ACADEMIC MATCHMAKER

We are developing a new kind of platform for higher education philanthropy, in which CEHE matches donors to high quality programs and effective faculty seeking funding.

CEHE will solicit funding commitments from foundations and individual philanthropists and then request proposals from appropriate scholars and institutions, suitable to the interests and priorities of the donors. Our inaugural program in this area calls for new research on introducing market-based management techniques into the internal mechanisms of colleges and universities. We believe the spiraling tuition costs are due, in large part, to universities inefficient practices, including an inability to understand their own costs. We also believe that introducing more accountability into internal decision-making will make it easier to evaluate and critique existing campus programs. A $5 million research program to study such questions is expected to be launched in 2008.

CEHE is developing similar programs in other areas. In late 2008 or early 2009, for example, CEHE expects to launch a platform for managing requests for proposals (RFPs) on teaching and research in such areas as private enterprise, entrepreneurship and business history, military history and strategy, Middle East studies, the principles of the American Founding, and Western Civilization.