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Higher Education
Concentration Description
Curriculum
Course Requirements
Faculty
Additional Resources
Concentration Description (APA/HE)
The doctoral program in higher education is designed for students who plan to be faculty members, university or college administrators, public policy analysts, and institutional researchers. Since the PhD is a research degree, the core objective of our program is to prepare professionals to conduct research and scholarship on many dimensions of higher education. Our program features small courses, hands-on research training, and individual mentoring by faculty. Students tend to be enrolled full-time, and can complete the program in four to five years.
Curriculum
The program's core curriculum encourages students to look to a variety of the social sciences (e.g., economics, political science, sociology, social psychology, organizational studies) for theoretical frameworks and research methods. To this end, doctoral students obtain a minor in a related discipline or interdisciplinary area and often pursue a master's degree in that field concurrently with the doctoral degree. Students tend to be enrolled full-time, and can complete the program in four years.
The School of Education's diverse course offerings-in such areas as administration and policy analysis-also provide doctoral students in Higher Education with valuable insight into the connections between their research and K-12 education, as do courses in various departments throughout the university.
Recent courses taught as part of the Higher Education program include:
- Student Development and the Study of College Impact
- Multicultural Issues in American Higher Education
- Curricular Change and Academic Planning Issues
- Leadership and Administration in Higher Education
- Theories of Organizational Change
- Governance and Management of Higher Education
- Economics of Higher Education
- International Comparative Higher Education Reform
- Accountability and Higher Education
- History of Higher Education
- Gender Issues in Higher Education
- Field Research in Higher Education
 Course Requirements
The higher education program’s core curriculum encourages students to look to a variety of the social sciences (e.g., economics, political science, sociology, social psychology, organizational studies) for theoretical frameworks and a variety of research methods. To this end, doctoral students obtain a minor in a related discipline or pursue a master’s degree in that field concurrently with the doctoral degree.
The higher education doctoral program is formally designated as a concentration within the PhD program in Administration and Policy Analysis (APA), which aims to produce leaders who will influence the nature of educational organizations. It prepares scholars, administrators, and policy analysts for these roles by developing the characteristics of educational leaders: the knowledge base to understand the societal and economic forces affecting complex organizations; the ability to question, analyze, and develop creative solutions to policy and operating problems; and the determination to make decisions in the face of conflict and ambiguity. As a result, higher education students gain insight into connections with K-12 education.
Higher education students take required courses for both APA and higher education. Working with faculty advisors, students have flexibility to tailor course selections to their needs and aspirations. Variations occur in APA students’ choices of institutional focus (higher education, elementary or secondary schools, state or federal agencies); intended role (research, policy analysis, or administration); and disciplinary approach (sociology, economics, political science, etc.).
I. APA Core Courses:
APA doctoral students are required to take one course in each of four core areas. The concentrations reflect major disciplinary and policy perspectives at the core of APA. The four-course requirement balances the need for students to acquire an understanding of these perspectives with the need for flexibility given students' varied backgrounds and aspirations. This core requirement should be considered a minimum core beyond which advisors will work with their students to obtain depth in specializations. Students can select additional courses in each of these four concentrations as well as in other concentrations of interest. Specialization is also achieved through the minor (or MA).
This is a preliminary list of courses. We will revise it periodically.
| Economics |
Sociology/Organizations |
Policy |
History |
| 220a |
|
220b |
201 |
| 306a |
220c |
221a |
220d |
| 347 |
375a |
323 |
265 |
| |
384 |
377 |
|
| |
|
349 |
|
| |
|
417x |
|
APA doctoral students are also required to take courses that provide research skills:
Ed 331A Research Seminar
Ed 423A Introduction to Research Design: Educational Administration and Policy Analysis
Statistics (2 Quarters)
II. Higher Education Core Courses:
In addition to the above APA core courses, the Higher Education PhD concentration requires:
Ed 346 Research Seminar in Higher Education
Ed 384 Advanced Topics in Higher Education
one course from either:
Ed 381x Multiculturalism in Higher Education
Ed 382x Student Development and the Study of College Impact
and two electives from the following:
Ed 265 History of Higher Education
Ed 273 Gender and Higher Education
Ed 347 Economics of Higher Education
Ed 349 Accountability and Higher Education
Ed 355x Higher Education and Society (Cross-listed as Soc 355)
Ed 357x Interdisciplinarity in Higher Education
Ed 417x Research and Policy on Postsecondary Access
Ed 418 Field Research in Higher Education
strongly recommended, but not required, further courses in organizational theory, such as:
Ed 375A Seminar on Organizational Theory
Ed 375B Seminar on Organizations: Theory and Applications
Ed 377 Comparing Institutional Forms: Public, Private, and Nonprofit.
Ed 378 Topics in Organizational Adaptation
Faculty
Stanford professors who teach in the program are engaged in a variety of research projects. Ongoing projects include: organizational restructuring and institutional change in public colleges and universities; policy alignment and student transitions in the K-16 system; the impact of diversity on college student outcomes; and peer group influence on multicultural campuses. Higher Education faculty also conduct research and offer courses through a number of interdisciplinary programs at Stanford, including Feminist Studies and Comparative Studies in Race and Ethnicity.
Research Opportunities
Faculty projects within and beyond the Stanford Institute for Higher Education Research offer doctoral students the opportunity to conduct research and work closely with well-known scholars, as do collaborations with local research organizations such as the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. For a list of SIHER research projects, see http://siher.stanford.edu and http://ncpi.stanford.edu.
Admissions:
Admission to the PhD program is highly selective. Those applicants with impeccable academic credentials and relevant professional experience fare best in the admission process. We recommend that students visit the campus once they have been offered admission.
For Admissions Information, see http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/admissions/index.html
For Further Program Information, see http://ed.stanford.edu/suse/programs-degrees/apa.html
Contact the Core Higher Education Faculty:
Anthony Lising Antonio
Patricia J. Gumport
Michael Kirst
Myra Strober
Additional Resources
Bernadine Chuck Fong
Martin Carnoy
David Labaree
Susanna Loeb
James March
John Meyer
Deb Meyerson
Woody Powell
Lee Shulman
Francisco Ramirez
Rich Shavelson
Academic Services Staff:
For questions about Admissions, Degree Requirements and courses go to Programs-Degrees or contact Academic Services Staff.
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