The New Graduate Program Approval Process By the States in a Period of Retrenchment.

Abstract

The purposes of this study were to determine how the process for approval of new graduate programs has changed in a period of shrinking resources and to examine actual cases to ascertain which actors tended to become involved in new program approvals and with what effect. The research framework utilized the Dye (1970) model for analyzing policy outcomes in state systems of higher education. Variables examined were formal and informal procedures, criteria, and actors in new program approval. A national survey of chief academic officers of state higher education planning agencies was conducted to find out how patterns of new academic program requests were changing, and how the process of review itself had changed, if at all, in view of limited resources. The sample was the population. A subsample of two states was used to analyze four actual program decisions. A matched pair of program proposals in each state was selected. One of the programs had received approval and one had not. Each case was examined to determine who became involved in the review process, at what stage, using what strategies, and with what effect. Similarly, each decision was reviewed to determine which criteria and processes of the formal review mechanism became significant at each stage of the review. Major findings follow. (I) Institutions continue to propose new programs to state higher education planning agencies even though resources are limited, but the numbers proposed have decreased over prior years. (2) Some change in formal criteria utilized to evaluate new graduate program requests was reported by the state higher education agencies. (3) The influence strategies utilized by the institutional and state higher education agency actors in both states were predictable according to the Gamson (1968) typology. (4) The formal system for review of new graduate programs in Ohio and Illinois permitted the decisions to be made in the cases studied. (5) Actors in the four cases perceived the greatest influence in new graduate program approval to rest with the state higher education agency actors. Agencies in the two states also appeared to be maturing in their decision-making and analysis roles.