Value for money and employability: Conceptualizing the U.S. Federal rating system of postsecondary institutions

This paper analyzes the development of the Postsecondary Institutions Rating System (PIRS) by the United States federal government from 2013 to 2015. PIRS generated debate and opposition, which ultimately resulted in a significant transformation of the initiative. The present analysis identifies and...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Higher education policy 2017-09, Vol.30 (3), p.299-317
Main Authors: Franke, Ray, Ramirez, Gerardo Blanco
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Access to education
Accountability
Affordability
Akademiker
Ausland
Bedarf
College presidents
Community colleges
Conceptual analysis
Discourse analysis
Education
Education Policy
Educational Policy and Politics
Employability
Federal government
Higher Education
Hochschulsystem
Implementation
Institutions
Interest groups
Labor market
Low income groups
Money
Original Article
Ratings & rankings
Transformation
USA
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Summary:This paper analyzes the development of the Postsecondary Institutions Rating System (PIRS) by the United States federal government from 2013 to 2015. PIRS generated debate and opposition, which ultimately resulted in a significant transformation of the initiative. The present analysis identifies and explores key assumptions regarding higher education access, affordability, and quality embedded in this policy agenda. We argue that, as a rating mechanism, PIRS involves different and at times conflicting notions of quality, one of the most salient being "value for money." The ratings system also emphasizes and promotes the concept of employability through its proposed outcome measures. Analyzing PIRS requires not only an exploration of its technical implementation and potential outcomes, but also a conceptual analysis. For this, we relied on discourse analysis of documents the U.S. government has generated or made publically available, and of the responses among different policy stakeholders. (HRK / Abstract übernommen).
ISSN:0952-8733
1740-3863
DOI:10.1057/s41307-016-0024-6