Dive Brief:

• The Gates Foundation has announced a streamlined approach to its advocacy work in higher education policy, Inside Higher Ed reports.
• The four focus areas, outlined in a foundation report, include data and information, finance and financial aid, college readiness, and innovation and scale.
• Key policy goals, highlighted by Inside Higher Ed, include the creation of “a national data infrastructure” to track student performance, reform of the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, improvement to college remediation outcomes, and support for alternative programs to access student aid dollars.

Dive Insight:

The Gates Foundation is arguably the most powerful private entity in the education reform movement. Inside Higher Ed reports it has spent “roughly half a billion dollars” on its higher education agenda over the last seven years and is looking to be even more assertive about its policy recommendations. Its data collection goals for tracking student outcomes are sure to be controversial, but they fall right in line with the clamor by state legislatures for better accountability measures for higher education institutions. More than half of all states have already incorporated performance-based measures into their funding formulas. If the data collection becomes more nuanced through Gates-funded initiatives, public colleges and universities stand to see the effects on their bottom lines.