eyler 1984 the politics of quality in higher education.pdf

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Quality initiatives that serve important state goals garner needed

long-term support.

The Politics of Qualityin Higher Education

Janet Eyler

In Lake Woeuegone, Minnesota, that quintessentii- -an{ imaginary-American hometown celebrated by “Prairie Home Companion,”where

all the men are good looking, all the women are strong, and all the chil-

dren are above average, a goal of educational quality would not neces-

sarily cause conflict. But, in the rest of the world, where only one quar-

ter can be in the top 25 percent, the goal of quality in higher education

is inherently conflictual. During the period of growth, when increased

access was the primary goal for higher education, there was something

for everyone. Institutions requested and received the resources neededfor expansion of programs, and powerful local and regional interests

were served by the creation of new institutions. With the demise of

growth in this era of static resources, attention is being focused on the

demonstrated effectiveness of institutions in meeting quality goals.

Quality implies making judgments and maintaining standards. If stan-

dards are set high, then some students will not measure u p, some insti-

tutions will be judged mediocre, some programs will be found lacking,

and some research a nd development efforts will be less effective. Where

quality goals determine the allocation of limited resources, there will be

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58

winners and losers. The resolution of conflict among participants for

scarce resources is what politics is all about.

Several types of conflict occur. First, the inherently redistribu-

tive focus of quality-related policies, which direct limited resourcestoward particular programs or outcomes, creates political conflict

between winners and losers. There is tremendous pressure for even dis-

tribution of resources to similar institutions within a policy subsystem,

such as higher education. A related conflict flows from the difficulty in

creating consensus about definitions of quality in higher education.

Individual quality-related programs can focus attention on different

aspects of the higher education mission, so that some will be concerned

with instructional effectiveness, some with the economic impact of

research and development, and some with the national prestige of aninstitution’s faculty and programs. Diverse institutions may find that

their primary missions are not included in efforts to upgrade institu-

tional quality; they will then push for more inclusive quality initiatives.

Finally, state involvement in efforts to improve the quality of higher

education raises fears of intrusion into academic affairs that tradi-

tionally have been handled within the college or university. Programs

that provide resources to fund new efforts will be more acceptable than

programs that focus on measuring an institution’s success in achieving

its mission.The critical issue for higher education reform in the 1980swill be

the extent to which quality initiatives can be identified that have a n effect

on institutional quality and that can be sustained politically over time.

In this chapter, the political factors that will affect whether quality

issues can continue to remain a part of the active policy agenda are exam-

ined. The characteristics of several specific quality initiatives that will af-

fect their ability to be implemented and sustained over time are described.

Ca n Higher Education Quality Remaino n the Active Political Agenda?

The emergence of higher education quality on the active policy

agenda is somewhat unexpected. The end of growth might have meant

the shift of attention and resources to other issues, but economic stag-

nation and public outcry about the rising tide of mediocrity in public

schools have made education a priority in many states. Higher educa-

tion has benefited from this increased attention to educational quality,

and a number of states have developed quality improvement initiativesfor their colleges and universities.

Whether higher education quality can remain on the active



political agenda long enough to sustain these initiatives will depend

partly on the resolution of the conflict between the need for quality

efforts to demonstrate superior achievement and political pressures to

distribute resources widely a nd to de-emphasize comparative standardsof quality. The resolution of this conflict may depend in turn on the

nature of specific quality initiatives and on changes in the political

environment in which these initiatives must be sustained.

Th e Politics of Com parative Standards

As long as excellence is a comparative concept, at least half the

institutions will be losers. Only a few colleges and universities will have

graduates whose average scores are near the top on achievement tests,and these schools will tend to be elite institutions that attract outstand-

ing students. Less than 10 percent of the 3,000 institutions of higher

education are centers of nationally recognized research and develop-

ment. Most institutions of higher education have undergraduate instruc-

tion and preparation of students for vocational roles as their primary

mission. Even where excellence is measured through preparation of

graduates for jo b placement, half the institutions will be below average

as long as a comparative standard is used.

When resources are limited, programs for educational excel-lence are one of the few areas in which new resources can be justified.

Unde r these conditions, there is tremendous pressure to dilute compar-

ative standards. Politics is a continuous cycle. From initial emergence

on the active policy agenda, through policy formulation, adoption, and

implementation, policies are continuously being reshaped. Groups that

are cohesive an d well organized and that find particular policies highly

salient stay involved throughout the process and continually seek to

influence policy to serve their interest (Anderson, 1979). Thus, once

the initial excitement over an issue has passed and programs have beenadopted, the attention of politicians, media, and the public shifts to

new issues, leaving the groups most directly affected by the program to

continue to influence how it is carried out. Policies that originated in a

crisis and that were designed to target resources on a specific problem

have a tendency to be diluted over time so that resources can be distrib-

uted more widely. Just as redistributive policies tend to become distrib-

utive over time, plans to tie resources to evidence of success are rarely

successful (Hargrove, 1981). There are tremendous institutional pres-

sures both to make accountability standards so vague that invidiouscomparisons cannot be made and to fail to follow through on evalua-

tion. Once a program is established, the same pressures that unfocus



funding and undermine accountability create a tendency to incorporate

special funding into the institution’s core funding so that the program is

no longer singled out for extraordinary consideration.

Decisions affecting higher education are normally incrementaland made within a policy subsystem that includes governing and coor-

dinating boards, institutional representatives, and legislators with key

constituency or committee interests. Routine decision making rarely

involves groups outside this subsystem for any sustained period. Par t

of the answer to the question of whether higher education quality and

accountability will remain on the policy agenda long enough to make a

difference will depend on the extent to which the political environment

in which higher education decisions are made has been altered to

include a new set of political actors who have a n interest in maintainingsuch programs.

The stagnation of the national economy and the belief that

added resources for research, development, and training can enhance

economic development have provided a major stimulus for quality ini-

tiatives. If this link continues to be perceived as important, then the

private-sector partners in industry-university collaborations and politi-

cal leaders concerned with economic development will be participants

in decision making within the higher education policy subsystem.

These new actors in the subsystem will help to sustain the flow ofresources, and they will have an interest in demonstrated results.

Another factor in the continued place of higher education qual-

ity on the policy agenda will be the perceived success of the myriad

initiatives now being taken. Success in obtaining resources an d success

in achieving quality goals may both be enhanced by the creation of

quality standards that are not comparative but that focus on quality

improvement.

The Politics of Quality Improvement

When standards of quality are comparative, most institutions

fear that they will not measure up. T he alternative that is most respon-

sive to the diverse missions of colleges and universities and their diverse

clienteles is a noncomparative standard that allows differential goals

and differential levels of attainment. One approach to such a standard

uses value-added measures. Here , the institution is judged not by what

students bring to the institution but by how much progress they make

while they are there. Another approach sets an achievement baselinefor the institution and asks for demonstrated improvement over time.

Improvement-based plans offer hope of success to all institu-

tions and thus enhance the likelihood of continued institutional support



61

for the quality initiative. The criticism that value-added or other

improvement-based plans may not establish adequate standards for

graduates of specialized programs can be met through the establish-

ment of regulations that require minimum performance for progressthrough a program. Minimum standards are designed so that most stu-

students can attain them. Programs that force institutions to assist

students in achieving these goals should improve the general stan-

dard of quality. Standards can be set that students must meet in order

to progress through a program. Programs can be suspended or put

on probation if they fail to prepare students for licensure or other

exams.

The diverse goals that can be taken into account under quality

improvement initiatives allow equally diverse measures of achieve-ment. The legitimation of measured outcomes as a relevant indicator of

quality for higher education may have permanently altered the political

environment in which decisions about higher education are made. As

data about such diverse indicators of quality as successful job place-

ment in technical fields, academic achievement of undergraduates, test

placement of students in advanced fields, and research productivity

become publicly available, the insulation of institutional quality issues

from state oversight is reduced. Institutions may find themselves forced

to be responsive to quality concerns by documenting their own pro-grammatic efforts if they are to prevent intrusion by the state into tradi-

tional institutional domains (Mingle, 1981). This new availability of

output-related measures, often created by quality improvement initia-

tives, may be a key factor in helping to keep quality issues on the policy

agenda. The days in which institutional quality was assessed by input;

the money paid to faculty, prestige, test scores of entering freshman,

lavishness of the physical facilities, and so forth have passed. Quality is

no longer a mystery defined only by those within institutions of higher

learning. Legislators and other key decision makers are now convincedthat effectiveness not only can be demonstrated but that it must be

demonstrated to assure continued support.

The Politics of Control

Institutional resistance to external intrusion into its traditional

authority over academic matters may threaten sustained success of

some quality improvement efforts (Wallhaus, 1980). Policies must take

into consideration the inadequacy of a regulatory approach in improv-ing the substantive outputs of higher education. Colleges and universi-

ties are classic examples of the loosely coupled system (Weick, 1976).

The professional expertise and activity necessary to promote effective



educational outcomes is difficult to specify in detail and impossible for

the state to monitor closely. Outcomes depend on the institution’s abil-

ity to create conditions under which professionals will bring their best

efforts to bear on promoting those outcomes. Some higher educationgoals are difficult to achieve in the short run; others can be attained

simultaneously with the achievement of other valued ends (Kramer,

1980). As Lipsky (1980) has noted, power to achieve key organizational

goals resides at the bottom in organizations, such as colleges and uni-

versities, that deliver complex human services.

Effective quality initiatives must consider the need for institu-

tional autonomy and create a balance between demands for accounta-

bility for results and freedom to organize the enterprise to achieve such

results. A key factor in the acceptability of any quality initiative will bethe extent to which it provides incentives for institutions to focus their

internal efforts on the attainment of quality goals.

The Politics of Specific Quality Incentives

In many states, the current concern with higher education qual-

ity has resulted in attempts to create specific quality improvement pro-

grams. Some are regulatory attempts to raise standards for admission

to colleges and universities. A number of others have been tied to thebudgetary process. Resources may be contingent on demonstrating

attainment of quality objectives, or resources may be directed to pro-

grams or projects that seek to achieve excellence in areas identified as

high priority by the state or as important to the institution’s own goals

(Folger and Smartt, forthcoming). The successful implementation of

any particular quality initiative will be shaped by the unique political

environment of the state in which it is introduced. The ability of the

program to be adapted and sustained over time will largely be deter-

mined by the support that can be gained from the groups primarilyaffected by the policies.

The approaches to quality improvement themselves have char-

acteristics that will affect how easily they can be adopted a nd sustained

under varying circumstances and conditions. Some politically impor-

tant characteristics of the innovation are visibility, cost, integration in-

to the core institutional mission and budget, distribution of funding,

accountability, and the nature of interest group support. In this sec-

tion, several types of quality-related initiatives are identified and char-

acteristics that will affect how and whether they can be sustained areexamined.



Raising Standards for Admission. A majority of states have

taken steps to differentiate admission standards among their institu-

tions of higher education, to require more rigorous college preparatory

high school programs for admission into particular institutions, and toremove remedial high school-level work from colleges and universities.

This approach to quality improvement has several advantages. It is

clear that one of the best predictors of high achievement at graduation

is high level of achievement at matriculation. Raising admission stan-

dards is a symbolic act responsive to public outcry about lowered edu-

cational standards; it is simple to enact, it is inexpensive in the short

run, and it gives the appearance of improving quality without requir-

ing any major institutional changes. Changes in admissions standards

also affect public school policy. The recent tightening of admissionsstandards in Ohio originated with a commission that examined the

linkages between secondary and higher education. Similar efforts to

upgrade admissions standards in Tennessee are expected to create

pressures for curriculum improvement in some school districts where

students cannot now obtain all courses that will be needed for admis-

sion to four-year colleges when the new requirements are phased in

(Albright, forthcoming).

One major political liability of this strategy is that i t appears to

shift the focus from access for all groups in society to maintenance ofelite quality standards. Members of certain socioeconomic and minor-

i ty groups are more likely to be disproportionately exluded from admis-

sion to prestigious four-year institutions when standards are raised.

Unless remediation is made available for students who do not qualify

for four-year institutions, we can anticipate that this policy will reduce

the number of college graduates from less advantaged groups. Because

i t defines the institution not in terms of what it does to help educate stu-

dents but in terms of the standards that it maintains in recruiting stu-

dents, such a policy may have no measurable effect on what actuallygoes on in the instructional program.

State agencies may find that identifying standards for admission

and standards of progress meets their need to help institutions begin to

focus their mission more carefully. Policies about remedial work and

admission standards make clear to institutions the services they need to

provide. Tests of progress also draw attention to the need for instruc-

tion that allows students to meet minimal competencies. Combining

admissions standards with enrollment caps may help to channel stu-

dents into underenrolled institutions.Another major political concern raised by the establishment of



64

standards is the dependence of institutions on enrollment for their

financial resources. A natural response to a decline in the number of

students available for higher education is to lower standards. Policies

that set standards must devise financing methods that will not penalizethe institutions that attract smaller populations of students as a result of

higher standards.

Pegormance Funding. Performance funding rewards institu-

tions for demonstrating effectiveness in the attainment of educational

goals. Unlike initiatives that target funds to improve the quality of par-

ticular programs, performance funding assumes that quality can be

improved by providing institutional leaders with incentives to focus

attention on the educational outcomes valued by state and citizenry.

With success, institutional leaders receive additional funding that maybe directed toward their own priorities (Bogue and Brown, 1982;

Pickens, 1983).

Performance funding is the only quality initiative into which

accountability is fully integrated. Programs that provide funds for

centers or special projects seek accountability through careful initial

allocation of funds, and they may include an evaluation process for

continuance. However, once such projects are established, they are

rarely discontinued on the basis of evaluation. In performance fund-

ing, institutions do not receive funds until they have demonstrated suc-cess. Thus, performance funding is the most effective system for link-

ing funds to outcomes.

Tennessee is the only state to have implemented performance

funding. Tennessee’s Performance Funding Project began in 1979 after

several years of privately funded pilot studies in which about half of the

state’s public institutions of higher education took part to develop

appropriate measures of effectiveness. Initially, an institution could

obtain up to 2 percent of its budget for meeting the program criteria. In

1984, the project was renamed the Instructional Evaluation Program,and the size of the award was increased to 5 percent. The program has

been integrated into the state’s budgeting formula.

A shift in name from performance funding to instructional eval-

uation embodies the key difficulty in implementing performance fund-

ing systems. In spite of the professed goals of personal achievement,

career preparation, community service, and advancement of know-

ledge, few American colleges and universities have well-developed

evaluation systems to measure their effectiveness in achieving such

goals. Before Tennessee could begin to reward effective instruction,sophisticated systems of assessment had to be established for each insti-

tution. Thus, for the first four years of performance funding, points



65

were awarded for the development of systematic assessment proced-

ures; with the fifth year of implementation, the majority of funds was

awarded for demonstrated improvement in instructional effectiveness

or for achievement records superior to those of peer institutions.The built-in accountability of performance funding was attrac-

tive to Tennessee state legislators, who also responded well to the focus

on achievement, a core mission of colleges and universities. The Ten-

nessee plan contains rewards for students’ performance on general and

subject exams, performance on licensing exams, and job placement

records as well as accreditation of specific professional programs.

The plan was developed by the Tennessee Higher Education

Commission and supported by institutional interests who felt that tying

funds to an accountability process would be the only effective strategyfor obtaining more resources for higher education. Tennessee is a poor

state, and it was not fully funding its higher education formula in 1979;

during the period when performance funding was being adopted, the

formula was cut further. Integration of the incentive system into the

institutional budget, coupled with limited resources, created the suspi-

cion that institutions were trading some of their autonomy for old

resources in new bottles. Reluctance to accept funding tied to evalua-

tion without the assurance of new resources has limited consideration

of this approach in other states, most recently South Dakota. In Ten-nessee, institutions have accepted the view that funds would not simply

be added to the general distribution formula if performance funding

were eliminated. The cost of the resources is accountability for results.

One feature of performance funding that makes i t potentially

sustainable is its adaptability to diverse institutional missions. The

focus on instruction makes it central to all college and university mis-

sions, and particular measures and goals can be tailored to, or even

specified and negotiated by, individual institutions. In Tennessee,

institutions experimented with several approaches to assessment.These approaches were incorporated into the plan as it was imple-

mented, which helped to create a consensus about specific indicators of

success. In addition, there are alternative approaches that can be

chosen by different institutions. For example, vocational training pro-

grams can choose job placement as an indicator, while four-year col-

leges can choose measures of general educational attainment. The biggest

drawback noted by detractors is the cost and difficulty of measurement

and the possibility that only the easily measurable o r trivial will receive

attention, not the important outcomes of education.While many measures involve comparison with national sam-

ples or peer institutions and thus have some of the political drawbacks



66

of quality comparison, the use of a value-added measure that examines

how much students have learned rather than their absolute level of

achievement allows all institutions to be rewarded for what they do

rather then for whom they enroll. Th e value-added approach to perfor-mance funding allows all institutions to aspire to quality recognition,

and it thus helps to sustain long-term support for this approach to edu-

cational improvement.

In Tennessee, the fact that all institutions scored near the maxi-

mum number of points at the end of five years caused some legislators

to question the rigor of standards of measurement and their effect on

institutional behavior. The involvement of institutions in the long pro-

cess of developing outcome measures helped to create a consensus that

forestalled resistance to implementation. The desire for consensus alsoencouraged maximum incentives for efforts to establish procedures.

These incentives have been effective in shaping institutional assess-

ment activities; all colleges and universities now gather evidence of

instructional effectiveness.

One of the assumptions behind performance incentives is that

the focus on particular outcomes will cause institutional leaders to con-

centrate on programmatic improvements that will help the institution

to attain these outcomes. Whether this emphasis on the instructional

mission, coupled with rewards for success, has affected efforts toimprove the instructional program is less clear. Trudy W . Banta and

Homer S . Fisher address that issue in Chapter Two of this volume.

Targeted Funding for Ins titutiona l& Selected Go als. Centers of

Excellence plans provide additional resources to strengthen carefully

identified programs within institutions. Whereas performance funding

rests on the assumption that quality can be improved if attention is

focused on expected outcomes, the Centers of Excellence concept

assumes that quality improvement requires increased investment. By

encouraging the institution to identify its particular strengths an d pri-orities, the concept allows resources to be concentrated on raising par-

ticular programs to national or regional prominence. A Centers plan

can include a requirement for the institution to raise matching funds,

which can influence selection of a n area of concentration with a strong

external constituency. Continuation of funding for particular centers

can be made contingent on the achievement of quality-related goals,

but no state has yet enforced such a contingency (Eyler, forthcoming).

The Centers of Excellence concept has some characteristics that

make it attractive to decision makers, but there are also some intrinsicproblems that go to the heart of the political conflict engendered by

attempts to target funds for quality improvement. Centers may be easier



67

to adopt than to sustain in anything like their initial form. Tennessee’s

newly adopted Centers of Excellence plan illustrates some of these

political advantages and disadvantages. The plan was adopted as part

of the governor’s education reform bill, the Better Schools Plan, whichincluded a controversial career ladder pay plan for public school teach-

ers. Higher education benefited from the political emphasis being

given to quality in public schools. A coalition of interests was created

sufficient to pass a significant tax increase to fund educational improve-

ment.

Higher education interests became a significant element of the

coalition needed to pass the Better Schools Plan as a result of opposi-

tion from the Tennessee Education Association, which took issue with

the career ladder plan and evaluation of school teachers. By tying addi-tional postsecondary funding to the public school plan, political leaders

assured that higher education interests would lobby for the bill. The

Centers of Excellence plan also has particular appeal to groups con-

cerned with development of technology-based industries, which pressed

for its passage and which are expected to continue to support the con-

cept. The largest allocation made in the first year of the program was

$ 3 . 5 million to the Science Alliance, which formalized a relationship

between the University of Tennessee, Knoxville and the Oak Ridge

National Laboratory. The next two largest allocations concerned laserapplications and manufacturing technology.

The centers approach creates a moderately visible program with

limited funding. Th e moderate price tag and the assurance that funds

are targeted for specific quality improvements makes i t attractive to

legislators. In Tennessee, the opportunity for a significant increase in

overall funding gained the support of most institutions. The $10 mil-

lion allocated for the first year established fourteen separate centers;

more are anticipated during the second year of implementation.

The visibility of the centers was a key factor in the decision ofthe University of Tennessee and the State Board of Regents to support

the plan in preference to endowment of chairs, which had been an ini-

tial suggestion of the Higher Education Commission. Chair endow-

ments had two advantages: They needed only the initial investment to

be sustained indefinitely, and they could be distributed among all insti-

tutions, Institutional boards felt that the Centers concept had more politi-

cal appeal; placing funds in an endowment would not generate the same

enthusiasm and support as a plan that would allow immediate expendi-

tures and establish projects and programs. If centers were sustained,institutions would have significantly more resources under that plan.

The major threat to maintenance of the Centers of Excellence



plan over time is the conflict between the goals articulated for individ-

ual centers and the central missions of most colleges and universities.

The centers focus on goals consistent with strong graduate and profes-

sional programs and on research and development. Most of the institu-tions under the Tennessee State Board of Regents as well as two of the

four University of Tennessee campuses are devoted primarily to under-

graduate instructional service to mostly local students. Although they

may successfully compete for centers-most have received some Cen-

ters of Excellence support in the first year of implementation -most of

these institutions do not believe graduate-oriented centers are the best

way of spending additional higher education resources.

Some legislators and institutional representatives have suggested

that new funds could best be spent on efforts to improve undergraduate

instruction. Increasing access to higher education by funding institu-

tional growth has also been stressed. During the process of adoption of

the centers legislation, an amendment to require one third of funds to be

spent to enhance undergraduate instruction was added, and explicit

questions were asked about the trade-off between funding for centers

and support for additional students. Resistance to the targeting of cen-

ters funds from some institutions and their legislative representatives

may decrease as these institutions receive what they consider a fair

share of the resources, but the issue is not yet resolved, and it is expectedto reemerge when the program is refunded (Eyler, 1983).Responses to these concerns have been designed to assure all

institutions of their opportunity to share in the resources; they have not

modified the focus on creating centers that can achieve distinction and

meet strict accountability standards for continuance. The demand for

inclusion of undergraduates was met by institutional assurances that

current centers would serve also to strengthen undergraduate pro-

grams. The criteria for selection of centers for the second year’s compe-

tition were modified slightly at the request of the Board of Regents to

allow model instructional programs to compete. Selection still focuses

on graduate and research programs and on achieving regional visibil-

ity, and programs designed simply to improve some aspect of the

instructional program are not eligible. The Tennessee Higher Educa-

tion Commission has devoted considerable effort to working with insti-

tutions to establish standards that centers will have to meet in order to

win support for continuance. It will be interesting to see whether these

systems of accountability can be sustained over time.

The types of conflicts noted in Tennessee create pressures for

more equitable distribution of quality funds or for the creation of alter-

native programs that address the needs of all institutions. In Florida,



69

where a similar plan established nine Centers of Distinction in 1974,

these pressures have gradually altered the program. The plan initially

funded a center at each four-year institution. Over time, the plan

changed, first to include several centers at each institution; then to pro-vide lump sums for each institution, which was required to devote

some attention to the undergraduate program; and finally to earmark

part of the funds for engineering and other technological programs

(Folger and Smartt, forthcoming).

Small Grunts o r Innovation. Competitive grant programs mod-

eled on the Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education and

similar federal categorical programs provide seed money that allows

institutions to undertake development of quality enhancement pro-

grams (Eyler, forthcoming). Grant programs can be established atmoderate cost. They require only enough funding to ensure that indi-

vidual awards can be substantial enough and the proportion of success-

ful proposals high enough that institutions will make the investment

necessary to compete. Tying funds to a competitive process meets the

need of legislators to justify additional resources with quality assurances.

The add-on feature of grant programs makes them easy to

adopt and implement, but it makes them vulnerable to elimination.

They are less likely to build a constituency within an institution or

within the broader political environment than a specialized center thatbecomes an integral part of the enterprise. One of their strengths is the

extent to which such programs can be adapted to the priorities of indi-

vidual institutions. While the funding itself is not integral to the institu-

tional budget, the activities developed may be central to the

institution’s mission, which enhances the likelihood that the program

will be sustained over time. Unlike most quality initiatives, the com-

petitive grant approach provides direct incentives to faculty and

departments within institutions- special strength when instructional

improvement is the goal.Virginia established its Fund for Excellence in 1980 with $1.7 mil-

lion for the first biennium. The next two appropriations were for $2.5

million each. About a quarter of the proposals received have been funded.

Grants range between $6,000 and $387,000. Institutions have been very

supportive of the program. Part of the support stems from the institu-

tion’s ability to advance it s own priorities. Grants have been diverse, sup-

porting projects to encourage better student writing, cooperative educa-

tion efforts with local industry, computer training, and programs in the

arts and humanities. Attempts to put most of the funds into the state’spriority areas of engineering and high technology have been resisted by

the State Council of Higher Education, which initiated the program.



The wide distribution of resources among institutions also cre-

ates a base of continuing support. Eariy concern that community col-

leges were not competing effectively for a share of the resources has

been overcome by providing technical assistance for the preparation ofmore effective proposals. Community colleges are now submitting suc-

cessful proposals. Nine of the twenty-three projects funded for the

1984-86 biennium came from community colleges.

Evaluation is primarily directed at proposals, and judgments

are made before funds are awarded. There is no systematic evaluation

system to assure that projects achieve their stated goals of enhancing

quality. The widespread popularity of the program with legislators and

institutions has meant that there has been no demand for comprehen-

sive evaluation of impact.Targeted Funding f o r State-Selected Goals. The most popular

quality initiative in higher education, adopted by more than a dozen

states, is the concentration of funds on programs specifically identified

as state priorities. Many such programs create centers or consortia,

some fund discrete research projects, but most are tied to scientific

research or technological development deemed important to growth of

the state economy and, to a lesser extent, to preparation of students for

careers in technology (Spraggins, 1983).

These programs share the political advantage of other centersand grant programs by allowing a relatively small amount of money to

be spent on valued and visible programs. However, their political

strength stems from their relationship to clear goals shared by political

actors outside the higher education policy subsystems. I n many states,

political leaders have created commissions to promote economic devel-

opment. Programs that strengthen the research capacity of universities

and that link academic research to the research and development

efforts of private industry are popular with legislators, labor and indus-

try, and local interests as well as with the institutions that receive addedresources. The requirement of most plans for matching funds to estab-

lish a center gives the higher education community a strong incentive

for supporting the plan, and it reinforces the importance of the endeavor

to groups outside higher education that help to pay for it. Once

established, such centers have a powerful constituency to advance their

interests. There are strong pressures for the center or program to

become part of the institution’s core budget. The strong external consti-

tuency insulates such centers from the pressure to distribute resources

more evenly across all institutions of higher education.

Pennsylvania’s Ben Franklin Partnership is one of the more

ambitious efforts to bring together academic, government, and private



71

resources to stimulate research, development, and training in advanced

technology. First funded by the General Assembly in 1982 with $1 mil-

lion, $10 million was allocated in 1983-84. The Partnership is gov-

erned by a board that includes representatives from industry, business,education, labor, and the legislature. The major grants have funded

four regional advanced technology centers. These centers are run by

consortia led by universities that include other colleges and universi-

ties; industrial, labor, and financial organizations; and economic

development groups. During the 1983-84 year, $10 million in state

funds has been matched by $28 million from consortia members,

including more than $16 million from the private sector.

The Pennsylvania centers provide joint research and develop-

ment in such areas as robotics and biotechnology, program developmentassistance to help institutions of higher education provide training in

skills necessary to new industries, and entrepreneurial assistance.

Conclusion

The end of growth and the achievement of broad access to

higher education, combined with concern about economic stagnation

and lack of confidence in institutional effectiveness in general and edu-

cational effectiveness in particular, have led to an emphasis by policymakers on accountability and program effectiveness in higher educa-

tion. This has resulted in a proliferation of state initiatives designed to

enhance higher education quality. State initiatives have included raising

institutional admissions standards, creating competitive grant pro-

grams to fund institutional initiatives, rewarding demonstrated

instructional effectiveness, and targeting special funding on institution-

ally defined or state-defined research or program development priori-

ties. The critical issue for higher education reform in the 1980s will be

the extent to which quality initiatives can be implemented that have aneffect on institutional quality and that can be sustained politically over

time.

For initiatives designed to improve higher education quality to

be sustained over time, attention must be paid to their political as well

as to their substantive rationality. Such programs must lead to demon-

strable successes as well as be responsive to the need for diverse institu-

tions to share in the rewards for success.

Part of the key to continued political support will be found in

the characteristics of the initiatives themselves. Programs that allowinstitutions with diverse missions to participate can gain widespread

institutional support. Special grant programs such as the Virginia



Fund for Excellence are popular for this reason. Such programs may be

more sustainable if they can become more fully integrated into institu-

tional budgets. This has been the case with Florida’s program that tar-

gets special resources for institutionally identified goals, and with theTennessee Instructional Evaluation Program. Programs that provide

faculty and depar tments with incentives to participate in quality

improvement efforts may enhance the likelihood of improved instruc-

tion as well as wide support. This has been a feature primarily of special

grant programs. Quality initiatives that serve important state goals,

such as economic development or improved student learning, may

garner needed long-term support outside the immediate higher education

political subsystem. The dramatic proliferation of state programs that

provide resources to research and development centers and consortiawith business and industry attest to the political appeal of efforts to

harness university research resources to enhance economic development.

The political environment in which higher education policy

decisions are made will also affect the extent to which higher education

quality will remain on the active policy agenda. The economy is likely

to continue to pose problems for policy makers. T o the extent that

political leaders continue to see a link between research, development,

and training in higher education and economic growth, interest in pro-

grams designed to provide resources that can improve educationalquality is likely to continue, It is also likely that such efforts will con-

tinue to be watched for results.

Demands by policy makers for demonstrated results in student

learning are also likely to continue. Decision makers are increasingly

sophisticated about program effectiveness and less willing to assume in

the absence of evidence that institutions are doing a good job. This con-

tinued interest in measures of effectiveness will depend to some extent

on the development of measures that are reliable and convincing and

on the measurable successes of quality improvement programs. Con-tinued routine use of evaluation data and inclusion of requirements for

quality assessments in higher education policy making will maintain a

political environment that makes quality initiatives more likely to be

sustainable.

References

Albright, B . “Admissions Standards and Quality Improvement.” In J . K. Folger, A .McGuinniss, and G. Van de Water (Eds.), Resource Catalogue on Budgetuy Incentivesfor

Quality Zmfirovement in Higher Education. Denver, Colo. : Education Commission of theStates, forthcoming.

Anderson, J . Public Policy Making. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1979.



73

Bogue, E. G., and Brown, W. “Performance Incentives for State Colleges.” Harvard

Business Review, 1982, 60, 123-128.

Eyler, J . ”Fiscal Incentives for Improved Quality in Higher Education: The Concept

of Value Added.” Paper presented at AERA symposium, August 1983.

Eyler, J , “Categorical Programs That Provide Fiscal Incentives to Improve Quality.”In J . K. Folger, A. McGuinniss, and G. Van de Water (Eds.), Resource Catalogue on

Budgetary Incentives fo r Qua lib Improvement in Higher Education. Denver, Colo. : Educa-

tion Commission of the States, forthcoming.

Folger, J . K . , and Smartt, S. “The State Role in Quality Improvement: Case of Flor-

ida.” In J . K . Folger, A . McGuinniss, and G . Van de Water (Eds.), Resource Cata-

logue on Budgetary Incentives fo r Qu al ib Improvement in Higher Education. Denver, Colo. :Education Commission of the States, forthcoming.

Hargrove, E. The Search f o r Implementation Theory. Nashville, Tenn.: Vanderbilt Institute

for Public Policy Studies, 1981.

Kramer, M. The Venture Capital of Higher Education. Washington, D.C . Carnegie Foun-

dation for the Advancement of Teaching, 1980.Lipsky, M. Street-Leuel Bureaucracy: Dilemma of the Individual in Public Seruice. New York:

Russell Sage Foundation, 1980.

Mingle, J . R. “Choices Facing Higher Education in the 1980s.” In J . R. Mingle (Ed.),

Challenges of Retrenchment. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1981.

Pickens, B. “Performance Funding in Higher Education: Panacea or Peril?” In R. A.

Wilson (Ed.), Suruival in the Eighties: Qualib, Mission, and Financing Options. Tucson:

Center for the Study of Higher Education, University of Arizona, 1983.

Spraggins, J . “Linking Higher Education Policy to State Economic Development.”

Paper presented at AERA symposium, August 1983.

Wallhous, R. “Process Issues in State-Level Program Reviews.” In E . Craven (Ed.),

Designing Academic Program Reviews. New Directions for Institutional Research, no.

27. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1980.

Weick, K . “Educational Organizations as Loosely Coupled Systems.”Administrative Sci-

ence Quarterb, 1976, 21 , 1-19.

Janet Eyler is assistant professor of education and associate dean of

George Peabody College, Vanderbilt University.

eyler 1984 the politics of quality in higher education.pdf

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