Intermediary Organizations and State College Completion Policy: Examining the Supply and Demand of Research Use

• In Event: 60.076 - The Social and Political Contexts for Research Utilization in Education Policy Making

Abstract

Raising U.S. students’ rates of college completion has become a primary, if not the primary, focus of recent policy debates concerning governments’ role in higher education. The Obama administration has declared that the U.S. will lead the world in postsecondary degree attainment by 2020. That national commitment notwithstanding, it is the states that are the primary actors in postsecondary governance in this country, not the federal government. Yet, state responses to the national goal have been varied, in part due to the highly decentralized nature of the higher education sector. In many states, postsecondary policymaking takes place without significant analytic activity at the topmost levels of state decision-making. This void has historically been addressed by intermediaries between state policymakers (i.e., governors and legislators) and college campuses. Several intermediary organizations have pursued active policy agendas to disseminate research-based knowledge and to encourage states to design policies and programs to increase college completion rates (e.g., College Board and National Governors Association).

In this study, we examine the roles of two such boundary-spanning organizations: a longstanding multi-issue regional policy compact (Southern Regional Education Board [SREB]) and a national issue-specific policy alliance (College Completion America [CCA]) in fostering the acquisition and use of research evidence to inform college completion policy decisions. Moreover, we consider how the utilization of such evidence varies by state-level political, organizational, and socioeconomic characteristics.

Specifically, through a comparative case study of five Southeastern states participating in the SREB (i.e., Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas), we examine how variation by level of involvement with SREB, by participation in the CCA alliance, and by states’ internal characteristics may foster or inhibit their engagement in important policy networks and their utilization of research evidence to inform college completion policies. The project consists of three phases, each consisting of archival data collection, observations and interviews with key informants. In the fall, we will be able to report on the first round of data collection in the five states and at CCA, SREB, and other intermediary meetings and events.

Our study stands to extend the conceptual understanding of research utilization by focusing on the distinct roles of intermediaries to influence policy decisions around one of our nation’s most pressing challenges: raising college attainment rates in the U.S. to world-leading levels. Moreover, based on its implications for practice, policymakers and policy organizations may find insights in our findings related to the role of intermediaries and the use of research evidence.

Authors

• Erik C. Ness, University of Georgia

• Paul G. Rubin, University of Georgia

• Denisa Gandara, University of Georgia - Athens

• Tiffanie Spencer, University of Georgia - Athens