José Luis Santos
A Sudikoff Family Institute Fellow for 2007 – 08

jsantos@gseis.ucla.edu

310.825.7549

Assistant Professor of Education José Luis Santos, a Sudikoff Family Institute Fellow for 2007 – 07, studies the economic factors involved in higher education, placing particular emphasis on issues affecting students from underrepresented groups, such as how finances influence equity and access, the burden of student debt, and the importance of linking tuition-setting policies with need-based aid policies.

The driving force behind Professor Santos’ work is his belief that federal, state, and institutional policies may not adequately support increased educational and economic outcomes for traditionally underrepresented students, but rather, may perpetuate inequitable outcomes leading to further stratification.  Focusing his work on higher education finance and policy, Santos recently wrote an article for the academic journal, Review of Higher Education, “Resource Allocation within Public Research Universities,” which ran in the Winter 2007 issue.  Additionally, Professor Santos also recently served as an associate of the renowned National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a leading state and national policy center.

Professor Santos was awarded a Sudikoff Fellowship for his interest in developing a series of policy briefs that will grow out of GSE&IS research, to help inform legislators in Sacramento and Washington of key issues in higher education. While each of the policy briefs will address a single issue of critical importance in higher education, under consideration for the first brief is coverage of public university funding trends, and the subsequent public policy implications for low-income students.

The Sudikoff Family Institute will publish and disseminate the briefs to California state legislators, and may develop additional material to further communicate to educators and the broader public.  It will also contribute to establishing an online presence for the Santos initiative, and will serve as a media liaison to help promote coverage in the mainstream press.  After the first policy brief has been issued and distributed, additional policy briefs are expected to follow later this year. 

Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies in 2005, Santos served as a senior institutional researcher and the founding director of the Latina/o Policy Research Initiative (LPRI) in the College of Humanities at the University of Arizona, where he developed expertise on a variety of issues, including budgetary trends, cost accounting, faculty compensation, and student enrollment.  As director of the LPRI he co-authored a policy report with the Institute of Higher Education Policy based in Washington, D.C, one of the world's most respected higher education research and policy groups. With support from USA Funds©, “Investing in Arizona’s Future:  College Access, Affordability, and the Impact of Investment in Need-Based Financial Aid” was released in March 2005.  He was also the lead author on a study commissioned and released in April 2006 by the Arizona Minority Education Policy Analysis Center, a division of the Arizona Commission for Postsecondary Education   entitled, “The Road to Higher Education: Closing the Participation Gaps for Arizona Minority Students.”  These reports were instrumental in making the case to state legislators to increase need-based aid funding and streamline P-K20 education. 

Professor Santos earned his B.A. in Mexican American Studies, M.A. in Educational Psychology: Measurement & Research Methodology at the University of Arizona, and Ph.D. in higher education economics and finance policy from the University of Arizona’s Center for the Study of Higher Education.

Professor Santos has appeared on local and national radio outlets and has been quoted in numerous local and national newspapers including USA Today and The Chronicle of Higher Education.  In addition, he was a weekly columnist for The Tucson Citizen, a major daily newspaper in Arizona.

For further information, please visit: http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/members/jsantos

Linda J. Sax

lsax@ucla.edu
310.206.5875

A Sudikoff Family Institute for Education & New Media Fellow 2007 - 08

Associate Professor of Education Linda J. Sax, a Sudikoff Family Institute Fellow for 2007 - 08, studies gender differences in college student development, to determine how institutional characteristics, peer and faculty environments, and forms of student involvement may affect women and men college students differently. 

While numerous studies on college impact exist within the field of higher education, there has been little research examining whether college affects women and men differently. Professor Sax’s work questions how and why gender shapes the college experience, and seeks to determine if the factors that inform student development operate differently for male and female students.  She explores whether certain college environments or experiences have stronger or weaker effects on women than on men, and what implications this might have for campus programming. 

Professor Sax is currently engaged in several key research projects.  Her forthcoming book, The Gender Gap in College, to be published by Jossey Bass in 2008, examines the impact of college experiences on a full spectrum of student outcomes in the areas of academic achievement, self-concept, life goals, career development, physical and emotional health, political and social attitudes, and satisfaction with college.  The book addresses the interests and needs of researchers and practitioners developing student programs and services in higher education, and is an outgrowth of an examination of data culled from forty years of the renowned Freshman Survey. 

The Gender Gap in College highlights a significant trend unfolding in higher education.  While college enrollment is on the rise for both women and men, women’s enrollment – about 58% nationally – has outpaced men’s, resulting in a “gender gap.”  The widening of the gender gap is due largely to an influx of women from underrepresented groups, including African Americans, Latinas, older students, and those of lower socioeconomic status. 

In a contribution to the public forum, Professor Sax addressed some of the issues faced by women entering college today in an essay for The Chronicle Review http://chronicle.com/free/v54/i05/05b04601.htm, a supplement to The Chronicle of Higher Education.  The essay, “College Women Still Face Many Obstacles in Reaching Their Full Potential,” appeared September 28, 2007.  

Another project for Professor Sax includes her work as the principal investigator on a nationwide study of the effects of single-sex education, funded by the American Association of University Women and the National Coalition of Girls’ Schools.  With the study coming to completion after two years, Professor Sax will issue a report—intended for broad dissemination in the spring and summer of 2008—analyzing the effects of attending single-sex high schools on students’ transition to college.  Professor Sax is also co-principal investigator on a National Science Foundation sponsored project to increase women’s pursuit of graduate degrees in the physical sciences and engineering. 

The recipient of the 2005 Scholar-in-Residence Award from the American Association of University Women, Professor Sax was honored with the 1999 Early Career Award from the Association for the Study of Higher Education.   

As an Associate Professor of Higher Education at UCLA’s Graduate School of Education & Information Studies, Professor Sax teaches graduate courses in research methodology, evaluation of higher education, and gender issues in higher education.  She also serves as founding faculty director of UCLA’s new Master’s in Student Affairs program.  From 1994 to 2005 she oversaw the administration of nationwide surveys of college students and faculty in her role as Director of the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) and Associate Director of the Higher Education Research Institute (HERI) at UCLA. 

Professor Sax has contributed frequently to a number of distinguished academic publications including Research in Higher Education, The Review of Higher Education, The Journal of Higher Education, The Journal of College Student Development, and Educational Record, and has served on Editorial Boards for The Review of Higher Education and Research in Higher Education.  She has provided expert commentary and perspective for such national news outlets as CNN, ABC, CBS, and Fox, and national newspapers including the New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and The Washington Post.   

Having received her B.A. in political economy from the University of California, Berkeley in 1990, Professor Sax completed her M.A. in 1991 and Ph.D. in 1994 at the University of California, Los Angeles. 

  For more information, please visit:  http://www.gseis.ucla.edu/faculty/members/sax

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