This is an opportune time for researchers in higher education to examine policy via cross-state comparative analyses. Momentous court, legislative and policy developments that impact state-level higher education policy are emerging at a rapid rate. The states have emerged as postsecondary policy innovators in the areas of student financing, institutional accountability, and student access.

Following political scientists' -rediscovery- of states as units of analysis--because they constitute unique -natural laboratories- for testing theory and hypotheses about political behavior and...