Abstract:
Society derives public benefits– public good – from public colleges and universities in
the forms of a more highly educated populace, employment and economic growth,
cultural and other activities. At the same time individuals and corporations derive
benefits from public higher education institutions yielding private gains including higher
salaries, improved manufacturing techniques and new commercial products. Funding for
the instructional activities of public colleges and universities reflect these dual public-private benefits with funding split between public appropriations and student fees. In
recent years the proportional burden of bearing the costs of public higher education has
shifted, in some cases dramatically, toward diminished public financing and increased
private support. At the same time societal demographic changes in the United States
suggest the need for more, not less, access to publicly subsidized higher education
institutions as higher proportions of entering classes have diminished ability to pay. In the public policy discourse these factors are encapsulated in the metaphor of an “iron
triangle” of access, cost and quality. This thesis considers the extent to which recent
changes in the funding sources of public higher education institutions have impacted the
ability of institutions to provide citizens with affordable access to high quality
educational programs, focusing in particular on the recent experiences of public colleges
and universities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. Discrete analyses of each corner of
the so-called “iron triangle” of the public mission to instruction – summarized as
affordable access to quality instruction – reveal significant challenges to public colleges
and universities based on their historical and aspiring missions. Current data and trends
support public policy calls that higher education leaders move beyond the iron triangle
paradigm as they seek to simultaneously increase access and quality while reducing costs.
