Hostname: page-component-745bb68f8f-d8cs5 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-01-27T12:54:09.276Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Policy Dialogue: Researchable Questions in History and Economics of Higher Education

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 January 2025

Bruce A. Kimball Open the ORCID record for Bruce A. Kimball [Opens in a new window]  and
Robert K. Toutkoushian Open the ORCID record for Robert K. Toutkoushian [Opens in a new window]
Bruce A. Kimball
Affiliation:
Emeritus Professor of Education, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH
Robert K. Toutkoushian*
Affiliation:
Professor of Higher Education, University of Georgia, Athens, GA
*
Corresponding author: Robert K. Toutkoushian; Email: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

What’s the point of going to college? Does it matter where you go? And is it worth the cost? As more Americans and people around the globe enroll in higher education, such questions are being asked with increasing frequency. Scholars have answers, yet those answers depend a great deal on the methods being used to explore the questions. Economists, for instance, bring a particular set of tools to the task, as well as a general set of assumptions and beliefs. Historians, too, come armed with the instruments of disciplinary inquiry and can end up with quite different conclusions. So what would happen if we brought them together to talk through research questions of interest to their respective academic “tribes”?

For this Policy Dialogue, the HEQ editors asked historian Bruce Kimball and economist Rob Toutkoushian to reflect on disciplinary traditions, debates over higher education finance, and what makes college worthwhile. Kimball has taught at the University of Houston, Yale University, and the University of Rochester and is a professor emeritus at Ohio State University. He has published several books on the history of liberal education and professional education, particularly legal education. His latest book, co-authored with Sarah Iler, is Wealth, Cost, and Price in American Higher Education (John Hopkins University Press, 2023). Toutkoushian is a professor of higher education at the University of Georgia specializing in economic theories and quantitative methods. He has served as executive director of the Office of Policy Analysis in the University System of New Hampshire and as editor of Research in Higher Education. As a scholar, Toutkoushian has published more than sixty peer-reviewed publications on such topics as higher education finance, compensation, demand, and policy analysis.

HEQ Policy Dialogues are, by design, intended to promote a casual, free exchange of ideas between scholars. At the end of the exchange, we offer a list of references for readers who wish to follow up on sources relevant to the discussion.

Type
Policy Dialogue
Information
History of Education Quarterly , First View , pp. 1 - 16
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2025. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of History of Education Society.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Additional Readings

Angulo, A. J. Diploma Mills. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bowen, Howard. Investment in Learning: The Individual and Social Value of American Higher Education. Revised edition. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
DesJardins, Stephen L., Toutkoushian, Robert K., Hossler, Donald, and Chen, Jin. “Time May Change Me: Examining How Aspirations for College Evolve during High School.” Review of Higher Education 43, no. 1 (2019): .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gándara, Denisa, and Toutkoushian, Robert K.. “Updated Estimates of the Average Financial Return on Master’s Degree Programs in the United States.” Journal of Education Finance 43, no. 1 (2017): .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gong, Hee Jung, and Toutkoushian, Robert K.. “High School Students’ Expectations and College Aspirations: Causes and Consequences.” Educational Policy 38, no. 1 (2024): .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Horn, Aaron S., Horner, Olena G., Tandberg, David A., Toutkoushian, Robert K., and Williams-Wyche, Shaun N.. “The Effect of State Appropriations on College Graduation Rates of Diverse Students.” Journal of Education Finance 49, no. 1 (2023): 26–64.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruce, Kimball, and Johnson, Benjamin A.. “The Beginning of ‘Free Money’ Ideology in American Universities: Charles W. Eliot at Harvard, 1869-1909.” History of Education Quarterly 52 (2012): .Google Scholar
Kimball, Bruce. “The Disastrous First Fund-Raising Campaign in Legal Education: The Harvard Law School Centennial, 1914-1920.” Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 12 (2013): .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimball, Bruce. “The First Campaign and the Paradoxical Transformation of Fundraising in American Higher Education, 1915-1925.” Teachers College Record 116 (2014): 1–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruce, Kimball, and Luke, Jeremy B.. “Historical Dimensions of the ‘Cost Disease’ in U.S. Higher Education, 1870s-2010s.” Social Science History 42 (2018): 29–55.Google Scholar
Bruce, Kimball, and Johnson, Benjamin A.. “The Inception of the Meaning and Significance of Endowment in American Higher Education, 1890-1930.” Teachers College Record 114 (2012): 1–32.Google Scholar
Bruce, Kimball, and Luke, Jeremy B.. “Measuring Cost Escalation in the Formative Era of U.S. Higher Education, 1875-1930.” Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative History 49 (2016): 198–219.Google Scholar
Kimball, Bruce. “The Rising Cost of Higher Education: Charles Eliot’s ‘Free Money’ Strategy and the Beginning of Howard Bowen’s ‘Revenue Theory of Cost,’ 1869-1979.” Journal of Higher Education 85 (2014): .CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kimball, Bruce (with Sarah M. Iler). Wealth, Cost, and Price in American Higher Education: A Brief History. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2023.Google Scholar
Shafiq, M. Najeeb, and Robert, K. Toutkoushian. “Perceived Returns and Regrets among College Graduates.” Education Economics 32, no. 5 (2024): 686–702.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toutkoushian, Robert K., Shafiq, M. Najeeb, and Trivette, Michael J.. “Accounting for Risk of Non-completion in Private and Social Rates of Return to Higher Education.” Journal of Education Finance 39, no. 1 (2014): 73–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toutkoushian, Robert Kevin, and Smart, John C.. “Do Institutional Characteristics Affect Student Gains from College?” Review of Higher Education 25, no. 1 (2001): 39–61.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toutkoushian, Robert K., and Paulsen, Michael B.. Economics of Higher Education: Background, Concepts, and Applications. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Springer, 2016.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Toutkoushian, Robert K., and Curtis, Taylor. “The Effects of Socioeconomic Factors on Public High School Outcomes and Rankings: Evidence from New Hampshire.” Journal of Educational Research 98 (2005): .Google Scholar
Toutkoushian, Robert K., and Hillman, Nicholas W.. “The Impact of State Appropriations and Grants on Access to Higher Education and Outmigration.” Review of Higher Education 36, no. 1 (2012): 51–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Weisbrod, Burton Allen, Ballou, Jeffrey P., and Diane Asch, Evelyn. Mission and Money: Understanding the University. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Zumeta, William, Breneman, David, Callan, Pat, and Finney, Joni. Financing American Higher Education in the Era of Globalization. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Education Press, 2012.Google Scholar