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Books

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By Rebecca S. Natow

WINNER: Critics' Choice Book Award, American Educational Studies Association

FINALIST: American Book Fest Best Book Award for the Category of Education

FIRST PLACE: Royal Dragonfly Book Award for the Category of Politics

SECOND PLACE: Royal Dragonfly Book Award for the Category of Education

FINALIST: Foreword Indies Book of the Year Award for the Category of Education

FINALIST: Next Generation Indies Book Award for the Category of Education/Academic

From the Publisher: This book provides a comprehensive description of the federal government’s relationship with higher education and how that relationship became so expansive and indispensable over time. Drawing from constitutional law, social science research, federal policy documents, and original interviews with key policy insiders, the author explores the U.S. government’s role in regulating, financing, and otherwise influencing higher education. Natow analyzes how the government’s role has evolved over time, the activities of specific governmental branches and agencies that affect higher education, the nature of the government’s role in higher education today, and prospects for the future of federal involvement in higher education. Chapters examine the politics and practices that shape policies affecting nondiscrimination and civil rights, student financial aid, educational quality and student success, campus crime, research and development, intellectual property, student privacy, and more.

"Although higher education is commonly assumed to be the primary responsibility of states, all branches of the federal government and numerous federal agencies influence some aspect of higher education. Drawing on multiple sources of data, including interviews with policy observers, this book offers useful insights into the complex and multifaceted relationship between higher education and the federal government, the forces that influence the federal government’s role, and how this role has changed over time. Timely, relevant reading for anyone who cares about influencing federal higher education policy, especially in this polarized political environment."

-- Laura Perna, University of Pennsylvania

"Reexamining the Federal Role in Higher Education is both comprehensive and meticulous, full of interesting, little-known historical details and relevant examples from current events. Natow drives home the vast scope and complexity of the federal role in higher education. The book provides a complete and well-structured overview for newcomers to the field, and will be a valuable resource for any higher education stakeholder interested not only in how the sausage gets made, but how the sausage-maker came to be in the first place."

-- Judith Scott-Clayton, Teachers College, Columbia University

"Natow’s analysis significantly deepens our understanding of recent decades’ dramatic shifts in federal approaches to higher education. By comprehensively assaying the many aspects of federal action in higher education, illuminating largely unexamined developments, and calling into question some accepted wisdom, Natow has provided a valuable new resource for policymakers, institutional leaders, and researchers."

-- James Hearn, University of Georgia

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By Rebecca S. Natow

From the Publisher: In this concise and informative book, higher education policy expert Rebecca S. Natow explores the how and why of the federal regulatory policymaking process as it pertains to higher education, financial aid, and student loan debt. Drawing on in-depth interviews with policy and higher education actors, as well as an extensive review of specific regulations and documents, Natow explains who influences higher education rulemaking and how their beliefs and surrounding contexts guide the policies they enact. She also examines the strategies and powers employed during the process, reveals how technology affects the creation of higher education rules, delves into the multifaceted implications of regulation for students and institutions, and discusses future prospects for higher education rulemaking.

"Rebecca S. Natow possesses an excellent understanding of the higher education rulemaking process and is keenly aware of the various political science theories that speak to rulemaking. In this logical, well-organized book, Natow provides a real service to the field."

-- William R. Doyle, Vanderbilt University 

"Overall, this is an excellent book for any reader interested in the procedural manufacturing of rules and regulations affecting higher education. The book seamlessly connects scholarly theories of public policy with empirical research without coming across as too academic." 

-- Book Review, The Review of Higher Education

"Dr. Rebecca Natow takes the reader on a scholarly journey through the largely unchartered and under analyzed higher education rulemaking process… She has meticulously researched the higher education rulemaking process though a theoretical lens of power and policy making that enlightens readers to understand the complexity of the rulemaking process in higher education… Dr. Natow has provided a scholarly resource for academics, higher education administrators, and researchers. She has successfully made transparent what was a largely muddled and non-navigable terrain."

-- Book Review, Journal for Leadership & Instruction

"[A]n excellent book … For the practitioner wanting to be more involved in the regulatory development process and the politics of the higher education lobby, this is an essential book." -- Book Review, webpage of National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators

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By Kevin J. Dougherty, Sosanya M. Jones, Hana Lahr, Rebecca S. Natow, Lara Pheatt, & Vikash Reddy

From the Publisher: Written by leading authorities and drawing on extensive interviews with government officials and college and university staff members, this book describes the policy instruments states use to implement performance funding; explores the organizational processes colleges rely on to determine how to respond to performance funding; analyzes the influence of performance funding on institutional policies and programs; reviews the impacts of performance funding on student outcomes; examines the obstacles institutions encounter in responding to performance funding demands; investigates the unintended impacts of performance funding.

"This original and substantial book will be valuable to state and institutional higher education policymakers and leaders and administrators."

-- Debra Bragg, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 

"An unparalleled, meticulously detailed look at how colleges in three states are responding to high-stakes performance funding systems." 

-- Robert Kelchen, Seton Hall University

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By Kevin J. Dougherty & Rebecca S. Natow

From the Publisher: The authors explore the various forces, actors, and motives behind the adoption, discontinuation, and transformation of performance funding programs. They compare U.S. programs to international models, and they gauge the likely future of performance funding, given the volatility of the political forces driving it. Aimed at educators, sociologists, political scientists, and policy makers, this book will be hailed as the definitive assessment of the origins and evolution of performance funding.

"Performance funding for higher education is an increasingly popular tool for states that are seeking to hold their college and university systems accountable in their use of public resources. And yet there has been little scholarly research, besides descriptive briefs, of why, how, and with what impacts states have chosen to implement performance funding schemes, and why they have so often failed. This important volume fills that void by examining the history of performance funding, how it has been implemented, and what impact it has had. It contains important lessons for policy makers who believe that performance funding is the silver bullet of higher education accountability."

-- Donald E. Heller, Michigan State University

"Performance funding is a commonly touted answer to one of the most important questions facing our nation’s higher education system: How can we effectively raise overall higher education attainment―and close persisting gaps in attainment across groups―in the context of finite fiscal resources? With its in-depth examination of the forces contributing to the origins, evolution, and discontinuation of performance funding in particular states, this book offers useful insights into the past, present, and future role of this potential policy lever."

-- Laura Perna, University of Pennsylvania

"Kevin J. Dougherty and Rebecca S. Natow provide us with a comprehensive review of performance funding in action based on intensive case studies of eight states that have enacted it. I know of no other higher education policy study that is as deeply researched, as thoughtfully constructed, or as informative as this one. This impressive work will be regarded as a landmark in higher education policy studies―and it will surely also serve as an important source for those engaged in designing future state higher education reforms."

-- Steven G. Brint, University of California, Riverside 

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