Institutional Accountability and competition for resources in undergraduate education among U.S. public four-year institutions.

Abstract

With a growing concern that society’s needs are not being met, there are heightened expectations for accountability for public purposes. At the same time higher education institutions are experiencing increasing competition, as well as decreasing state support for public higher education. The concern is that competition for resources is overtaking accountability for public purposes. Using an observational correlational research design, this study explored the relationships between institutional competition for resources and accountability for public purposes at the undergraduate level among 428 U. S. public four-year institutions. The study examined institutional competition organized around the four key markets that generate institutional revenues (student enrollment, research funding, public fiscal support, and private giving) and institutional accountability for public purposes defined by accountability measures most frequently included in state-level performance accountability systems (access, affordability, and completion). The relationship between institutional competition for resources and accountability for public purposes was also examined considering institutional fiscal health and market segment. The accountability triangle, resource dependency theory, and postsecondary market taxonomy provided a conceptual framework for the study. The results of the study indicate a statistically significant relationship between institutional competition for resources and institutional accountability for public purposes. In particular, a negative relationship was observed between institutional competition and accountability for access (R2 = .16) and affordability (R2 = .05), and a positive relationship was observed between institutional competition and accountability for completion (R2 = .09). Institutional fiscal health was a statistically significant factor in only the relationship between institutional competition and accountability for access producing an increase in the predictive power of the model (R2 = .16 to R2 = .18). In addition, no differences were found in the nature of the relationship between institutional competition and institutional accountability for public purposes across the market segments of higher education. Most importantly, this study provides empirical evidence of a relationship between the complicated constructs of institutional competition for resources and institutional accountability for public purposes at the undergraduate level within U.S. public four-year institutions. With the force of institutional competition likely to increase and the necessity for higher education to serve public purposes critical, additional research further exploring the relationships between institutional competition and institutional accountability at the undergraduate level is crucial.