RESEARCH FOCUS AREAS

Educational Assessment and Evaluation

Center researches provide high quality evaluations of programs and policies aimed at improving the experiences of students, faculty, and staff as they navigate higher education. The Center engages in evaluation studies and program evaluation at the local, state, and federal level. Center researchers also provide single institution and multi-institution assessments.

Equity in Higher Education

The Center is committed to addressing the complex nature of inequality in higher education and, relatedly, society more broadly. With a focus on examining policies and practices that expand access and success for historically marginalized populations in higher education, our research seeks to inform best practices that span across K-12 and postsecondary education.

Innovations and Financial Sustainability in Higher Education

The Center engages in research that examines financial sustainability challenges faced by colleges and universities as well as research that studies innovations that utilize technology to reshape the work conducted within higher education institutions. Because technological innovations can alter the basic economic structure of higher education institutions, these two lines of research are often linked.

Law and Educational Policy

The Center is dedicated to informing the numerous issues at the intersection of law and educational policy. In areas that include equity and diversity, academic freedom, and online education, our work seeks to enhance the influence of social science research in the law, bridge scholarship with practice, and use scholarship to provide guidance and translate the implications of legal cases for educators, administrators, and public policy makers.

The University and the Knowledge Society

Universities are the backbone of unprecedented scientific discovery over the 20th century leading to the “Knowledge Society” and rapidly transforming economies in the U.S. and worldwide. CSHE researchers are collecting and analyzing unique contemporary and historical data on universities’ role in worldwide science productivity, STEM graduate degree attainment in the U.S., and the educational and advanced cognitive development of dozens of national work forces to understand this process and guide emerging policy.