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In this paper, we explore the evolution of the Indian State's role in governance, and the implications this has for goal setting. We find that the Indian government's activist role in governance marked a change from the colonial period. This, we suggest, was not due to changes in the relative influence of different stakeholder groups. It was instead due to new national developmental goals, particularly industrialization. Fairly quickly after independence, we find that higher education governance came to be exercised in different ways between the center and the states. Control over the system's governance was to later become an arena of contest between the national (central) government and the provinces (states), leading to disagreements on strategies, such as on funding and regulation. In later phases, particularly in the third phase that began in 1984 and continues to the present, the disagreements intensified because educational priorities started changing due to the changes in the relative influence of stakeholder groups and new forces such as globalization.

Colleges and universities in the US have been under increased pressured to demonstrate accountability for student learning and be more transparent about dimensions of educational quality. Although institutions are responding to these demands, it is not altogether clear where learning outcomes assessment ranks in importance on institutions’ action agenda, or the extent to which colleges and universities are using assessment results to make real improvements in the quality of student learning. The National Institute for Learning Outcomes Assessment (NILOA) is a multiyear effort to understand and further the student learning outcomes agenda nationally. One of NILOA’s primary activities is tracking the journey of higher education institutions responding to the challenge of outcomes assessment. To this end, NILOA conducts surveys, focus groups, and case studies to learn more about what colleges and universities are doing to assess student learning and how they are using the results. This paper highlights lessons from four focus group sessions with campus leaders - presidents, provosts, academic deans and directors of institutional research from a variety of two and four-year institutions - regarding their perspectives on the state of learning assessment practices on their campuses. The perceptions are considered in relation to findings from the 2009 NILOA survey report, ‘More than you think, less than we need: learning outcomes assessment in higher education’. The paper concludes by articulating questions and challenges raised by campus leaders including reservations about identifying and using assessment measures, issues of transparency and communicating results, and concerns about financing assessment.

In this paper we investigate the determinants of regret of study program for tertiary education graduates in Spain and the Netherlands. These two countries differ in their educational system in terms of the tracking structure in their secondary education and the strength of their education-labor market linkages in tertiary education. Therefore, by comparing Spain and the Netherlands, we aim at learning about the consequences that the two educational systems might have on the regret of study program in tertiary education. Basing on the psychological literature on regret, we derive some expectations on the determinants of regret of study program. Results reveal that both, education track and education-labor mismatch of tertiary education, are important determinants of the likelihood of program regret. Results allow us to derive some policy recommendations on the tertiary education system.

The Commission on the Future of Higher Education was asked by the US Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, to examine four central issues in American higher education: access, affordability, quality and accountability. Although much good work is being done, the Commission found shortcomings remaining. This report outlines the goals that underpin what the Commission expects from American higher education, defined to include all public and private education that is available after high school, i.e. trade schools, online professional training institutions, technical colleges, community colleges, traditional four-year colleges and universities, and graduate and professional programs. These expectations are that: the higher education system creates relevant knowledge, contributes to economic prosperity and global competitiveness, and empowers citizens; higher education is accessible to all Americans, throughout their lives; postsecondary institutions provide high quality instruction along with improving their efficiency in order to be more affordable for students, taxpayers and supporting donors; higher education gives Americans the workplace skills needed to adapt to a rapidly changing economy; and higher education institutions adapt to technological and demographic change, globalisation and a training market that includes new providers and paradigms, from for-profit universities to distance learning. To achieve these goals, and stemming from the findings of the review, the report makes a number of recommendations for improving the higher education system.

The international literature on adjunct faculty in higher education, including professional education, does not yet cover counsellor education in particular, although many programs rely on the teaching services of experienced practitioners in adjunct faculty positions. This article reports on a small, exploratory study conducted with adjunct faculty members appointed to one-year, full time fellowships in the counsellor education program in which the authors are full time academics. The study identifies the mutual benefits of this practice, to the practitioners who teach as adjunct faculty and to the counsellor education program. It also identifies areas that are problematic. In view both of the identified benefits and the difficulties experienced, the authors discuss their responsibilities as permanent academic staff to the practitioners who teach as adjunct faculty. The authors suggest that programs benefit from the ethic of hospitality that adjunct faculty can offer and invite academic staff to bring (un)conditional hospitality to the collegial relationship in counsellor education.