Study Methodology & Funding

A Word About This Study

Our observations are based on a small-scale study consisting of open-ended interviews conducted either individually or in focus groups. The responses are intriguing and thought-provoking, but we believe it is important to emphasize the limitations of this work. Focus groups and one-on-one interviews are useful tools for learning how people talk about issues and for gathering a range of ideas and viewpoints. Based on Public Agenda’s experience, this type of structured “listening” is essential to generating hypotheses for further research and developing discussion models that can be refined and tested in additional settings. However, the observations here are not reliable predictors of how many college faculty and financial officers share these exact views.

That said, throughout these interviews, we repeatedly saw characteristic patterns of thinking. Similar themes and concerns emerged in different conversations in settings across the country and in different kinds of institutions and communities. Interestingly, faculty concerns about student readiness for higher education are being echoed in student focus groups Public Agenda is currently conducting for another project.

Methodology

"Campus Commons? What Faculty, Financial Officers and Others Think About Controlling College Costs" is a small-scale exploratory piece of research that collects insights from three types of sources: interviews with 11 chief financial officers from state departments (or commissions) on higher education, 8 chief financial officers of two-year and four-year public postsecondary institutions, and 6 focus groups in three major metropolitan areas with faculty members from both two-year and four-year public post-secondary institutions. The chief financial officers from two-year and four-year post-secondary schools worked in public institutions that took funding from public sources. These schools spanned a wide range of size from major research universities to smaller community-oriented institutions.

Because interviews were given under a pledge of individual confidentiality, we have not identified comments by name or institution. We have provided the occupations of interviewees. The quotations have been lightly edited, and in some cases, two remarks have been combined in order to delete the moderator’s questions or an irrelevant side issue. We have also edited quotations to mask the identity of the speaker.

Making Opportunity Affordable is a multi-year initiative focused on increasing productivity within U.S. higher education, particularly at two- and four-year public colleges and universities. The aim is to use dollars invested by students, parents and taxpayers to graduate more students. The initiative, supported by the Lumina Foundation for Education, relies on partner organizations working within various states to develop, promote and implement policies and practices that will help achieve this goal.

Founded in 1975 by social scientist and author Daniel Yankelovich and former U.S. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Public Agenda works to help the nation’s leaders better understand the public’s point of view and to help average citizens better understand critical policy issues. Our in-depth research on how citizens think about policy has been praised for its credibility and fairness, by elected officials, experts and decision makers from across the political spectrum. Our citizen education materials and award-winning website, PublicAgenda.org, offer unbiased information about the challenges the country faces on a wide range of policy issues.