State Postsecondary Policy Innovativeness

• In Event: 58.084 - Poster Session 13
  In Poster Session: 58.084-9 - Policy Posters

Abstract

The United States is experiencing an unprecedented wave of state postsecondary policy innovation. Within the literature, attention has been paid to determining which states are more innovative across policy areas and then determining what factors are associated with greater innovation (or ‘policy innovativeness’). However such efforts are absent in higher education. We attempt to fill these gaps in the research by: 1) Carefully identify and code state higher education policy innovations over the last 35 years; 2) Developing a state higher education policy innovativeness index; 3) Employing the index in order to answer the following research questions:
1. Is general policy innovativeness associated with higher education policy innovativeness?

2. What factors are associated with state higher education policy innovativeness?

Authors

• David Allen Tandberg, State Higher Education Executive Officers

• Thomas Austin Lacy, RTI International

• Suk Joon Hwang

• Francis Berry

• Shouping Hu, Florida State University

• Toby Park, Florida State University