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Description
Introduction
Higher education is increasingly becoming an issue for political campaigns and candidates. The 2004 presidential campaign even included a heated exchange regarding the funding of the Pell Grant program during the debates (Commission on Presidential Debates, 2004). While higher education as a policy issue was once the reserve of a small group of interested parties, prominent Democrats and Republicans are now visibly aligning with different policy objectives.
Despite this increased level of partisanship regarding higher education policy issues, relatively little is known about whether the public has actively partisan beliefs about higher education policy. It has not been easy to identify either political party with a specific set of policy goals for higher education, unlike other issues such as health care or gun control.
However, politicians in both parties have staked out quite different positions on several issues regarding public policy for higher education. The most visible example of this was the release by Representatives Boehner and McKeon of a report called the College Cost Crisis, which used data on tuition and public opinion to suggest that the difficulties that many students were experiencing in paying for college were due solely to tuition increases, which in turn could be tied to inefficiency on college campuses (Boehner & McKeon, 2003). The report was followed by the introduction of a bill requiring institutions to limit tuition increases to the rate of inflation or face losing Title IV eligibility (McKeon, 2003).
Congressional Democrats responded to this report by suggesting that state disinvestment, not inefficiency, was the cause of rising tuition. They introduced a bill requiring states to maintain a commitment to higher education funding or face penalties (Kennedy, 2003). Democrats also questioned the majority's commitment to funding of the Pell Grant and other need-based programs (Kennedy, 2004).
The two sides in this debate have some striking areas of agreement and equally sharp disagreements. Both sides agree that higher tuition is a problem, but their views sharply diverge on the causes and solutions. Republicans seem to be much more concerned about holding institutions accountable for their use of resources. Democrats seem to be much more concerned about the effect of tuition increases on the opportunity of different groups to attend higher education.
This article takes the stated political preferences of party elites in recent debates as a starting point for identifying the relationship between party identification and policy preferences among the public as a whole. The key question is: Do individuals from different parties have different preferences when it comes to higher education policy?
This question will be examined in terms of the broad policy debate outlined above. In particular, I will first attempt to determine the role of partisan self-identification in individuals' attitudes toward efficiency in higher education. I will next attempt to determine the role of partisan self-identification in individuals' attitudes toward higher education opportunity.
This question is important because it might be that the visible and heated conflict between political elites has little to do with the opinions of their constituents. This would suggest that the current debates about higher education policy at the federal level are more tactical. However, it also might be that the recent debates among policy elites accurately reflect the divisions among their constituents.
To date, little research has been done to understand this question. Most of the research in this area has focused on identifying public preferences as a whole, with little attention focused on particular groups. In addition, there have been no studies that make use of multivariate techniques to isolate the relationship between certain characteristics of individuals and their policy preferences. This study addresses both of these gaps in the extant literature.
Literature Review
This literature review has two parts. In the first section, I describe the state of existing research on public opinion and higher education. In the second section, I review the literature on the relationship between public opinion and public policy, with particular emphasis on the role of partisan self-identification in this process.
Higher Education and Public Opinion: What We Know Now
The literature on public opinion and higher education consists almost entirely of reports generated from surveys of the public. These reports have most often been commissioned by groups involved in the policy process.
Two notable series of reports have been generated by different organizations regarding public opinion on higher education. The first series is the result of a collaboration between Public Agenda and both the California Higher Education Policy Center and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education (Immerwahr, 1997, 1998, 1999a, 1999b, 2003; Immerwahr & Boese, 1995; Immerwahr & Farkas, 1993). The second series has been conducted by the American Council on Education (Hartle, 1998; Harvey, 1994; Harvey & Immerwahr, 1995a, 1995b; Ikenberry & Hartle, 1998, 2000).
In the Public Agenda series, the primary focus was on the values that the public brings to public policy for higher education. The findings from the series, which spanned 10 years, can be summarized as follows. First, the public thinks that higher education is quite important for later success in life (Immerwahr, 2000; Immerwahr & Farkas, 1993). One of the most consistent findings from the surveys done as a result of this collaboration has been the importance attached to opportunity for higher education (Immerwahr, 2000; Immerwahr & Farkas, 1993). In general, over the last decade, the vast majority of the public has voiced strong support for the idea that higher education should be accessible for all (Callan, 1996; Immerwahr, 1997, 1998, 1999a, 2000; Immerwahr & Farkas, 1993). The public also places a strong emphasis on reciprocity--the idea that students should make an effort to succeed in higher education (Immerwahr, 2000; Immerwahr & Farkas, 1993).
The American Council on Education series of reports also sought to discover the public's values, but one of its primary concerns was the possible public misconceptions about college costs and prices (Harvey, 1994; Harvey & Immerwahr, 1995b; Ikenberry & Hartle, 1998, 2000). This series of reports concerns mostly two critical findings--high concern about the cost of college coupled with low levels of knowledge about the actual prices that most students and families actually pay.
Several other reports have been conducted on public beliefs about higher education (Benjamin, 1993; Berube, 1996; Chenoweth, 1998; Furnham, 2002; Gallup, 1990, 1991; Hersh, 1997). In addition, many surveys on other topics have asked individual questions about higher education issues. The core findings are similar across all studies: The public values higher education; believes that all groups ought to have the opportunity to pursue higher education; emphasizes the notion of reciprocity; is concerned about college affordability; and knows very little about the actual price of higher education.
The literature on public opinion regarding higher education does not answer any of the questions this article asks about partisan identification and policy preferences. In addition, multivariate studies are essentially nonexistent.
Literature on Partisan Identification, Public Opinion, and the Policymaking Process
The relationship between public opinion and public policy is one of the key questions in determining the functioning of a democratic society. If public opinion is essentially unrelated to the types of policies that the government formulates and implements, then it cannot be said that government is responsive to the desires of individuals. On the other hand, in no case do we see that government policy is a precise reflection of the expressed opinion of the majority of the populace. While we expect there to be some relationship between public opinion and public policy, the key question is how this relationship is formed and to what degree policymakers are responsive to public opinion.
In response to the basic question of whether public opinion affects policymaking in the United States, the answer is an unambiguous "Yes." Numerous studies have established that policymaking is tied to the views of the public on policies. (Bartels, 1991; Erikson, MacKuen, & Stimson, 2002; Jacobs & Shapiro, 1996, 2000; Monroe, 1998; Page & Shapiro, 1983; Stimson, MacKuen, & Erikson, 1995; Wlezien, 2004).
If public opinion does affect policy, then how does it do so? The most logical way would be the electoral connection. Policymakers who are too far out-of-tune with their constituents' preferences will very soon find that they are no longer policymakers. The available evidence, however, suggests that few policymakers ever truly find themselves in this position. The incumbency rate in congress (98% in 2004) would suggest that either the electoral connection does not hold or that legislators are not waiting for elections to find out whether their views are in tune with their constituents (Barone, 2004).
The more likely mechanism for the translation of public opinion into public policy is what is known as rational anticipation. Through a variety of means a policymaker will seek to understand the policy preferences of her constituents (Stimson, MacKuen, &... |
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