The Science of Higher Education: State Higher Education Policy and the Laws of Scale

Perennial conclusions from state-by-state funding-per-student analyses of underfunding and weak state commitment have become so common that they have diluted the potency of the argument to state policymakers for more higher education funding. In addition, there has been little in the way of testing or questioning the assumptions embedded in traditional funding per student analysis and its accompanying conclusions.As state legislators balance the competing needs of education, health, trans­p...