Although postsecondary institutions have been charged with serving the public good by expanding opportunity for racial minority and low-income students, over the past few decades, state funding has shrunk while the price students pay for a credential has continuously increased. For those students who do cross the stage at commencement, they are donating record-breaking amounts of money to their alma maters annually. However, the impact of private financial support for a public entity serving a public good remains an unexplored domain. Through a blended sociological and economic conceptual framework based on work from Perna (2006) this study employed ordinary least squared and fixed effects regression models for a sample of 87 public and 198 private four-year institutions. Using a modified variability measure based on work by Chang (1996, 1999), results indicated a negative relationship between institutional diversity and the Whiteness of an institution’s alumni as well as the percent of alumni who made a financial contribution to their alma mater. However, the adjusted dollar amount of gifts from alumni (controlled by enrollment) showed a positive relationship with the institution’s diversity. As an exploratory study, this research provides a foundation through a conceptual framework, diversity measures, and results for further testing the relationship between private giving to a public good oft thought to be the responsibility of funding by tax payers. While the institutions in the sample were shown to expand access and opportunity, gaps remain between the diversity of the freshmen class and the graduating class as well as between institutions who benefit the most from their alumni support and those who face limited financial resources all around. / A Dissertation submitted to the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. / Summer Semester 2018. / July 12, 2018. / Education policy, Higher education, Public policy / Includes bibliographical references. / Shouping Hu, Professor Directing Dissertation; Frances S. Berry, University Representative; Toby J. Park, Committee Member; Lara Christina Perez-Felkner, Committee Member; Robert A. Schwartz, Committee Member.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:fsu.edu/oai:fsu.digital.flvc.org:fsu_650275 |
| Contributors | Guilbeau, Jason Paul (author), Hu, Shouping (professor directing dissertation), Berry, Frances Stokes (university representative), Park, Toby J. (committee member), Perez-Felkner, Lara (committee member), Schwartz, Robert A. (committee member), Florida State University (degree granting institution), College of Education (degree granting college), Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Studies (degree granting departmentdgg) |
| Publisher | Florida State University |
| Source Sets | Florida State University |
| Language | English, English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, text, doctoral thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (207 pages), computer, application/pdf |
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