Review of WHAT'S PUBLIC ABOUT PUBLIC HIGHER ED
Some survey data to ponder
It’s no secret that higher education in the United States is suffering from negative public perception around a variety of topics, including tuition costs, skills learned in the classroom, and political polarization. Data from Pew Research shows that most Americans are concerned about each of these areas with growing partisan divide among Democrats and Republicans.
In a new book, What’s Public About Public Higher Ed?: Halting Higher Education’s Decline in the Court of Public Opinion, authors Stephen M. Gavazzi and E. Gordan Gee report on survey data they collected from a sample of the general public in the country’s six most populous states, plus Ohio and Virginia. The motivation of their work stems from the notion that the community and general public should have a say in how public state universities spend their money.
Sending out their survey to around 600 Americans, Gavazzi and Gee share their results. Some highlights:
For every $100 in taxpayer dollars, citizens want $46.10 spent on teaching, $28.20 spent on research, and $25.70 spend on community outreach.
71% of citizens said there should be no difference in university’s focus on outreach to rural and urban communities.
43% of citizens want an equal focus on global and local issues by their state universities, and 33% want a greater focus on global issues than local issues.
49% of citizens think that merit-based aid should be prioritized over needs-based aid, and 37% think both merit-based and needs-based aid should be equally prioritized. Only 12% of citizens think needs-based aid should be prioritized.
47% of citizens report that national rankings (e.g., US News & Report rankings) matter, with 32% of citizens being neutral and 19% disagreeing that rankings matter.
Some of these are a bit surprising, though most are not. I appreciate the public support for the majority of tax dollars being spent on teaching. When compared to national statistics about how universities actually spend their money, apparently this is on target. But I am skeptical because if all faculty pay is being categorized as “teaching” pay, then that is obviously false, at least at research universities where faculty teach only one or two courses per term and most of their pay is thus supporting research activity.
It’s interesting to see that only 12% of citizens support needs-based aid being prioritized given the national conversation on equity. Similarly with regard to rankings, a substantial proportion of citizens don’t think that national rankings matter with 32% being neutral and 19% actively disagreeing to the statement ‘national rankings matter’.
This book provided some interesting data, but honestly I am surprised it was published a book. The organization, data, and general content would have been better in a published report, not a book. Given the data presented, more visuals would also have been appreciated.
Overall, the motivation is on point – we should be including the general public in our conversations about how universities are run and what they focus on. After all, if we see public universities as a public good, we should treat them as such, which means greater public input and greater outreach.
Published: October 2021
Format: Hardcover
If you think this sounds interesting, bookmark these other great reads:
Sustainable. Resilient. Free.: The Future of Public Higher Education by John Warner (2020)
A Perfect Mess: The Unlikely Ascendancy of American Higher Education by David Labaree (2019)
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