Theses and Dissertations

Date of Award

2025

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Education (EdD)

Department

Abraham S. Fischler College of Education and School of Criminal Justice

Advisor

Barbara Packer

Committee Member

Shery Bennett

Committee Member

Kimberly Durham

Keywords

accessibility, Colorado, cream-skimming, DEI, higher education policy, neoliberalism, Pell-grant, performance-based funding, policy analysis, underrepresented minority

Abstract

The researcher used a quantitative approach to examine the effects of performance-based funding policies in Colorado. Specifically, the researcher focused on postsecondary access for Pell-grant eligible and underrepresented minority students. Using a doubly robust difference-in-differences design, the study compares two PBF policy iterations (2.0 and 3.0) to assess the effectiveness of those polices on public four-year degree granting universities in Colorado. The researcher assessed from the data that PBF has no significant impact on Pell-eligible postsecondary accessibility, but PBF has a slightly significant impact on URM accessibility.

The research is grounded in institutional theory and resource dependence theory. The research theories are framed to consider the broader influence of neoliberal policy design and policy entrepreneurship. The student also evaluates possible cream-skimming behavior among flagship institutions and growing disparities between the better-resourced competitive institutions and the smaller regional public universities. Additionally, the researcher addresses how emerging federal guidance surrounding diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) efforts may threaten the viability of equity-based PBF metrics. Recommendations include the reconsideration of weighted metrics, legal safeguards for access-based initiatives, and further research into longitudinal equity outcomes and institutions funding disparities.

The researcher accounted for the periods of non-implementation as a way to pretest the accessibility conditions for postsecondary education in Colorado. Additionally, the researcher addressed the policy concerns raised by smaller regional schools when leaders from those schools questioned the motivation of iteration 2.0 and how that policy was strongly guided by leaders from the larger headcount schools. Furthermore, the researcher provides detailed guidance for further research based on the findings of Pell-grant eligible and underrepresented minority student accessibility. The researcher made recommendations for navigating potential policy concerns regarding diversity, equity, and inclusion for future PBF iterations.

An analysis of the data revealed that Pell-grant eligibility likely has too many external variables impacting accessibility for lawmakers to use Pell-grant accessibility as a metric. However, underrepresented minority accessibility is something an institution can impact, still any future considerations for URM populations should account for DEI policy impacts at the federal level, and consider broadening the definition of URM to avoid an issue with giving preferential treatment to any population on the basis of race or ethnicity.

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