Power and Politics: Federal Higher Education Policymaking in the 1990s

Power and Politics provides the most intimate view of federal higher education policymaking since Congress and the Colleges. The question of power, often ignored by higher education policy analysts and researchers, is the focus of this study of federal higher education policymaking in the 1990s. Conventional measures and assessments of power reveal that the Washington-based higher education associations are not powerful policy actors. However, the associations apparently have succeeded in convincing Congress to dramatically expand the scope and size of federal student aid programs authorized under the Higher Education Act (HEA). The 1992 HEA reauthorization and the Clinton student aid agenda provide case studies as the author seeks to resolve the contradiction between conventional measures of power and actual policy outcomes in the federal higher education policy arena.