Boards of Trustees in Higher Education: A Research Program

Introduction Universities and colleges in the United States are overseen by boards of trustees, regents, overseers, or similarly titled entities. With respect to their place in the hierarchical structure, such boards are similar to boards of directors in corporations. Indeed, for nonstate institutions of higher education, their legal status is effectively the same. Although similar in structure to corporate boards, they — and in fact non-profit boards more generally — have not received much scrutiny from economists. The purpose of this article is to suggest ways in which economists could go about making amends and trying to anticipate some of the difficulties they may face. In addition, this article attempts to point out how our understanding of for-profit corporate boards may provide insight into boards of trustees and suggest questions to investigate.