Connecting the Dots between Financing and Sustainability
The budget crisis affecting higher education threatens to erode good work to improve the quality of teaching and learning. Despite the growing awareness of the importance of improving access and degree attainment, funding policies affecting much of higher education are moving in the opposite direction: budget cuts, fewer staff, higher tuitions, less opportunity. The crisis affecting state finance is likely to persist for much of the next decade. What does that mean for the traditional role of accreditation? What does it mean for public policy? And what are some good ideas about ways that institutions can navigate through these difficult times?
Jane Wellman is Executive Director of the Delta Project on Postsecondary Costs, Productivity and Accountability, a research and policy organization located in Washington, DC. The Delta Project's mission is to improve productivity in higher education through more effective management of resources without compromising student access or quality. Established in 2007, the Delta Project has produced two national reports and has developed and made publicly available a data base with over twenty years of revenue and spending data for over 2000 public and private non-profit institutions. Reports and the data are available at http://www.deltacostproject.org. Wellman is widely recognized for her work in public policy and higher education, at both the state and federal levels, with particular expertise in state fiscal policy; cost analysis; strategic planning; state and federal regulation of higher education; accountability metrics and performance reporting; and quality control including accreditation. She is a member of the Board of Directors for the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and a member of the Board of Trustees for Argosy University.
Email: jane [at] deltacostproject [dot] org
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