Status Report
The California Higher Education Policy Center

 

IN JULY 1991, The James Irvine Foundation commissioned a five-member Planning Committee to assess the feasibility of addressing public policy issues raised by the future of higher education in California. In April 1992, the Committee recommended establishment of the California Higher Education Policy Center for five years as a nonprofit, nonpartisan institution, independent of state government and of higher education in its governance, financing and operations. The Foundation accepted these recommendations, and the Center opened in November 1992. Operating with a small core staff, the Center is a program of The Higher Education Policy Institute, a California nonprofit corporation whose board constitutes the Center's governing board (see sidebar). The Center has approached California higher education with three basic assumptions about public policy: First, the public policy framework or "infrastructure" of higher education is of vital importance. Second, the basic issues in the future of California higher education policy are those of public values, purposes and responsibilities. Third, public policy should be explicit, the result of careful analysis and of deliberative public processes accessible to all. Over the past four years, the Center made and commissioned studies that tested its assumptions, and led to two sets of recommendations.

THE HIGHER EDUCATION POLICY INSTITUTE Board of Directors William J. Moore, Napa, CA, and West Yellowstone, MT, board chair Virginia B. Smith, Walnut Creek, CA, vice chair Patrick M. Callan, San Jose, CA Dennis A. Collins, San Francisco, CA Alfredo G. de los Santos, Jr., Tempe, AZ James M. Furman, Scottsdale, AZ Clark Kerr, Berkeley, CA Arturo Madrid, San Antonio, Texas Donald G. Phelps, Austin, Texas Toby Rosenblatt, San Francisco, CA Honorable Pamela Ann Rymer, Pasadena, CA Linda J. Wong, Los Angeles, CA

The Severity of the Problem. An independent analysis prepared by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS, July 1993) and incorporated in the Center Report, By Design or Default (June 1993), predicted 450,000 additional students by 2006, but also a probable dearth of financial support for this growth. These original projections were brought current in 1995 in Tidal Wave II: An Evaluation of Enrollment Projections for California Higher Education (September 1995), a Center report written by David Breneman, Leo Estrada and Gerald Hayward. In Financing the Plan: California's Master Plan for Higher Education 1960 to 1994 (May 1995), William Pickens showed how traditional measures for determining support levels based on 1960 Master Plan goals were abandoned in the 1990s. The Center has published his financing database in diskette form. In Trends in Student Aid: California (April 1995), Lawrence E. Gladieux and Jacqueline E. King of The College Board document all major sources, types, and the distribution of student financial aid (federal, state and institutional) from 1990 to 1994. Their major conclusion was that financial aid has not kept pace with the costs of higher education. Inadequacy of Responses. The major responses of the state and of much of higher education to the financial problems were to reduce enrollments and increase student charges, both to the detriment of educational opportunity. These inadequate responses were described in three Center reports: Public Policy By Anecdote: The Case of Community College Fees (April 1993), by William Trombley; The California Higher Education Policy Vacuum: The Example of Student Fees (April 1993), by Patrick M. Callan; and On the Brink: The Impact of Budget Cuts on California's Public Universities (August 1993), by Jack McCurdy and William Trombley. Inadequate responses were highlighted in A State of Emergency? Higher Education in California (February 1995), in which David Breneman called for a "state of emergency" to repair damage caused by budget and enrollment cuts. Public Attitudes and Values. The Center contracted with the Public Agenda Foundation of New York for a series of focus groups in California, and for state and national opinion polls on public views of higher education. In The Closing Gateway: Californians Consider Their Higher Education System (October 1993), John Immerwahr and Steve Farkas reported growing public anxiety about the accessibility and affordability of higher education. In Preserving the Higher Education Legacy: A conversation with California Leaders (March 1995), John Immerwahr summarized interviews with 29 California leaders on the future of California higher education. He reported substantial consensus about the need for major changes in higher education to control costs and improve quality. These studies supported two sets of recommendations that were designed to stimulate public discussion: 1. Time for Decision: California's Legacy and the Future of Higher Education. This draft for discussion (March 1994) arose from the need to address the current crisis, even while research and planning for the longer run continued. Its nine recommendations were designed to stem the immediate damage to educational opportunity and to prepare for the state's future. 2. Shared Responsibility: A Report to the governor, the Legislature, the Higher Education Community and the Citizens of California. This report (June 1996) proposed a "new social compact" for educational opportunity--both a policy framework and specific recommendations. It urged formal recognition of the policy of equal sharing of responsibility for maintaining educational opportunity in California by higher education institutions, students and families, and the state. Its eleven strategies for achieving this policy objective assumed that existing organizational structures and financing processes would not undergo radical change. The Center's work during the coming year will focus on five major activities: (1) continuing to stimulate public visibility, understanding and discussion of public policy issues that will shape the future of California higher education; (2) an ongoing, seven-state study of higher education structures, partially supported by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts; (3) an ongoing, five-state study of higher education finance, partially funded by The Ford Foundation, and co-sponsored by the Institute for Higher Education Research at the University of Pennsylvania; (4) a current look by Public Agenda at the public's perceptions of higher education; and (5) a current review of student aid by the College Board. The Center has persistently advocated the core values that--at least to date--have undergirded consensus on California's policy goals: opportunity for individuals; the crucial role of higher education in developing human talent, preserving democratic values and advancing knowledge; and the right and responsibility of the public to influence the future of educational opportunity. These core values will remain the foundation for the Center's work over the coming year.