Capitalizing on College: How Higher Education Went from Mission Driven to Margin Obsessed

Author:   Joshua Travis Brown ,  Mitch Crawford
Publisher:   Tantor
Edition:   Unabridged edition
ISBN:  

9798228933859


Publication Date:   28 April 2026
Format:   Audio  Audio Format
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
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Capitalizing on College: How Higher Education Went from Mission Driven to Margin Obsessed


Audio Format

Overview

In Capitalizing on College Joshua Brown illustrates how tuition-driven colleges and universities have been forced to innovate and adopt market-driven financial strategies. These institutions have longstanding commitments to offering access and opportunity to marginalized students, but the promise of improved educational outcomes stemming from federal policy changes aimed at increasing market competition never materialized. Instead competition for tuition dollars meant these colleges had to adopt new strategies to find more students to offset losses. Capitalizing on College reveals how three of the strategies these schools adopted were initially successful but ultimately fell short in raising enough revenue to support operating a residential campus. Only a fourth accelerated strategy of going to scale raised the necessary funds--but at the cost of undercutting their mission by leading them to view students as dollars. Capitalizing on College reveals the untold story of the missing middle. It shows how the unanticipated consequences of federal policy changes have ultimately distorted the values of mission-driven schools. Capitalizing on College offers a timely and fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the changes shaking higher education and what the future holds for colleges and universities in this new financial climate.

Full Product Details

Author:   Joshua Travis Brown ,  Mitch Crawford
Publisher:   Tantor
Imprint:   Tantor
Edition:   Unabridged edition
ISBN:  

9798228933859


Publication Date:   28 April 2026
Audience:   General/trade ,  General
Format:   Audio
Publisher's Status:   Forthcoming
Availability:   Not yet available   Availability explained
This item is yet to be released. You can pre-order this item and we will dispatch it to you upon its release.

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Author Information

Joshua Travis Brown is an assistant professor of entrepreneurial leadership in education at Johns Hopkins University and fellow at the Center for Skills, Knowledge, and Organizational Performance (SKOPE) at the University of Oxford. His research is positioned at the intersection of public policy and organizational theory and examines how economic policies have incentivized colleges and universities with limited resources to pursue margins in new markets at the expense of their educational missions. His work has been featured and discussed in the Wall Street Journal, NPR, USA Today, and the Chronicle of Higher Education. Mitch Crawford grew up telling narrative, improvisational stories with his brother, using stuffed animals, tiny army men, and Star Trek action figures as characters. This carried forward to adulthood, crafting such stories with his children, as well as reading storybooks, picture books, and young adult literature aloud to all five offspring. He once read all nineteen original Gertrude Chandler Warner Boxcar Children books to his two young boys one summer, chipping away at them each night before bedtime. A high school teacher for twenty years in history, economics, fine arts, and computer science, Mitch realized that voice inflection, vocal and kinesthetic surprises, and even reading aloud helped keep his students engaged in course material. Now an actor, model, and voice-over artist, his personal branding invokes the smart, funny, and occasionally aloof dad or guy-next-door, or the serious and principled lawyer, doctor, or businessperson. This personal history and these characteristics have helped develop a sincere, trustworthy voice that resonates well with children's literature, first- and third-person POV fiction, nonfiction, biography/memoir, and self-help books. A graduate of Villanova University with a dual major in psychology and philosophy, and an MA and teacher's certification from The Ohio State University, Mitch does his homework and knows how to relate to his audience. For fun, he played volleyball for Villanova in the late 1980s when short shorts and high socks were en vogue. After twenty-five-plus years of that, he switched to tennis, which takes a lesser toll on his body (well, sort of). Mitch loves hiking and traveling with his wife, sneaking out to Five Guys with step-daughter Grace, and being outdoors with their dogs, Izzy and Grommit.

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