At the heart of this book has been our examination of the distinction between what colleges and universities do to raise revenue and how they spend it to advance their missions. That distinction is neither simple nor clear. Raising money and spending it are interrelated, not distinct. Every one of the methods used by colleges and universities to raise funds for the support of their training, research, and public service missions has side effects that can easily compromise those missions. That conflict, or tension as we have called it, highlights the challenge to public policy on higher education: how to make it possible for colleges and universities to generate revenue in ways that minimize the side effects or distortionary effects on the mission, which is typically ill defined.

Complicated as that challenge is to deal with, it is only part of the overall public policy challenge for higher education. How much revenue “should” higher education have? How should the funds be spent? How many colleges and universities should there be? What should the mix of large and small schools be? Does higher education have the “right” balance of two-year community colleges and research universities, of career academies and traditional degree-granting schools, of residential and Internet-based programs? Is the combination of public, private nonprofit, and for-profit higher education “appropriate”? And although everyone would like to see “high-quality” education, what does that mean in practical terms?