Book Review: Financing American Higher Education in the era of Globalization:

William Zumeta, David W. Breneman, Patrick M. Callan, & Joni E. Finney. (20 1 2). Financing American Higher Education in the era of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press. 288 pp. $29.95 (paper). ISBN 978- 1 -6 1 250- 1 25-3 $49.95 (cloth). ISBN 978- 1 -6 1 250- 1 26-0.With the current financial crisis facing American public higher education, one is always anxious to see an analysis of what is going on and suggestions on how the crisis might be resolved. This is especially true when we realize that the four respected authors of this new volume have spent most of their professional lives thinking and reflecting on these issues. When you add to this the fact that the research underlying the volume was supported by the Lumina and Gates Foundations (it advances their access and completion agendas) and that it carries the imprint of the Harvard Education Press, we are put on notice that we should all pay attention to what these pages hold.This volume contains a good summary of our current state of knowledge about financing, not just of public higher education, but of all higher education, including the private nonprofit and for-profit colleges and universities. Much of this analysis has been presented in previous writings, but it is brought together here in a concise, readable book that could serve as a supplemental text for a course in higher education finance. Books of this nature often leave out community colleges but this one does not.The first two chapters are rich with data and go over some familiar ground. In them we see the standard arguments that global competition and changes in technology require a better-educated population. And, while the United States was a world leader in the past, it has fallen behind in recent years. Moreover, ethnic groups with historically low attainment rates will need to be significantly raised up if the United States is to regain its competitive edge. Clearly, the postsecondary sector faces significant challenges in meeting these needs. In all of this, the community colleges and less-selective 4-year colleges are expected to shoulder the burden of meeting the increased demand for higher education and training but are disadvantaged because they are more constrained in their ability to raise tuition and pursue external sources of revenue.Chapter Three presents a historical perspective on the financing of higher education, concentrating on the period from 1945 to 1980, whereas Chapter Four brings that analysis up to the present. The authors show that over this 60-year period, the dominant philosophy of finance shifted from a "no or low" tuition policy to one promoting a greater share being borne by students or their parents and direct aid in the form of grants and loans based on the grounds of both efficiency and equity . Students of higher education finance will find that the global movement toward increased cost sharing is addressed in greater detail in Johnstone and Marcucci's, Financing Higher Education Worldwide (2010), whereas the struggle to find the right balance between revenue-generating activities and academic missions (a topic not covered in the book under review here) has been skillfully explicated in Weisbrod, Ballou, and Asch's, Mission and Money (2008).The first four chapters of Zumeta et al. set the stage for a more detailed discussion of policy issues surrounding the physical, fiscal, political, and motivational challenges confronting the financial future of higher education in the United States. Throughout, the emphasis is on broad recommendations directed at creating incentives to achieve specific goals.Chapter Five, written with the assistance of William Doyle, highlights the diversity in states systems and financing policies and identifies the key levers available to improve performance. A useful typology for grouping states with common problems is presented. Chapter Six focuses on the educational capacity of the U. …