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Blurring Boarders: Aligning Jurisdictional Boundaries to Postsecondary Education Markets. DR. BRIAN A. SPONSLER ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR RESEARCH. SHEEO NATIONAL POLICY CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO CA 11 AUGUST, 2011. Blurring Boarders: A Proposition.
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Blurring Boarders: Aligning Jurisdictional Boundariesto Postsecondary Education Markets DR. BRIAN A. SPONSLER ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR RESEARCH SHEEO NATIONAL POLICY CONFERENCE, SAN FRANCISCO CA 11 AUGUST, 2011
Blurring Boarders: A Proposition • Progressing toward national degree attainment goals requires re-aligning jurisdictional boundaries and corresponding governance structures to match specific postsecondary education markets. • Unpack this proposition into three components: • Where re-alignment is most needed and relevance of areas to national attainment goals • Why existing jurisdictional boundaries and policy environments are problematic in these spaces and difficult to change • How to think about refocusing policy and governance to better match educational markets in these spaces
Where: Multistate Metro Regions • Multistate metropolitan regions are made up of core cities and surrounding suburban and exurban areas with counties in two or more states. • Places where people move across porous non-political boundaries for economic, social, and increasingly educational activities. • Represent natural postsecondary education markets that we’ve been less than intentional in treating as such with public policy and governance arrangements. • Highly relevant to national degree attainment goals: • Demographically • Economically • Educationally
Where: 44 Multistate Metro Regions Small Logan, UT-ID Cumberland, MD-WV Sioux City, IA-NE-SD Midsize Portland, OR-WA Memphis, TN-MS-AR Providence, RI-MA Large New York, NY-NJ-PA Washington, D.C., DC-VA-MD-WV Chicago, IL-WI-IN
Why: Realignment Challenge • Multistate metro regions are underserved by public postsecondary education due to existing state-based jurisdiction over policy and governance arrangements. • The misalignment between jurisdictional control and postsecondary markets puts the public sector at a disadvantage compared to their private and for-profit counterparts in multistate metro areas. • Three problematic areas: • Resident-based tuition policy • Student state-based financial aid • Credit transfers/student movements
Why: Realignment Challenge • Inter-jurisdictional cooperation is hard; we know this from our experiences in other policy areas. • Presents a challenge due to differences in: • Structure of public systems (Bureaucratic culture) • Revenue sources and funding (Financial culture) • Decision-making process (Political culture) • Policy tastes and attitudes (Policy culture) • States may therefore need assistance in addressing the challenge of increasing degree attainment in multistate metropolitan areas on a scale necessary to reach attainment targets.
How: Realigning With EZ-GO • Educational Zone Governance Organizations (EZ-GO) One way to support alignment of postsecondary policy and governance in multistate metro areas. • EZ-GO Commission could be housed in Department of Education and report to authorizing education-related committees in Congress. • Consists of appointed governors, local metro leaders, business interests, institutional/system leaders, and experts in inter-jurisdictional cooperation and labor economics.
EZ-GO Commission Tasks • Three specific tasks at the outset: • 1. Ratify boundaries of multistate Educational Zone Governance Organization (EZ-GO) areas. • 2. Advise federal policymakers on actions to incentivize state/local leaders and institutional participation. • 3. Propose redesign or adjustment of existing federal policy-mix to support degree attainment in EZ-GO areas.
EZ-GO Commission Boundaries • EZ-GO Commission is NOT designed to: • Take over management of state postsecondary systems or individual institutions. • Be a top-down dictator of policy to states or institutions. • Propose one-size-fits-all recommendations for all multistate metropolitan spaces.
Acknowledgements • Related paper • Easy Come, EZ-GO: Removing Jurisdictional Barriers to College Completion • Available at: www.ihep.org • Co-authors • DR. GREGORY S. KIENZL • DIRECTOR, RESEARCH AND EVALUATION • ALEXIS J. WESAW • RESEARCH ANALYST • Funders • GATES FOUNDATION • CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS