SHEEO Announces Promotion of Klein and Weeden to Position of Associate Vice President

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WASHINGTON, D.C. – The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) today announces the promotion of Carrie Klein and Dustin Weeden to the position of associate vice president. Both Klein and Weeden have served SHEEO as senior policy analysts.

Klein joined SHEEO’s Washington, D.C. office in May 2021. She leads SHEEO’s Strong Foundations survey and reporting project, through which she advances SHEEO’s efforts to promote effective use of state postsecondary data resources and P20W connections. Building on prior postsecondary institutional experience and analytics research, Dr. Klein develops productive relationships with partner organizations and provides relevant content expertise and technical assistance to state agency research and data policymakers to improve state and student outcomes.

Weeden joined SHEEO in October 2017, working out of SHEEO’s Boulder, Colorado, office. He leads SHEEO’s research and policy analysis related to state authorization and college affordability.Weeden currently leads efforts directed at helping states prepare for implementation of the FAFSA Simplification Act, and spearheads SHEEO’s focus on improving state consumer protection policies. 

“Both of these team members have done excellent work, taking on increased responsibilities and embodying leadership traits that help advance the work of SHEEO among our member organizations,” said Rob Anderson, SHEEO president. “We are excited to recognize their efforts publicly and look forward to seeing their continued growth.”

Learn more about our team at https://sheeo.org/about/sheeo-staff/.

About SHEEO

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) serves the executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education and their staffs. Founded in 1954, SHEEO promotes an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors. Together with its members, SHEEO aims to achieve this vision by equipping state higher education executive officers and their staffs with the tools to effectively advance the value of higher education, promoting public policies and academic practices that enable all Americans to achieve success in the 21st century, and serving as an advocate for state higher education leadership. For more information, visit sheeo.org. 

Study finds students experiencing college closures are 50% less likely to earn a credential

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BOULDER, CO – A new report shows college closures have an overwhelmingly negative impact on students, with students 71.3% less likely to reenroll within one month and 50.1% less likely to earn a credential than students who did not experience a closure. 

A Dream Derailed? Investigating the Causal Effects of College Closure on Student Outcomes is the second of three reports seeking to quantify the impacts of college closures on students’ postsecondary enrollment and completion outcomes. From a collaborative research team at the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) and the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center, these reports are also meant to identify ways states can support students who experience a closure through various policy levers. 

In order to explore the causal effects of college closures on student outcomes, SHEEO looked at a combined dataset of enrollment and credential completion records for 143,215 students who experienced a closure at 467 institutions of higher education between July 1, 2004, and June 30, 2020, and 1,295,773 matched control students enrolled in 467 matched institutions who did not experience a closure. By looking at a matched sample of students, SHEEO explored the direction and strength of the associations between closure and student outcomes such as enrollment, persistence, and completion. As outlined in the first report, A Dream Derailed? Investigating the Impacts of College Closures on Student Outcomes, more than 100,000 students experienced their institution closing without adequate notice or a teach-out plan from July 2004 to June 2020. 

“The research from this report shows that when schools close, the impacts are potentially life-altering, with most students choosing not to reenroll right away and half as likely to earn a credential than students who did not experience a closure,” said SHEEO President Rob Anderson. 

Research found that students who experience a closure are less likely to reenroll and are more likely to switch to a shorter-term credential than the one they were pursuing at the time of closure. Students are also less likely to earn any credential post-closure and take longer to complete a credential compared to students who did not experience a closure. 

  • Students who experienced a closure were 71.3% less likely to be enrolled after one month and 63.3% less likely to be enrolled after four months than students who did not experience a closure.
  • Students who experienced a closure were 50.1% less likely to complete a credential than students who did not experience a closure.
  • Students who experienced a closure were 19.9% more likely to complete a shorter-term credential than the credential they were pursuing at the time of closure than students who did not experience a closure.

Unfortunately, these negative impacts are most pronounced for students of color, students enrolled in certificate programs, and students enrolled in the for-profit sector. These students are also the most likely to experience an institutional closure, particularly abrupt closures that occur with little warning or time for students to prepare.  

State agencies of higher education and institutions can play a key role in helping to minimize the negative impacts on students due to college closures. Several policy implications were outlined in the report, including simplifying the transfer process for students of closed schools, offering extra supports like transfer counseling and orientation, and creating policies requiring institutions to submit and implement contingency plans in the event of closure. 

This series of three publications examining the impacts of college closure on student outcomes is supported by Arnold Ventures.

Learn more about our work on college closures at https://sheeo.org/project/college-closures/.

About SHEEO

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) serves the executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education and their staffs. Founded in 1954, SHEEO promotes an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors. Together with its members, SHEEO aims to achieve this vision by equipping state higher education executive officers and their staffs with the tools to effectively advance the value of higher education, promoting public policies and academic practices that enable all Americans to achieve success in the 21st century, and serving as an advocate for state higher education leadership. For more information, visit sheeo.org. 

Annual Grapevine Compilation Shows Initial 6.6% Increase in State Support for Higher Education

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Data reported by states in the latest Grapevine survey indicate that initially approved state support for higher education in fiscal year (FY) 2023 reached $112.3 billion, a 6.6% increase over 2022.[1] This is the second time that state fiscal support for all higher education has topped $100 billion. This increase reflects a 27.5% increase over the past five years. Tax appropriations, non-tax support, non-appropriated support, and returns from state funded endowments make up total state support. The Grapevine report provides a first, tentative look at state higher education funding in the new fiscal year. An important caveat is that the Grapevine data do not account for inflation.[2]

Although states allocated less federal funding to support higher education than in the previous two years, an additional $1.2 billion in federal stimulus funding brings the total state fiscal support for higher education in FY 2023 to $113.5 billion, a 5.3% increase over 2022.[3]  

Grapevine data are collected annually by the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) in collaboration with the Center for the Study of Education Policy at Illinois State University. The FY 2023 data summarized online and in these tables represent initial allocations and estimates reported by the states from October 2022 through January 2023 and are subject to change. 

From 2022 to 2023, 14 states reported increases of more than 10% in state support for higher education, excluding federal stimulus funding. The states reporting these large increases are Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Hawaii, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, New Mexico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, and Virginia. Five states, and Washington, D.C., had decreases in state support, excluding federal stimulus funding: Connecticut, Illinois,[4] Michigan, New Hampshire, and Texas.

Thirty-eight states saw overall increases in state and federal stimulus funding. Twelve states and Washington, D.C., reported an overall decline in state and federal stimulus funding between 2022 and 2023. The 12 states reporting declines are: Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Texas, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin. The decreases are caused by reductions in a combination of both federal stimulus and state support in most of the 12 states. However, Delaware, Georgia, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wisconsin saw increases in state support which were reversed by significant reductions in federal stimulus funding.

The Grapevine tables also include data on how total higher education state support allocations were used across two-year public operating, four-year public operating, state financial aid, research, and other uses for FY 2023. While state allocations across each area are not final and include estimates for several states, initial appropriations to each area were as follows:

  • $24 billion to two-year public operating (22.1% of state support).
  • $56 billion to four-year public operating (49.9%). 
  • $14.8 billion to state financial aid for all students (13.2%). 
  • $12.8 billion to research, agriculture extension, hospital extension and medical schools (11.4%).
  • $3.8 billion to other uses, including agency funding, private institution operations, and non-credit appropriations (3.4%). 

Longer-Term Trends

Longer-term trends in state support for higher education are positive. Excluding federal stimulus funding, state support has increased 16.4% nationally since 2021 and 27.5% since 2018. Note: These data do not account for the impact of inflation, which has risen substantially in recent years.[5]

Only two states, again excluding any federal stimulus funding, had lower state support in 2023 than in 2021 (Connecticut and Wyoming). Likewise, only two states had lower state support in 2023 than in 2018 (Alaska and Wyoming). While multiple-year declines in any state should be of concern, these state counts are relatively low compared to pre-pandemic years.

Federal Stimulus Funding

For the second year in a row, the Grapevine report includes tables on federal stimulus/relief allocations to states that were used for higher education. Funds awarded directly to higher education institutions from the federal government are not included. 

Across FY 2020-2023, states allocated $8.8 billion in federal stimulus support to higher education from the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act, the 2021 Coronavirus Response and Relief Supplemental Appropriations (CRRSA) Act, and the 2021 American Rescue Plan (ARP). If including funds used for capital projects, that number jumps to $10.9 billion in federal stimulus support over the last four years. The full Grapevine report, including tables summarizing the results of the FY 2023 Grapevine survey and a complete dataset of state support for higher education going back to 1980, can be found on the SHEEO State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) website at https://shef.sheeo.org/grapevine.

[1] FY 2023 marks the seventh year Grapevine has included Washington, D.C., in its survey. Washington, D.C., is excluded from all state counts and U.S. totals. The data reported by the District of Columbia, including federal stimulus funding, reveal a 6.2% decline in the last year and a 19.7% decrease in the last two years, but a five-year increase of 42.5%.

[2] While actual inflation data are not available for FY 2023, forecasts suggest the U.S. will face 3.8% inflation over FY 2022. Source: OECD Economic Outlook: Statistics and Projections, Inflation Forecast Indicator https://data.oecd.org/price/inflation-forecast.htm.

[3] Federal stimulus funding was awarded to states for higher education to stabilize state and local sources of funding, and to provide additional resources during COVID-19. Federal stimulus funding excludes funds allocated to public capital projects and any funds (such as HEERF) allocated directly by the federal government to institutions or students.

[4] In Illinois, FY 2022 includes a one-time payment of $250 million to fully address the unfunded liability of the state’s prepaid tuition program, ensuring stability to the program. If this one-time payment were not included, the one-year change in Illinois’ state support would be a $236.1 million increase, or 4.6%.

[5] From December 2021 to December 2022, the Consumer Price Index increased 6.5%. Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics Economic News Release, Consumer Price Index Summary https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm.

The New SwiftStudent Tool: Help for Guiding Students Through Financial Aid Appeals Webinar

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This webinar provides an overview of the new SwiftStudent digital tool, a free resource designed to help college students through the formal process of requesting additional financial aid when their economic circumstances have changed. SwiftStudent was created by the Seldin/Haring-Smith Foundation in partnership with 18 higher education organizations.

Public Funding for Higher Education Call for Papers

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Convening Date: November 4 – 6, 2020

Proposals Due: May 4, 2020

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) promotes an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors. Together with its members, SHEEO aims to achieve this vision by equipping state higher education executive officers and their staffs with the tools to effectively advance the value of higher education, promoting public policies and academic practices that enable all Americans to achieve success in the 21st century, and serving as an advocate for state higher education leadership. In line with this mission, SHEEO is hosting a convening on the public funding of higher education in November 2020.

Recent trends in state support for higher education indicate that states have failed to recover funding for higher education since the Great Recession. After more than $2,000 in per-student funding reductions during the Great Recession, per-student educational appropriations in 2018 were $7,853, roughly $1,000 below their pre-recession level.[1] Ten years out from the start of the Great Recession, per-student higher education appropriations in the U.S. have only halfway recovered, and state funding for general operations failed to keep up with inflation for the first time since 2012. However, state student financial aid has increased steadily and is now at an all-time high. While the increase in student financial aid is to be celebrated, the weak recovery of and relatively low levels of state higher education appropriations is concerning. General operating appropriations are a critical resource relied upon by public institutions to fund the education and direct services students receive. This general institutional funding is directly tied to what students learn, and experience, and, as recent research has shown,[2] impacts the likelihood of their successful completion.

SHEEO is issuing this Call for Papers for research on the impacts of public funding on student and institutional outcomes. Analyses of the specific effects of general operating appropriations or state financial aid are encouraged.

With generous support from the Joyce Foundation, SHEEO will cover travel costs for researchers and analysts studying or evaluating the public funding of higher education to present their work at our convening in Boulder, Colorado, in November 2020. The convening will bring together a diverse array of participants, including state agency staff, policymakers, intermediary staff, and higher education researchers, to facilitate conversation amongst stakeholders who can advance the findings from the papers presented into action.

Submissions

Those interested in attending should submit a single-spaced Word or PDF document, not to exceed 1,000 words. The proposal should include information on the purpose of the study, research questions addressed, research methodology employed, preliminary findings (if available), and the potential significance for policy and practice. Please use 12-point font and 1-inch margins. Additionally, the proposal should include a works cited page and a 1-page CV for each author, neither of which count against the 1,000-word limit. Authors are encouraged to submit proposals for unfinished manuscripts, though authors with shareable working papers may also upload a copy.

Please submit your proposal by uploading all relevant documents to the proposal website by 11:59 p.m. MT on May 4, 2020.

Timeline

Date Task
May 4, 2020 Proposals due to SHEEO
May 25, 2020 Notification of acceptance
October 21, 2020 Final paper due to SHEEO
November 2, 2020 Final presentation due to SHEEO
November 4-6, 2020 Convening in Boulder, CO

SHEEO encourages quantitative and qualitative proposals, and both empirical and applied work, for this convening. For those wanting to make use of quantitative data on state support of higher education, SHEEO will assist researchers in accessing and utilizing our State Higher Education Finance (SHEF) data. You can learn more about those data on the SHEF webpage. If you have questions about the SHEF data or need access to additional data elements that are not available online, please contact Sophia Laderman at sladerman@sheeo.org.

If you have any questions regarding the content of your proposal or the timeline for the convening, please reach out to Dr. David Tandberg at dtandberg@sheeo.org. Any questions regarding the submission process or the submission website should be directed to Caitlin Dennis at cdennis@sheeo.org.

[1] This is part of a longer trend – appropriations per student are $2000 below 2001, before the dot-com bubble. See www.sheeo.org/shef

[2] Bound, J., Braga, B., Khanna, G., & Turner, S. (2019). Public universities: The supply side of building a skilled workforce. NBER Working Paper 25945; Deming, D. J. and C. R. Walters (2018). The Impact of State Budget Cuts on U.S. Postsecondary Attainment. Working paper. https://eml.berkeley.edu//~crwalters/papers/deming_walters.pdf

Update on COVID-19

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SHEEO is monitoring the evolving situation pertaining to COVID-19 (coronavirus) and will share guidance and updates from federal agencies and national health authorities as we receive them. The following guidance has been issued to the higher education community thus far:  

  • The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has released interim guidance for administrators of colleges and universities in planning and preparing for COVID-19, along with recommended response measures for those with the virus in their community.
  • The CDC has also released guidance for institutions of higher education (IHEs) related to foreign travel. The CDC has asked IHEs to consider postponing or canceling upcoming student foreign exchange programs and recommends IHEs consider asking current program participants to return to their home country, as well as asking students participating in study abroad programs to return to the United States. The CDC recommends that IHEs consult with state and local health authorities on the best approach for when and how study abroad students might return. 
  • The U.S. Department of Education has issued guidance related to compliance with Title IV of the Higher Education Act (HEA) for those that are impacted by COVID-19. The Department’s guidance offers flexibility under its existing authority to help IHEs continue to serve students.

Other resources include: 

  • The U.S. Department of Education has a website with information related to COVID-19. 
  • The American College Health Association has issued a document on what campuses need to know about COVID-19, as well as guidelines for campus health staff and administrators preparing for COVID-19.


As the U.S. Department of Education has offered flexibility to IHEs, we encourage our members to consider whether they may need to offer similar flexibility related to their own statutory and regulatory requirements so that their IHEs can remain compliant and continue to serve students.  

Lastly, if there are federal policy challenges your state or institutions are encountering about COVID-19 (such as authorization and distance education), please contact Tom Harnisch, vice president for government relations, at tharnisch@sheeo.org. Congress is currently exploring legislative responses to meet immediate and longer-term needs.

If you have any other questions or concerns related to COVID-19 and higher education, please feel free to contact Rob Anderson, president, at randerson@sheeo.org.

States Leading for Equity: Profiles of Action Webinar Recording

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Webinar Overview: This webinar will profile ongoing statewide efforts to advance educational equity in higher education throughout Minnesota. The state legislature and the Office of Higher Education have outlined broad attainment goals across all demographic groups in Minnesota. In June 2019, Minnesota State launched Equity 2030 with the goal to close all educational equity gaps at all 37 colleges and universities. Prioritizing partnerships across stakeholder groups and leading with an equity-minded strategy, the system has focused attention on academic equity strategies, target setting, and data-informed decision making to support this work. As capacity is an essential component in advancing equity strategy, this webinar will focus on the strategic efforts of the Office of Higher Education and Minnesota State to undertake this work.

SHEEO Releases 2020 Membership Report

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The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) has released our 2020 SHEEO Membership Report (previously named the SHEEO Salary Survey).

The 2020 SHEEO Membership Report marks the reinvention of the Salary Survey to reflect the organization’s strategic plan by providing new insight into SHEEO agency characteristics and functions. The report brings together SHEEO agency budget information, full-time equivalent staff numbers and demographics, and key agency functions to provide a comprehensive perspective of the scope of work SHEEO agencies perform and how SHEEO agencies operate.   


SHEEO Agency Characteristics

The median full-time equivalent staff (FTE) for SHEEO agencies is 60 FTE, with the median for coordinating boards at 55.8 FTE, and governing boards at 65 FTE. The median operating budget for SHEEO agencies is $9,622,300; coordinating boards have a median operating budget of $7,626,400 compared to the median governing board operating budget of $12,616,910. Other key takeaways from the Membership Report are that SHEEO agencies are predominately white (57%), a majority of SHEEO agency employees identify as women (51.78%), 36.02% identify as male, and 12.2% of SHEEO agency staff’s gender was noted as unknown/unreported. 


SHEEO Agency Functions

SHEEO membership agencies perform a variety of functions. On average, they perform 21 functions, with coordinating boards performing 18.5 functions and governing boards performing 25. The main functions performed by both coordinating and governing boards are maintaining, collecting, and reporting data; research and policy evaluation; and coordinating with departments of labor, workforce, and/or economic development. The report contains a full listing of SHEEO agency functions and the number and percentage of SHEEO agencies performing each function broken down by coordinating boards and governing boards.


Importance of these Data

SHEEO agencies will be able to use these data to understand their resources, staffing, and functions relative to their peer agencies. These data are also critical to SHEEO’s mission and strategic plan and will help SHEEO in supporting and guiding SHEEO agencies. SHEEO will use the data to understand SHEEO agencies better and to study other topics relevant to our membership. Finally, these data provide a clearer picture of the racial equity and diversity challenges agencies face and highlight the need for SHEEO to support our membership in the essential work of meeting those challenges.


About SHEEO

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) serves the chief executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education and their staffs. Founded in 1954, SHEEO promotes an environment that values higher education and its role in ensuring the equitable education of all Americans, regardless of race/ethnicity, gender, or socioeconomic factors. Together with its members, SHEEO aims to achieve this vision by equipping state higher education executive officers and their staffs with the tools to effectively advance the value of higher education, promoting public policies and academic practices that enable all Americans to achieve success in the 21st century, and serving as an advocate for state higher education leadership.

SHEEO Welcomes Molly Hall-Martin as Summer Intern

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The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) welcomes Molly Hall-Martin as our next summer intern.

As SHEEO’s summer intern, Hall-Martin will work on research projects meant to help state policymakers improve student outcomes and advance equity and income mobility. She will also assist SHEEO in our efforts to better translate research for a policy audience.

Molly Hall-Martin

Molly Hall-Martin (Lower Brule Sioux) is a second year Ph.D. student at the University of Iowa. Her research focuses on the interplay between state and federal governments as well as relationships between state higher education agencies, tribal colleges & universities (TCUs), and tribal governments. Before enrolling at the University of Iowa, Hall-Martin served as the director of student preparation and success for the South Dakota Board of Regents, where she worked with campus and community partners to increase the number of American Indian and underrepresented students enrolling in postsecondary education. She was the state program coordinator for South Dakota College Application Week and served on numerous statewide committees. She also previously worked for Lower Brule Community College (LBCC), a tribal college located in South Dakota. There she coordinated the tribe’s Higher Education and Adult Vocational Technical grant programs and LBCC’s GED program. She holds a bachelor’s degree in American Indian studies from the University of North Carolina and a master’s degree in adult and higher education from the University of Oklahoma. Upon completion of her Ph.D., she hopes to work with state higher education agencies in some capacity, either as a staff member or with an organization that interacts with state agencies.

ABOUT THE STATE HIGHER EDUCATION EXECUTIVE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) is the national association of the chief executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education. Founded in 1954, SHEEO serves its members as an advocate for state policy leadership, a liaison between states and the federal government, and a vehicle for learning from and collaborating with peers. SHEEO also serves as a manager of multistate teams and as a source of information and analysis on education and public policy issues. Together with its members, SHEEO advances public policies and academic practices that enable Americans to attain education beyond high school and achieve success in the 21st century economy.

SHEEO Welcomes Dr. Tom Harnisch as Vice President for Government Relations

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The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) welcomes Dr. Tom Harnisch as our new vice president for government relations.

As vice president for government relations, Dr. Harnisch will be located in Washington, D.C., and his primary leadership responsibility will be for planning, implementing, and coordinating SHEEO’s portfolio of federal relations, policy, communication, and advocacy work. This position will monitor new and potential federal action (legislation, rules, and other policies and actions) that have relevance to our membership. The vice president for government relations will also be responsible for bringing these issues to the attention of SHEEO staff and SHEEO’s membership and for articulating their potential impact on our members and the institutions and students they serve.

Tom Harnisch

From 2007 to 2019, Dr. Harnisch worked in a series of roles at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU), including as director of state relations and policy analysis. In his role at AASCU, his roles included policy research, analysis, and communication to the AASCU membership and other external stakeholder groups. He helped craft the AASCU Public Policy Agenda and planned the Higher Education Government Relations Conference. His research interests and commentary on higher education finance, access, affordability, and other topics have been cited in over 200 articles, including in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time magazine, Politico, Inside Higher Ed, and The Chronicle of Higher Education. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University and The George Washington University. 

“We are excited to have Tom join us at SHEEO,” said Rob Anderson, SHEEO president. “His vast experience will serve our states by amplifying their voice and ensuring greater coordination between federal and state policies, which will allow us to meet the needs of our students in the most effective manner possible.” 

ABOUT THE STATE HIGHER EDUCATION EXECUTIVE OFFICERS ASSOCIATION

The State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) is the national association of the chief executives of statewide governing, policy, and coordinating boards of postsecondary education. Founded in 1954, SHEEO serves its members as an advocate for state policy leadership, a liaison between states and the federal government, and a vehicle for learning from and collaborating with peers. SHEEO also serves as a manager of multistate teams and as a source of information and analysis on educational and public policy issues. Together with its members, SHEEO advances public policies and academic practices that enable Americans to attain education beyond high school and achieve success in the 21st century economy.