Conference Organizer:
Jennifer A. Delaney, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Research Questions:
The conference is organized around the following research questions:
What are the consequences of volatility in state support for stakeholder groups, such as students (enrollment, completion, etc.) and institutions (planning, staffing, expenditure patterns, etc.)?
What are identifiable markers of changes in the intensity of volatility in state spending for higher education? For instance, what is the role of the business cycle in relation to state spending for higher education? What are identifiable patterns in state spending for higher education? To what degree does volatility in spending for higher education vary across states? Which state characteristics are associated with more or less volatility? What mechanisms can be used to quantify the risk inherent in a volatile system?
How much have changes in volatility intensities impacted funding levels? For instance, has there been an overall decline in spending levels following more or less volatile periods?
What are the patterns and consequences of volatility in non-institutionally-focused state spending for higher education? How does volatility in state funding for higher education institutions relate to state funding for student aid or capital projects?
What mechanisms are available for addressing volatility and how effective are these mechanisms? For instance, is there a relationship between performance funding, funding formulas, state financial aid programs, state “free” college programs (or other state higher education finance policies) and volatility?
Additional Information:
Please direction any questions to Jennifer Delaney at delaneyj@illinois.edu.
This research conference is supported by a grant from the Education Research Conferences Program of the American Educational Research Association. Additional support has been provided by the O’Leary Endowment, which supports the Forum on the Future of Public Education at the University of Illinois.