Top Public Policy Issues 2011-2012

This is the 11th paper in AGB’s series summarizing federal and state public policy issues affecting higher education. We hope that governing boards, institutional and university-system leaders, and senior staffs will find it useful for board discussions and retreats and in formulating institutional responses to these issues.

For the next two years, no one or two single issues is likely to predominate. Rather, a number of concerns will present themselves. This set of issues is inextricably interrelated and comingled, with any one issue having a bearing on any number of the others. In short, the picture for public policy this year and next is complicated and nuanced.

Some of the nine issues discussed in this paper include student-aid policy, continuing fiscal pressure, and increased interest in the regulation of higher education.