Higher Education as Competetive Enterprise: When Markets Matter: New Directions for Institutional Research

by Robert Zemsky

What makes some institutions medallions and others name brands, while still others serve a predominantly convenience/user-friendly clientele? This volume answers these questions by illustrating the way market forces transform higher education. Acknowledging that the drive for student-generated revenues has come to characterize U. S. higher education over the last quarter century, the contributors present the results of a twenty-year study at the University of Pennsylvania that explains which campuses compete with one another, at what prices, and with what kinds of outcomes for their graduates. They offer a comprehensive history of the development and implementation of Collegiate Results Instrument (CRI), a tool for mapping the connection between market forces and educational outcomes in higher education. Chapters detail the methods that CRI uses to help institutions to remain value centered by becoming market smart. Topics include the range of values, practices, and abilities that can be tracked through CRI; practical applications of two CRI administrations and their results; and what CRI can teach an institution about its signature in the marketplace. This is the 111th issue of the quarterly series New Directions for Institutional Research.

124 pages, Paperback

First published October 11, 2001