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Item Open Access An Analysis of Sustainability Strategic Planning at Duke University(2012-04-27) Jones, Kelly; Hildenbrand, Jim; Willie, NicholasThis study was conducted in order to inform the sustainability planning process at Duke University and similar institutions of higher education. Through interviews of Duke University Campus Sustainability Committee members and a cost-benefit analysis of Duke’s Climate Action Plan, we evaluated the effectiveness of Duke’s sustainability planning and implementation process. Additionally, we investigated the widely varying sustainability approaches and metrics used by fifteen peer institutions to evaluate their relative merits. In depth interviews were also conducted with Brown University and Yale University staff members for comparison to Duke. Our work resulted in (1) a generic roadmap for universities seeking to develop their own sustainability plan and (2) a list of recommendations to improve upon Duke’s already successful model.Item Open Access Condoms and Consent: Exploring the Relationship Between Sexual Health and Sexual Violence on College Campuses(2017-04-29) Weisman, IlanaCollege campuses are ripe for investigation about sexual health and sexual violence: students know very little about sexual health and routinely engage in risky sexual behaviors, and one in four women will experience sexual violence while a student. However, if better sexual health leads to increased women’s agency and self-determination, and if sexual violence stems from socialized power dynamics that diminish self-determination, then it follows that increased sexual health should at least correlate with, if not cause, reduced levels of sexual violence. Fittingly, this thesis questions if increased sexual health associates with reduced sexual violence on college campuses. To investigate this connection, I analyze 59 members of the American Association of Universities by compiling data about their sexual health promotion, sexual violence prevention, and medical resources, as well as their Clery Act Compliant reported rates of sexual violence. I use a statistical approach to draw correlations and posit relationships between indicators of a campus’s sexual health and its reported rates of sexual violence, which I discuss alongside the phenomenon of underreporting sexual violence. This thesis will culminate by providing policy recommendations to universities on how to better their sexual health promotion and sexual violence prevention efforts, as well as to the federal government on how to reform the Clery Act sex crime reporting process to make Clery reports a stronger gauge of campus sexual violence.Item Open Access DISI: A Model for Practical Interdisciplinary Education and Social Impact(2014-04-25) Heller, DanielIntroduction Duke Interdisciplinary Social Innovators (DISI) is a model for organizing graduate students at universities to do interdisciplinary, problem-oriented projects for non-profit clients. In its first year, 149 students from eight different Duke graduate schools will complete 24 projects for North Carolina social organizations. Eighty-five percent of students and 100 percent of clients expressed satisfaction with their first semester DISI project experience. As a result, The Scholar Strategy Network (SSN) is exploring the possibility of expanding the model to other Universities and has asked me to answer the following question. Policy Question How can graduate students set up an interdisciplinary, client-oriented service organization? Recommendations: The MP analyzes the steps DISI’s Co-Founders took to set up DISI at Duke and their successes and failures. It is too early to tell if the model will work in the long term. However, others who want to set-up similar organizations at other universities should use the following steps: 1. Analyze the graduate education structure of their school, determine if interdisciplinary collaboration is possible, what form it will take, and who are the key stakeholders to invest in the idea. 2. Recruit student leaders, have student leaders meet with key university and community stakeholders to solicit funds, student recruiting relationships, and non-profit project relationships. 3. Visualize an organization structure and a project team structure, using information provided here as a guide. Consider the academic calendar and the student culture of all graduate schools. 4. Create initial branding material. Recruit a few initial projects and determine initial Skill Share events to entice student participation and help. 5. Have initial investment meeting to recruit student volunteers to help over the summer. These students are potentially the first executive board members. 6. Use summer to plan and begin to plan and execute student recruitment, partner recruitment, fund solicitation, and skill share events as possible. This could include creating materials, outreaching to orientation leaders to plan recruitment events, and e-mailing non-profits. 7. When the school year begins, execute student recruitment and project matching processes. This includes interviewing project managers. 8. Monitor progress, execute Skill Share events and social events. 1.3 Methodology My strategy for answering the policy question included the following four major components. 1. Background research and a review of the relevant literature. 2. Review of the interdisciplinary landscape at Duke and other schools. 3. Review of the steps DISI’s Co-founders took to start the organ Duke. 4. Review of preliminary DISI data.Item Open Access Enrollment Growth and Equity of Access: A Critical Analysis of the University of North Carolina's Strategic Plan(2019-03-25) Levitt, JessicaThe University of North Carolina System’s strategic plan contains initiatives to increase access for low-income and rural students, improve student outcomes, and close achievement gaps. A complete assessment of UNC’s strategic plan will consider increased enrollment against the demand of the state’s economy, the cost of education, and institutional resources. Enrollment growth carries the risks of lowering academic standard or oversaturating North Carolina’s economy with college-educated workers. However, the low educational attainment of the state’s underserved populations supports expanding access. A more detailed investigation of demographics at each of the campuses is necessary to understand the scope of underrepresentation within the system. The resulting calculations show that in addition to underrepresentation, there is also unequal distribution of minority, low-income, and rural students across UNC institutions. While the system has identified a number of programs and methods for achieving its priorities, it is also worth examining other models that may have application in North Carolina. In its current form, UNC’s strategic plan is insufficient to drive state-wide improvements. The aims produce only minimal gains, overlook important gaps, and lack the coordination between campuses necessary to best utilize system resources. There is unmet need and significant opportunity for innovation in North Carolina’s public institutions, but more ambitious goals will have to be implemented to result in any meaningful impact.Item Open Access Environmental Leadership in Campus Sustainability(2019-04-24) Allen, SimonCampus sustainability is an important topic for several reasons: 1. Higher Education institutions generally have a large environmental footprint, primarily because they are large users of energy to operate their campuses and fulfil their programmatic activities. 2. Due to their mission and competencies, Higher Education institutions have the capacity and responsibility to lead on climate and sustainability action for the sake of their students and society. Second Nature, a nonprofit founded to encourage climate action by higher education institutions, established the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education in 2001 due to increasing interest in campus sustainability. However, it wasn’t until the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitments (‘ACUPCC’) in 2006 that many organizations publicly made concerted, objective, quantifiable commitments to reduce greenhouse gas (‘GHG’) emissions. In 2015, Second Nature expanded and rebranded the ACUPCC to form the Presidents’ Climate Leadership Commitments. Today, that network comprises over 600 higher education institutions who have made a commitment to act on climate. At many of these institutions, a formal commitment has been made to reductions in GHG emissions. These commitments are reported through Second Nature’s reporting platform which acts as a central hub for the monitoring and evaluation of progress against these commitments. As part of the agreed protocol for reporting their emissions, institutions use the Greenhouse Gas Protocol (‘GHGP’), a partnership between the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development. GHGP establishes a comprehensive, global, standardized framework for measuring and managing emissions from private and public sector operations, value chains, products, cities, and policies. In this report I have focused on five Higher Education institutions which have made objective commitments, and for whom data is available through the Second Nature reporting portal. These include Colgate, Cornell, Duke, Middlebury (College) and New York Universities, all of whom are members of the Carbon Commitment initiative. Additionally, the five were chosen because although they have all made quite meaningful progress against their commitments, they have taken quite different routes to secure their reductions.Item Open Access Eruditio et Religio: A Comparative History of Religious Life on Four Campuses(2018) Muir, ScottThis dissertation examines the relationship between religion and higher education in the United States through analyses of the religious histories of four distinct educational institutions in North Carolina’s Research Triangle—Duke University, Meredith College, North Carolina Central University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It places three seemingly contradictory scholarly representations of this relationship in conversation with one another. The first, represented by evangelical historians George Marsden and John Sommerville, claims that American higher education has come to be characterized by exclusive secularism. The second, represented by scholars of education, including Tricia Seifert, Lewis Schlosser, and Sherry Watt et al. claims by contrast that Christian privilege continues to obstruct the full inclusion of religious and non-religious minorities. And a third, represented by Rhonda and Jake Jacobsen, contends that historical Protestant and secularist predominance have been transcended by inclusive pluralism in the “postsecular” 21st century. This dissertation draws on archival research, participant observation, interviews, quantitative survey analysis, and secondary sources to demonstrate how Protestant, secular, and pluralist forces have coexisted and interacted throughout these four institutions’ histories. It illuminates how their campus religious climates have evolved in distinct ways through contingent interactions among these forces conditioned by a variety of institutional identity factors, including race, gender, affiliation, prestige, and geographical reach. As a result, we see that the relationship between religion and higher education is not uniformly characterized by either Christian privilege, exclusive secularism, or inclusive pluralism. Distinct institutional trajectories shape coexisting forms of privilege, secularism, and pluralism that interact in specific contexts, producing unique campus religious climates that shape undergraduate identity formation.
Item Open Access Essays on the Determinants of Public Funding for Universities and the Impact on Innovation and Entrepreneurship(2019) Kim, JoowonThis dissertation is comprised of three studies that investigate the implications and determinants of public funding for universities.
The first chapter lays down the foundation for the other two studies. I discuss how state-level policies, as determined by legislators, represent a pivotal component of firms' non-market strategies that have direct implications for the viability of their innovative and entrepreneurial activities. I expand this discussion to identify gaps in extant studies surrounding state-level policies and state legislators.
The second study focuses on the state funding for 420 public universities to estimate the precise return on state investments in higher education as measured by two economic outcomes -- the generation of university patents and formation of business establishments in a given university's local economy from 2002 through 2014. Using an instrumental variable estimation strategy, I predict and find a positive, causal association between state funding and the number of patents granted to public universities. I also observe a similar causal relationship between state funding and the entry of new business establishments near a given campus. This becomes pronounced for small firms in the manufacturing, retail, and service sectors, and even more for small firms in high-technology industries that are known to rely heavily on universities as a source of external inventions - pharmaceutical, medical equipment, and semiconductor.
The third study explores a new determinant of state funding for 420 public universities by leveraging novel, hand-collected data on the educational experiences of state legislators - specifically if and where they received postsecondary education. I predict and find a statistically significant, positive association between the share of legislators who attended their states' public institutions and state funding for their entire public higher-education system. A similar positive relationship is also observed between the share of state legislators who attended particular campuses of the state's public university system and funding for those campuses. This relationship is more pronounced among publicly educated legislators who represent legislative districts close to their alma mater's district, and becomes most consequential when the legislator's district contains his or her alma mater.
Item Open Access Essays on the economics of higher education: Investigating college major choice(2017) Hopson, Amy KathleenThis dissertation consists of two separate essays on major choice in higher education. In the first chapter, I investigate how differences in information affect students' major choices over time. Since college has such a short time horizon, the amount of information students have before coming in may play a big role in how well they are matched to their final major. They may also choose their initial major based on how uncertain they are about their match with that major, especially since they have the option to switch in future periods. This paper discusses students' search process in finding a major, and how information impacts behavior and ultimate outcomes. I set up a tiered structure where the student must first choose a field (either STEM or Non-STEM) and then choose a major within that field. This allows for matches within a particular field to be correlated, thus providing information on non-chosen majors within the same field. The student makes decisions based on the choices that will maximize her expected utility over her entire college career. Since her current choices and information set depend on past decisions, and since there are a finite number of periods, I can solve the dynamic decision problem using backwards recursion.
Once I solve for the student's optimal decision path, I estimate the model using data from the Campus Life and Learning Survey from Duke University. The CLL data allows me to observe students' expected majors at multiple points throughout their college career. I attempt to find the model parameters that best match particular moments in the data. The first key type of moment involves overall switching patterns, that is, the probability of choosing a particular field in the initial period, and then the probabilities of later decisions conditional on the first choice. The second key type of moment I match captures which students are making which decisions. I look at how academic ability, as measured by SAT Math scores, and gender affect the choice probabilities in the data.
I find that the STEM field has a much lower average match value than non-STEM, but a higher variance in matches. Thus, students are less certain about how well they might match with STEM. Students with higher math ability are more likely to choose STEM in the first period, but the sorting by ability greatly increases in the later period. It is costly to switch into STEM from non-STEM in the second period, while the reverse move is virtually costless. All of these results support the theoretical result that students will choose the field with more uncertainty in the early periods (given similar expected match values) because of the option to switch later if they get a bad match. This is especially true when the more uncertain field is also more costly to switch into in later periods, as in the case of STEM.
In the second chapter, co-authored with Thomas Ahn, Peter Arcidiacono, and James Thomas, we estimate an equilibrium model of grading policies. On the supply side, professors offer courses with particular grading policies. Professors set both an intercept and a return to studying and ability in determining their grading policies. They make these decisions, attempting to maximize their own utility, but taking into account all other professors' grading policies. On the demand side, students respond by selecting a bundle of courses, then deciding how much to study in each class conditional on enrolling. We allow men and women to have different preferences over different departments, how much they like higher grades, and how costly it is to exert more effort in studying.
Two decompositions are performed. First, we separate out how much of the differences in grading policies across fields is driven by differences in demand for courses in those fields and how much is due to differences in professor preferences across fields. Second, we separate out how much differences in female/male course taking across fields is driven by i) differences in cognitive skills, ii) differences in the valuation of grades, iii) differences in the cost of studying, and iv) differences in field preferences.
We then use the structural parameters to evaluate restrictions on grading policies. Restrictions on grading policies that equalize grade distributions across classes result in higher (lower) grades in science (non-science) fields but more (less) work being required. As women are willing to study more than men, this restriction on grading policies results in more women pursuing the sciences and more men pursuing the non-sciences.
Item Open Access FRAMEWORK FOR JOHNSON C. SMITH UNIVERSITY’S SUSTAINABILITY PLAN(2011-05-03) Fitzgerald, Brent; Grant, Katharine; Lewis, AndreaOn behalf of their client Johnson C. Smith University (JCSU), three Nicholas School Masters of Environmental Management students have composed the framework for a future comprehensive sustainability plan. The purpose is to build an ethos of sustainability on JCSU’s campus and in its surrounding communities. The framework is organized through a four-tiered process: creating a University vision, creating a University mission, building a sustainability committee and staff, and implementing specific sustainability strategies. These strategies enumerate short, mid, long-term phasing-in of energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions reductions , increased faculty and student awareness through a dorm energy conservation competition and “Eco-Reps” peer education program, improved campus operations in recycling and dining, and community outreach programs.Item Embargo Marginalized Voices and Nontraditional Pathways in Higher Education in the Late Roman Empire(2023) Küppers, SinjaThis study analyzes marginalized voices and nontraditional pathways of higher education in the late Roman Empire and diversifies our notion of who was part of “the” educated elite in ancient higher education. I focus on upper-class learners who did not have access to the family’s wealth or faced difficulty with pursuing the discussed traditional paths of schooling designed for young men from wealthy families. The discussed marginalized voices include fatherless students, women, late learners, autodidacts, and disabled students. Since most sources on Roman education were authored by elite men who mention marginalized voices in passing, I piece together the experiences of nontraditional learners and marginalized members of Roman education from an array of literary and epigraphic sources, including letters from teachers to students and families, church historians and Christians commenting on women, orations, tomb stones and legal documents. Most sources discussed are dated to the fourth century C.E., highlighting a period in which girls and women from the upper-class gained a voice in ascetic communities, as educational leaders and philanthropes and in which educational mobility across the Roman Empire flourished. Using Bourdieu’s theory of capital, I analyze how diverse family and educational backgrounds impacted the educational paths of students, discuss the student voices often overlooked in scholarship and bring attention to the challenges that nontraditional and marginalized students have experienced in higher education.
Item Open Access No More Gallery Sections: Exploring Spiritual Wellbeing for Descendants of Enslaved Africans at Predominantly White Institutions of Higher Education(2021) Rice, Kellee MonetThis project explores spiritual wellbeing for descendants of enslaved Africans at historically and predominately white institutions of higher education, through the hermeneutical and phenomenological accounts of past and present Black curators of spiritual wellbeing. By focusing on the accounts of religious and spiritual affairs professionals, my research encompasses thirty years of studying the spiritual and emotional wellbeing of Black folks in higher education, in part by speaking with the oldest living Black religious professional to integrate higher education. But first, this project will look back to the historical establishment of higher education institutions being spaces that trained and equipped white clergymen with tools and practices for developing and maintaining healthy (white) souls while simultaneously omitting care and lacking concern for the souls of Black folks. This project explores the rise of "Well-Being" pedagogies in higher education while simultaneously juxtaposing them with desegregation and integration practices. By grounding the project in the historicity of higher education and the systemic exclusion of Black bodies from higher education, the curators' accounts and the stories of the constituents have roots more profound than the present. Accordingly, this thesis captures the practices for repairing one's humanity— a spiritual act— after repeated attacks to devalue one's presence and existence. The question that this thesis seeks to answer is if wellness is a desired locale for all students (faculty and staff), should administrations consider the importance of having a curator for spiritual wellbeing, especially one particularly for Black descendants of enslaved Africans (DEA) who labor under and resonate with the Black experience in America.
Item Open Access No More Gallery Sections: Exploring Spiritual Wellbeing for Descendants of Enslaved Africans at Predominantly White Institutions of Higher Education(2021) Rice, Kellee MonetThis project explores spiritual wellbeing for descendants of enslaved Africans at historically and predominately white institutions of higher education, through the hermeneutical and phenomenological accounts of past and present Black curators of spiritual wellbeing. By focusing on the accounts of religious and spiritual affairs professionals, my research encompasses thirty years of studying the spiritual and emotional wellbeing of Black folks in higher education, in part by speaking with the oldest living Black religious professional to integrate higher education. But first, this project will look back to the historical establishment of higher education institutions being spaces that trained and equipped white clergymen with tools and practices for developing and maintaining healthy (white) souls while simultaneously omitting care and lacking concern for the souls of Black folks. This project explores the rise of "Well-Being" pedagogies in higher education while simultaneously juxtaposing them with desegregation and integration practices. By grounding the project in the historicity of higher education and the systemic exclusion of Black bodies from higher education, the curators' accounts and the stories of the constituents have roots more profound than the present. Accordingly, this thesis captures the practices for repairing one's humanity— a spiritual act— after repeated attacks to devalue one's presence and existence. The question that this thesis seeks to answer is if wellness is a desired locale for all students (faculty and staff), should administrations consider the importance of having a curator for spiritual wellbeing, especially one particularly for Black descendants of enslaved Africans (DEA) who labor under and resonate with the Black experience in America.
Item Open Access Oakland University Practices, Policies and Management Structures for a Sustainable Future: A Qualitative Assessment and Framework for a Sustainability Strategic Plan(2012-04-25) Milko, TawneeOn behalf of her client, Oakland University (OU), the author of the study, a Duke University Master of Environmental Management student and OU graduate, addressed OU sustainability strategic planning for her Masters Project. Part I: A Qualitative Assessment depicts the current status of OU environmental sustainability initiatives through a web-based Catalog of Environmental Initiatives, partial STARS Report, and Sustainability Needs Assessment. Part II: A Sustainability Strategic Plan Framework describes how the University might work toward building a culture-specific sustainability strategic plan at OU. The framework devised offers ten core action steps, which are grouped into four phases: Administrative Action, Strategic Planning, Implementation, and Percolation. Highly participatory, the framework is a marriage of bottom-up and top-down planning, coordination and implementation. The plan that emerges from it will draw its strength and working knowledge from the involvement of all campus sustainability leaders. This framework should help OU expand its ongoing energy, grassroots, and operations and infrastructural sustainability projects to include administrative policies, additional curriculum and research, and student and community outreach.Item Open Access Social Class and Elite University Education: A Bourdieusian Analysis(2010) Martin, Nathan DouglasThe United States experienced a tremendous expansion of higher education after the Second World War. However, this expansion has not led to a substantial reduction to class inequalities at elite universities, where the admissions process is growing even more selective. In his classic studies of French education and society, Pierre Bourdieu explains how schools can contribute to the maintenance and reproduction of class inequalities. Bourdieu's concepts have stimulated much research in American sociology. However, quantitative applications have underappreciated important concepts and aspects of Bourdieu's theory and have generally ignored college life and achievement. With detailed survey and institutional data of students at elite, private universities, this dissertation addresses a gap in the literature with an underexplored theoretical approach.
First, I examine the class structure of elite universities. I argue that latent clustering analysis improves on Bourdieu's statistical approach, as well as locates class fractions that conventional schemas fail to appreciate. Nearly half of students have dominant class origins, including three fractions - professionals, executives and precarious professionals - that are distinguishable by the volume and composition of cultural and economic capital. Working class students remain severely underrepresented at elite, private universities. Second, I explore two types of social capital on an elite university campus. In its practical or immediate state, social capital exists as the resources embedded in networks. I explore the effects of extensive campus networks, and find that investments in social capital facilitate college achievement and pathways to professional careers. As an example of institutionalized social capital, legacies benefit from an admissions preference for applicants with family alumni ties. Legacies show a distinct profile of high levels of economic and cultural capital, but lower than expected achievement. Legacies activate their social capital across the college years, from college admissions to the prevalent use of personal contacts for plans after graduation.
Third, I examine how social class affects achievement and campus life across the college years, and the extent to which cultural capital mediates the link between class and academic outcomes. From first semester grades to graduation honors, professional and middle class students have higher levels of achievement in comparison to executive or subordinate class students. The enduring executive-professional gap suggests contrasting academic orientations for two dominant class fractions, while the underperformance of subordinate class students is due to differences in financial support, a human capital deficit early in college, and unequal access to "collegiate" cultural capital. Collegiate capital includes the implicit knowledge that facilitates academic success and encourages a satisfying college experience. Subordinate class students are less likely to participate in many popular aspects of elite campus life, including fraternity or sorority membership, study abroad, and drinking alcohol. Additionally, two common activities among postsecondary students - participating in social and recreational activities and changing a major field early in college - are uniquely troublesome for subordinate class students. Overall, I conclude that Bourdieu provides a unique and useful perspective for understanding educational inequalities at elite universities in the United States.
Item Open Access Sustainable Food Sourcing in Higher Education: Definition and Goal-Setting for Duke University(2014-04-18) Anderson, KathrynFood production is one of the most impactful parts of human’s footprint, both on our environment and our social structure. Knowing this, many colleges and universities are enacting sustainable purchasing guidelines and procurement goals in dining services to decrease the negative externalities of food consumption on campus. This study used semi-structured interviews, focus groups, and collection of material culture to evaluate Duke University’s current sustainable food procurement initiatives and to research how peer institutions create and track progress towards sustainable food goals. Based on this research, I recommend a definition of sustainable food for Duke University in six product categories. I also give broad guidelines for “best practices” in setting and maintaining sustainable sourcing goals in dining services.Item Open Access The Living Web(2019) LeGrand, Luke C.As the role of Internet Connected Technologies (ICTs) increases exponentially, and as all student populations (highly motivated or not) become increasingly composed of digital natives, it is imperative that the academy adapt to these new challenges. A university is obligated to ensure its students are adequately prepared for the Digital Age. This paper seeks to examine and evaluate the current scholarship of coding pedagogy, digital learning, and information science education, to leverage these evaluations towards the construction of a course of study which is informed by critical thought and current scholarship. It is the author’s hope to provide methods and approaches through which students who may lack an academic background in Computer Science can develop critical and analytic thinking skills alongside essential understandings of the technologies underpinning their daily lives.
Item Open Access The Politics of Affirmative Action in North Carolina's Higher Education(2021-12-03) Melatti, KyleRace-based affirmative action has been under threat for the past several decades since its rise during the middle of the 20th century. As several Supreme Court cases have upheld and rebuked certain elements of race-conscious admissions, some states have even gone as far as to ban affirmative action in their public universities entirely. In 2003, the Supreme Court in Grutter v. Bollinger decided that race-based admissions would no longer be necessary after 25 years. While making this bold assertion, the Court left several questions open. For example, what would no longer needing affirmative action look like? This thesis examines the issue of race-based affirmative action by asking whether or not the admissions process at public and private universities is insulated from external influences. This “politics” of affirmative action potentially shows that race-conscious admissions is under attack not due to grave constitutional violations, but rather a mixture of federal, state, and local prejudice and diminishing public support. This thesis looks at North Carolina and adds to existing literature by using time-series regression of 39 public and private universities and difference-in-difference modeling on the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill after its major 2014 federal lawsuit, Students for Fair Admissions v. UNC. Findings indicate that private universities outperformed public universities in affirmative action outcomes between 1994 and 2020. This thesis argues the difference stems from politics. Results regarding the impact of the 2014 lawsuit remain inconclusive.Item Open Access UNC System Trends in State Appropriations and Student Affordability(2021-04) Hodges-Copple, SallyExtensive academic and policy research has documented a nationwide trend of declining state support for higher education, particularly during recessionary periods. A review of the existing literature shows that North Carolina has paralleled national trends in shifting the responsibility for funding public higher education away from society as a whole – via the appropriation of tax dollars – and toward individual students and families in the form of tuition and fee payments. As schools receive fewer public resources, they are forced to either cut spending or increase revenue via others means; research regarding the impact of spending cuts and tuition increases on student outcomes indicates that both are detrimental. Given North Carolina's comparatively low university tuition rates relative to other states, some observers have touted the affordability of the state’s public institutions and downplayed the relevance of national trends to the North Carolinian context. To the contrary, this report finds that state appropriations per full-time equivalent student in 2017, the most recent year with complete data, were at their lowest level in North Carolina since 1995. While declines occurred during recessionary periods, the recovery in state support during expansionary periods is taking longer and longer. Students – particularly those from families that have borne the brunt of income stagnation and have been historically shut out from wealth-building opportunities – are increasingly expected to pay out-of-pocket from limited family resources or take on substantial amounts of debt to finance their education. In particular, four key findings have emerged from this study: 1) Appropriations per FTE in 2017 were at their lowest level since 1995 and are taking increasingly longer to recover following economic downturns: The expansionary period following the 2008 recession defied a previous pattern in which higher education funding in North Carolina would decline during recessions only to subsequently recover during expansions. Even as the economy grew from 2010 to 2017, appropriations per FTE fell 9 percent, or $1,509, dropping to $14,928 from $16,437. Far from recovering during a time of economic growth, appropriations per FTE in the UNC System were 15 percent lower in 2017 than at their pre-recession peak in 2007. 2) Tuition revenue is steadily replacing state dollars in UNC System funding: In 2017, North Carolina appropriated just $1.71 per FTE for every $1 in net tuition revenue per FTE. This appropriations-net tuition ratio has declined 50 percent since 2001, when the state appropriated $3.41 per FTE for every $1 in net tuition revenue per FTE. Based on this shift in the relative burden, higher education in North Carolina is on track to become a primarily individual investment that is partially subsidized by the state. 3) Students from lowest income families experienced the greatest hike in out-of-pocket costs: The best available data points to concerning distributional impacts of the above two trends: North Carolina's lowest-income families – those least able to absorb the shift away from state-funded higher education – are precisely the families who have experienced the greatest percentage increase in net price over the last decade. From 2008 to 2017, the UNC System’s lowest-income students experienced a net price increase of over 100 percent, while its highest-income students experience a net price increase of 25 percent. 4) Increased reliance on student loans and disparities across UNC campuses reflect the legacy of NC’s income and wealth gaps: Since 1999 – the first year in which data is available – UNC System students have increasingly turned to student loans to finance the cost of public higher education. The portion of UNC System students who took out student loans rose from 40 percent in 1999 to 56 percent in 2018. Persistent disparities emerge between the state’s Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and other campuses. The portion of students receiving loans increased from 55 percent in 1999 to 77 percent in 2018 at MSIs. At non-MSI campuses, meanwhile, just 36 percent of students received student loans in 1999, a figure that rose to 51 percent of students in 2018. As North Carolina families begin to heal from the dual crises of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated economic recession, state leaders will confront important budget decisions influencing the trajectory of the state’s recovery. While state revenue collections are exceeding worst-case projections, costs – especially in higher education – have risen as well, while other streams of revenues have declined. A post-COVID-19 response that continues to shift burdens onto students may be particularly concerning for students who are less able to absorb these increased costs due to familial job and income losses stemming from the pandemic. Today, North Carolina has the opportunity to more closely examine its historical commitment of state dollars to UNC System students relative to its levels of present-day investment in a student body that is more racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse than any generation before it.Item Open Access Undergraduate Student Veterans at Ivy League and Ivy+ Colleges and Universities(2020-04-08) Pratson, JohnThe client, Service to School (S2S), remains interested in understanding the experiences and outcomes of undergraduate student veterans who have matriculated into Ivy League and Ivy+ colleges and universities. Consequently, the following research question was asked along with several subsidiary questions. Research Question: What policies should Service to School (S2S) adopt in order to provide better support to undergraduate student veterans at Ivy League and Ivy+ colleges and universities? Subsidiary Questions: What challenges do undergraduate student veterans experience while enrolled in Ivy League and Ivy+ institutions? What factors are contributing to the challenges experienced by undergraduate student veterans who attend Ivy League and Ivy+ institutions? After consultation with the client, university administrators, key leaders from other veteran services organizations, current and former undergraduate student veterans, and other stakeholders, this project was designed to capture the lived experiences of current undergraduate student veterans to present tangible policy solutions to the client and pave the way for future cohorts of student veterans. This initial subsidiary research question was answered through the use of qualitative survey research. The case study methodology was utilized to answer the second subsidiary research question. The case studies were used to supplement the analysis portion of this paper, as many of the responses had thematic similarities to issues discovered in the survey findings. While this project was able to successfully reveal the lived experiences and challenges of undergraduate student veterans at Ivy League and Ivy+ schools, there is still much to be learned about this population. Future research questions have been identified throughout the findings and analysis section and warrant greater discussion. What can be concluded is that undergraduate student veterans take the necessary steps to prepare for and do well at the most elite schools in the nation. Simultaneously, these veterans struggle to relate to their peers and experience institutional challenges that continue to remain unsolved and unaddressed. Based on these findings, several policy recommendations were given to the client for consideration.