at financially struggling institutions, as these institutions attempted to consolidate low-enrollment departments. Broader Impacts Demand for higher education will likely continue to increase in the coming years. Findings from this project may inform how social scientists and public policy analysts view the (un)intended long-term consequences the recent economic contraction has had for educational institutions and the sector at large. In particular, findings from this study may help us understand the tension between economic trends and key national policy goals - including research productivity, access and graduation among students from under-represented groups, and human capital development. Moreover, the data infrastructure provided by the IDA and CCS datasets provides wide-ranging, detailed, and well-organized resources for scholars. The databases are also an ideal source for training graduate students who are interested in organizational and institutional change.