State Law and Postsecondary Coordination: The Birth of the Ohio Board of Regents

Higher education legislation, particularly at the state level, greatly affects the governance of institutions in ways often unanticipated by legislators. Nearly all states have legislated a coordinating or governing board for higher education, to centralize the planning and financing of public institutions in the state. Ohio’s Board of Regents, established in 1963, is used as a legislative case study of such a coordinating agency, and its ten year history is explained by the agenda-building perspective. This model charts issue creation, conflict expansion, and formal agenda entrance, while powerfully explaining the state and federal forces that necessitated such an agency.