| Faced with competing demands for more resources and mounting political pressure, states have looked to higher education institutions to prove their worth by demonstrating results. Although accountability usually is an institutional concern, state policymakers end up making most of the strategic and funding decisions for public higher education. A qualitative case study compared state-level accountability processes and policymakers' perceptions of those processes in Tennessee, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Interviews were conducted with higher education administrators from state governing or coordinating boards, governors' policy advisers, and representatives of the legislative branch to compare viewpoints from those public policy domains. Burke's (2005) Accountability Triangle was applied as an analytical framework to better understand how higher education systems in the three states have balanced state priorities, academic concerns, and market forces.;Most policymakers interviewed said their state and its higher education systems were partners rather than adversaries, but they also believed accountability was contingent on relationships established between higher education and key state-level decision makers. Policymakers did expect to see a greater emphasis on performance-based accountability in the future. Most saw public higher education becoming more responsive to market forces and to the workforce development needs of their states.;State policymakers thought higher education should be accountable to many constituencies, but also believed the first line of accountability for public institutions was to the legislature, governor, and system governing boards. Information sharing came to mind when most state leaders were asked about accountability. Transparency was the term most often used to describe this information exchange. |
