The United States

In the United States, a federal nation, most government oversight of higher education (HE) has historically been by states, although indirect federal financing and certain federal policy mandates now play an important role. State policy approaches toward HE, and specifically its private sector (PHE), are diverse. After a brief history of the federal context and survey of national PHE enrollment trends and their links to public policy, this chapter reviews the essential features and variations in states’ approaches to HE oversight and finance, focusing on PHE in its nonprofit and for-profit forms and including its direct and indirect financial subsidization. In short, American states treat PHE’s nonprofit and for-profit forms quite differently. Recent enrollment patterns are analyzed by PHE institutional types, as well as across states in relation to a typology of policy variation from the earlier research literature and some suggestive indications of possible policy impacts are found. There is notable variation across the two PHE forms here as well in both recent enrollment patterns and in states’ policy arrangements, although the main policy impacts on for-profit PHE have come from the federal level. Institutional authorization, accreditation and quality assurance policies, which are intertwined and involve both federal and state roles, are also covered, as well as public and policymaker attitudes toward PHE and PHE organizations for influencing public policy, again noting key differences across the two PHE forms. Key foci of the chapter are (1) explaining the interplay of federal and state policy roles and recent trends; (2) making sense of the variation in state policy models and of how states’ approaches to nonprofit PHE link to their oversight and financing of public HE; and (3) explaining the distinctive features of public policy treatment of for-profit PHE.