Kevin Dougherty and Rebecca Natow, “The Politics of Performance Funding for Higher Education” (Johns Hopkins UP, 2015)

Funding for higher education in the U.S. is an increasingly divisive issue. Some states have turned to policies that tie institutional performance to funding appropriations so to have great accountability on public expenditure. In exploring the origins and implementation for these kinds of policies, Kevin Dougherty and Rebecca Natow recently published a new in-depth book on this topic, entitled The Politics of Performance Funding for Higher Education: Origins, Discontinuations, and Transformations (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015). In the book, the authors have explored the origins of this policy, its effects on the landscape of American higher education, and its future. This publication weaves extensive policymaker, educator, and administer interviews to form a thorough picture of the nature and debates of these policies– from policy entrepreneurs to advocacy coalitions. They even explore comparisons to performance funding policies abroad. Dougherty, Associate Professor of Higher Education and Education Policy at Teachers College-Columbia University, and Natow, Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Community College Research Center, both join New Books in Education for the interview. For questions or comments on the podcast, you can also find the host on Twitter at @PoliticsAndEd.