|
 | |
Michael Tierney
Associate Professor
|
Education
1972: B.A., History, University of California, Santa Barbara
1973: M.A., Educational Psychology, University of
California, Santa Barbara
1977: Ph.D., Higher Education, University of California, Los
Angeles
Areas of Expertise
Higher education finance
Higher education systems & structures
Financial aid
Professional Biography
After completing his doctorate, Dr. Tierney taught at the
Pennsylvania State University and was a research associate in the Center for
the Study of Higher Education. In 1980, he joined the faculty of the Graduate
School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania and became associate
director of the Institute for Research on Higher Education. From 1987 to 1993,
Dr. Tierney served as associate dean of Penn GSE. During the 1993–94 fiscal
year, he served as a special assistant to the interim provost at the University
of Pennsylvania.
Research Interests and Current Projects
Dr. Tierney is a student of the economics and financing of
colleges and universities. His research has explored the decisions of students
and their families to matriculate at a college and university. Of particular
interest has been the impact of various types of student financial aid programs
on these decisions. Comparisons across different cohorts of high school seniors
indicate that the structure of student college choice decisions remained
relatively unchanged during the 1980s for most colleges and universities in
Pennsylvania.
Dr. Tierney’s current research focuses on three related
areas. Central to this research is the development of a methodology for
assessing the labor market outcomes of colleges and universities. This
methodology merges institutional data with state labor department data and is
currently being pilot-tested in New Jersey. The second area investigates the
costs of schools of allied medical professions. These schools were selected
because they already possess an outcome measure, i.e., the rate at which
students pass various professional licensure examinations. These two areas are
combined in the modeling of the investment decisions of colleges and
universities. Central to understanding these decisions is a conceptualization
of colleges and universities as constrained maximizers. Foremost among the
constraints are the institution’s cost of capital, which is significantly
affected by various third-party payers and forms of collegiate regulation.
Paralleling this work in the United States, Dr. Tierney has been involved with
two projects with the People’s Republic of China: an international conference
on the structure of higher education capital markets, held in Shanghai, and a
study of the development of a national student loan program.
Courses Taught
EDUC 551: The System of Higher Education in the United
States
EDUC 751: Quantitative Research Methods in Higher Education
EDUC 803: Readings in Higher Education
Selected Publications
Tierney, M. (1985). Financing a college education: Toward a
new partnership of families, institutions, and government. In J. Smart (Ed.),
Higher education: Handbook of theory and research. Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Tierney, M. (1980). The impact of institutional net price on
student demand for public/private higher education. Economics of Education
Review.
Tierney, M., & Baldridge, J.V. (1979). New approaches to
management. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
|
