Higher Education in Regional and City Development Southern Arizona, United States Higher Education in Regional and City Development: Southern Arizona, United States 2011 This work is published on the responsibility of the Secretary-General of the OECD. The opinions expressed and arguments employed herein do not necessarily reflect the official views of the Organisation or of the governments of its member countries. This document and any map included herein are without prejudice to the status of or sovereignty over any territory, to the delimitation of international frontiers and boundaries and to the name of any territory, city or area. ISBN 978-92-64-02803-6 (PDF) Series: Higher Education in Regional and City Development ISSN 2218-3140 (online) The statistical data for Israel are supplied by and under the responsibility of the relevant Israeli authorities. The use of such data by the OECD is without prejudice to the status of the Golan Heights, East Jerusalem and Israeli settlements in the West Bank under the terms of international law. Cover credits: Design: © Francisco Esquer Mares. Photo: © University of Arizona. Corrigenda to OECD publications may be found on line at: www.oecd.org/publishing/corrigenda. © OECD 2011 You can copy, download or print OECD content for your own use, and you can include excerpts from OECD publications, databases and multimedia products in your own documents, presentations, blogs, websites and teaching materials, provided that suitable acknowledgement of OECD as source and copyright owner is given. All requests for public or commercial use and translation rights should be submitted to [email protected] Requests for permission to photocopy portions of this material for public or commercial use shall be addressed directly to the Copyright Clearance Center (CCC) at [email protected] or the Centre français d’exploitation du droit de copie (CFC) at [email protected]. FOREWORD – 3 Foreword Universities and other higher education institutions can play a key role in human capital development and innovation systems in their cities and regions. Reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development are the OECD’s vehicle to mobilise higher education for economic, social and cultural development of cities and regions. The reviews analyse how the higher education system impacts local and regional development and help improve this impact. In addition to human capital and skills development, technology transfer and business innovation, the reviews also looks into higher education’s contribution to social, cultural and environmental development and regional capacity building. The review process facilitates partnership building in regions by drawing together higher education institutions and public and private agencies to identify strategic goals and work together towards them. These reviews are part of a wider multi-annum work of higher education in cities and regions coordinated by the OECD Programme on Institutional Management of Higher Education (IMHE). In 2004-07, the OECD/IMHE conducted an extensive study with 14 regional reviews across 12 countries. This resulted in the OECD flagship publication Higher Education and Regions: Globally Competitive, Locally Engaged (OECD, 2007) with recommendation to benefit both higher education institutions and national and regional governments. In 2008, the OECD/IMHE launched a second series of OECD Reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development to address the demand by national and regional governments for more responsive and active higher education institutions. As a result, 14 regions in 11 countries underwent the OECD review process in 2008-11. The reviews are carried out by the OECD/IMHE in collaboration with international organisations and associations, and other OECD programmes and directorates. This work also supports the OECD Innovation Strategy and OECD Green Growth Strategy. This OECD review of the Southern Arizona Region in the United States is part of the second round of OECD reviews of Higher Education in Regional and City Development and the second review of its kind in the United States. The review was undertaken during the time when tertiary HIGHER EDUCATION IN REGIONAL AND CITY DEVELOPMENT: SOUTHERN ARIZONA, UNITED STATES © OECD 2011 4 – FOREWORD education in Arizona was at a crossroads due to decreasing state funding and its public good mission was under threat due to the financial cuts. HIGHER EDUCATION IN REGIONAL AND CITY DEVELOPMENT: SOUTHERN ARIZONA, UNITED STATES © OECD 2011 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS – 5 Acknowledgements Numerous national and regional stakeholders and representatives of tertiary education institutions provided valuable insights during the review visit and in the form of comments. The review was hosted by the University of Arizona and the OECD would like to thank the leadership of the institutions, especially its former President Robert N. Shelton and the current President Eugene Sander for their contribution. The OECD would also like to thank in particular the lead co-ordinators Francisco Marmolejo and John Paul Jones, with the additional support of Michael Proctor and Jaime P Gutiérrez, and other active local counterparts for this review, as well as Lumina Foundation for Education which generously supported the participation of local higher education institutions in the OECD review. This publication draws on the second cycle of the OECD reviews in 2008-11, on the interviews carried out during a week-long review visit to Southern Arizona from 4-10 October 2009, on the findings of the Southern Arizona Region’s Self-evaluation Report and using additional information provided to the review team. The OECD Review Team had a full and intensive programme and were received openly by a wide range of stakeholders. The team had the benefit of an extensive and reflective Self Evaluation Report which went beyond description to postulating a number of hypotheses about strengths and weaknesses which the team were able to test. The team were also able to rely on a range of other reports; including studies carried out by the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems and the Lumina Foundation and tested their conclusions and recommendations within the higher education sector in the Southern Arizona Region. This publication was co-ordinated and edited by Jaana Puukka (OECD/IMHE), with support from Ernesto Flores, Oscar Valiente and Austin Delaney. Peer reviewers from Mexico, Spain and the United States participated in the review process and were: Emiliano Duch (The Cluster Competitiveness Group, Spain), Madeleine Green (formerly with the American Council on Education, United States) Salvador Malo (Mexican Competitiveness Institute, Mexico), and Jamil Salmi (World Bank), Further details about the Review Team can be found in Annex 1 of this report.) HIGHER EDUCATION IN REGIONAL AND CITY DEVELOPMENT: SOUTHERN ARIZONA, UNITED STATES © OECD 2011 6 – ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Fionnuala Canning and Freya Damrell provided support in the editing phase. Rachel Linden supervised the publication process. HIGHER EDUCATION IN REGIONAL AND CITY DEVELOPMENT: SOUTHERN ARIZONA, UNITED STATES © OECD 2011 TABLE OF CONTENTS – 7 Table of contents Acronyms ............................................................................................................ 13 Assessment and recommendations .................................................................... 17 Chapter 1. National and regional context ........................................................ 49 1.1 Geography and population ........................................................................ 50 1.2 Regional economy ..................................................................................... 52 1.3 Tertiary education in the United States ..................................................... 54 1.4 Tertiary educational attainment in Arizona ............................................... 59 1.5 Tertiary education institutions in Southern Arizona ................................. 60 1.6 Governance and funding of tertiary education in Arizona ........................ 64 1.7 Contribution of tertiary education to the regional development................ 66 References ....................................................................................................... 71 Annex 1.A1 PISA 2009 results ....................................................................... 73 Chapter 2. Contribution of tertiary education to human capital development ............................................................................................................................ 79 Introduction ..................................................................................................... 80 2.1 Widening access ........................................................................................ 82 2.2 Improving the balance between labour market supply and demand.......... 96 2.3 Lifelong learning and distance education ................................................ 102 2.4 Strategic co-ordination of the regional human capital system ................ 103 2.5 Elaborating a financially sustainable expansion model ........................... 106 Conclusions and recommendations ............................................................... 109 References ..................................................................................................... 114 Chapter 3. Contribution of tertiary education institutions to regional innovation .......................................................................................................