Adequacy of funding for public institutions of higher education in the United States is significantly important to an array of stakeholders, including, state legislative bodies, decision-makers in the arena of higher education, and notably, consumers of higher education. State allocation of resources for higher education demonstrates variability,…

Over the past 40 years, performance-based funding has become a common tool of state legislatures to hold institutions accountable for student outcomes. Performance funding allocates state money to institutions based on a specific set of measures. However, states vary in the measures they select, methods for determining funding allocations, and the…

State budgeting and resource allocation has been a complex process due to the demands of lobbyists for such strongly disputable priorities such as K-12 education, Medicaid, corrections, transportation, and health and human services. Funds, appropriated to institutions of higher education, are typically more delicate to the condition of the economy…

Performance funding, the automatic and formulaic association of specific resources to institutional results on designated indicators, grew out of the accountability movement in higher education that originated in the 1950s and 1960s and redefined itself as the "new accountability" in the 1990s. To date, much of the literature on…

This dissertation is an exploratory case study of senior women who work at an unnamed State Legislature at all levels from clerical to elected legislator. The senior women explained why they remain in the workforce and how education impacts that decision. The older women in this study explain remaining in the workforce for one of two reasons:…

This qualitative, phenomenological case study was designed to illuminate the perceptions and experiences of eight undocumented community college students navigating the California public higher education systems with the aim of identifying factors associated with college persistence. These factors fall into three categories: financial, academic,…

This study presents an analysis of the anti-bullying policies of 24 South Carolina middle schools that were involved in the "Abbeville" lawsuit. These schools sued the state of South Carolina alleging that the school finding system was inadequate. The schools are plagued with numerous problems including being among the lowest performing…

Adequate funding has become a critical issue for institutions of higher education, affecting outcomes such as accessibility, affordability, and quality of education. The recent economic recession has been detrimental for state funding, resulting in budget cuts for higher education in a majority of states. Overall, state funding has not kept pace…

The most recent data available from the National Center for Educational Statistics (2004) estimate that 60% of community college freshmen and 25% of freshmen at 4-year public institutions nationwide complete at least one remedial course. Nationally, fewer than 40% of students who are referred to developmental education actually enroll in…

Scope and method of study. The purpose of this study is to understand the existing state legislation concerning bullying in schools to determine whether the development, structure, and content of these state mandates parallel any change in reported incidents of bullying by public schools in each of those states. This is a descriptive and…

This research examined the funding request process whereby higher education institutions seek financial support from state government. The study tested whether a model based on state goals and priorities for higher education could distinguish a funded request from an unfunded request. The research was qualitative and followed a comparative case…