NCHEMS began in 1969 as the Management Information Systems program at the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE). In 1977, NCHEMS parted with WICHE and became its own independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to improve strategic decision making in post-secondary education for states, systems, institutions, and workforce development organizations in the United States and abroad.
NCHEMS’s rich history has provided over 50 years of contextual knowledge and expertise that we draw upon as we work to innovate and evolve the field of higher education.
As early as 1965, several higher education institutions and state agencies in the Western U.S. identified the need for a consolidated effort to research and develop higher education management information systems. Members of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE) discovered costly duplications of effort in developing and implementing management information systems. This led several state coordinating agencies in the WICHE region to begin discussing a more efficient exchange of higher education data.
By 1968, a proposal was submitted to and accepted by the U.S. Office of Education (OE) for a WICHE Management Information Systems (MIS) program. The initial goals of the MIS program were to:
While the MIS program was initially limited to institutions in the West, work with the National Center for Educational Statistics attracted attention nationally. As a result, institutions across the country began requesting to participate in the MIS program. It became clear that there was an immediate need for a research and development center with a national scope.
In 1969, the MIS Steering Committee appointed a National Advisory Panel that recommended MIS technical reports be distributed nationally and that all interested institutions be allowed to participate in the MIS program. The Office of Education granted funding for a second year and WICHE Commissioners approved a proposal to establish a Planning and Management Systems program.
NCHEMS Staff Member Wayne Kirschling
MIS at WICHE
Participation in the Planning and Management Systems program increased steadily and by the end of 1970, 650 institutions and agencies were involved in the work associated with this program. In February 1971, the OE Site Visit Committee recommended that OE fund the program as one of its centers rather than on a project grant basis. At this time, the Planning and Management Systems program became the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) at WICHE. By 1973, there was substantial use of NCHEMS products (i.e., publications, data collection and analysis systems, and computer software and documents) on campuses and by state agencies throughout the country.
In 1977, NCHEMS parted with WICHE and became its own independent 501(c)(3) non-profit organization with a mission to improve strategic decision making in post-secondary education for states, systems, institutions, and workforce development organizations in the United States and abroad.
By the 1980’s, the emphasis of NCHEMS’ work shifted from data to information, from procedures for collecting data to analytic procedures for converting data into information for users at different levels and in different decision contexts.
Particular attention was given to state and national informational needs. NCHEMS initiated a major project dealing with enrollment analysis at the state level. Also, the Organizational Studies Program was created to address the effectiveness of colleges and universities as organizations.
NCHEMS received a major grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to demonstrate that the collection and use of outcomes information could be used to improve planning in colleges and universities. As a result of this project, NCHEMS came to hold a central place as a source of applied research and practical guidelines regarding the assessment of student outcomes and the use of the resulting information for management purposes.
NCHEMS Staff Members Paul Brinkman and Shelly Niwa
Work at NCHEMS in the 1990s saw an increased focus on statewide issues, specifically with a recognition that institutional improvement was not possible if the state policy environment was not supportive.
Work on assessment also continued but with a new focus on accreditation and the use of concrete evidence and quantitative information.
During the 1992 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act of 1965 (HEA), Congress authorized the Secretary of Education to designate a State Postsecondary Review Entity (SPRE) in each state. SPREs were intended to set standards for conducting reviews of postsecondary institutions according to criteria specified in the HEA. NCHEMS, in collaboration with a consortium of states, developed a draft of the standards for the review process (the provision for SPREs was later repealed by Congress in 1995).
NCHEMS served on the planning and implementation team for the Western Governors Association (WGA) to assist with the creation of the Western Virtual University along with former NCHEMS president Sally Johnstone. The institution would eventually become Western Governors University (WGU). Among the many responsibilities NCHEMS undertook to design this groundbreaking institution, its involvement in the refinement of the university’s mission and scope, the review of its governance and structure, and the creation of the competency-based degree programs and their assessment methodologies were among the most consequential.
NCHEMS also continued its efforts to help states develop structures and policy to meet evolving needs for postsecondary education. Particularly noteworthy efforts in several states, including Kentucky, Louisiana, and West Virginia, led to the formation of new community and technical college systems. And the organization began developing links with and engagement in international higher education reform through the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the Center for Higher Education Policy (CHEPS) in the Netherlands.
NCHEMS Resources
The field of higher education in the 2000s saw greater emphasis placed on public agendas: setting goals, aligning policies to increase states’ education attainment, and working on state finance policy. NCHEMS worked to provide the data, information, and analytic tools to states to help shape their goals and develop metrics for monitoring progress.
NCHEMS also served as a partner on two major national initiatives during this time period:
NCHEMS was the data engine behind Measuring Up, the national report card on higher education performance produced by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, and the Campaign for College Opportunity in California. NCHEMS was also the senior consultant for the National Forum on College-Level Learning, a five-state project to develop a model of college-level learning for the states, created from work by the Measuring Up initiative.
The Changing Direction initiative, led by WICHE and funded by Lumina Foundation, sought to explore how to structure financial aid and finance policies to increase participation and success for all students and promote more informed decision-making on issues of financial aid and finance in higher education. As a partner in the Changing Direction project, NCHEMS authored reports, served as a thought partner, and provided technical assistance to states participating in the project.
Throughout the decade, work in areas of assessment and accreditation continued, with an emphasis on “closing the loop” or using assessment and effectiveness information to make evidence-based improvements.
In 2005, the State Higher Education Policy Center, LLC (SHEPC) was created by NCHEMS, SHEEO, and WICHE. Funded by a low-interest loan from the Ford Foundation, the founders of SHEPC purchased and occupied a building in Boulder, Colorado.
The shared facility brought together three of the premier state policy-focused higher education organizations in the nation and allows for more informal cross-fertilization of thinking, as well as quicker dissemination of information and new ideas across the organizations and among the policymakers they serve; greater synergy in activities, both in the selection of projects and in the concepts utilized within projects; improved capacity for effective collaboration, yielding more formal collaborations among the staff and members of the three organizations; and richer educational experiences (and more opportunities) to involve interns and graduate students.
The State Higher Education Policy Center (SHEPC)
NCHEMS’ work was focused heavily on advising states, systems, and institutions on how to adapt to changing demographics and economic realities after coming out of the Great Recession (roughly 2007-09).
The emergence of distributed education, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), and a wide variety of other innovations in the postsecondary education marketplace had a major impact. And work in the areas of academic credentialing (the conversion of learning to credits and degrees) and workforce/workplace credentialing (providing assessments that result in employer/industry-recognized certifications gained momentum.
In 2011, NCHEMS created the original statistical model for the Aspen Prize for Community College Excellence – a biannual $1 million award honoring institutions’ achievement in teaching and learning, completion, workforce success, and equity for students of color and low-income students established by the Aspen Institute College Excellence Program. NCHEMS continues to provide data support for the award competition.
Beginning in 2016, NCHEMS served as the operational host for the Foundation for Student Success, an organization funded by the sale of the nonprofit Predictive Analytics and Reporting Framework that was created initially at WICHE. FSS worked to support postsecondary institutions to achieve greater student success and reduce equity gaps through comprehensive campus culture-change strategies.
In 2018, NCHEMS was again asked to help design a new institution to meet the needs of Californians working in jobs that were projected to be replaced by automation within 10 years. NCHEMS worked with the California Community Colleges Office of the Chancellor to explore who the potential students would be, their unique needs, and which fields offered living wage jobs that could be included in programs. This became Calbright College.
As the latter half of the decade arrived, some states and institutions started feeling the combined effects of demographic shifts in the population of traditional-aged students and weakening financial positions, pressures that led to difficult questions about sustainability and relevancy. NCHEMS increasingly became involved in trying to help states and systems address these challenges in ways that preserved the role of higher education in changing lives, supporting economic health and social mobility, and contributing to state goals.
As states, higher education institutions, and their quality assurance agencies continue to be challenged by changing demographics, uncertain finances, a fraught political environment, new student interest and new forms of learning, and even major disruptions like the COVID-19 pandemic, NCHEMS is called on to use information to guide strategic planning, new finance models, accrediting choices, plus academic and workforce needs. NCHEMS is also helping institutions examine their options using quantitative and qualitative data to assure greater student success and the elimination of gaps in opportunity and success for all students.
NCHEMS continued to receive philanthropic grants in the 2020s. NCHEMS served as the implementation partner on Data for the American Dream (D4AD) project, supported with funding from Schmidt Futures, the Walton Family Foundation, the Walmart Foundation, and Lumina Foundation. D4AD brought together three states selected to work as a cohort to use workforce and development outcomes data to provide actionable information for students.
In 2023, NCHEMS received a grant from the National Science Foundation for FSS to produce tools drawn on lessons that emerged from its research, specifically to reduce gaps in graduation rates among Hispanic students in STEM programs, specifically self-assessments for institutional leaders to identify areas of focus for campus cultural transformation.
From 2022 on NCHEMS has undergone several staff and leadership changes, along with welcoming new board members. In 2022, Brian Prescott was appointed President of NCHEMS, and in 2023, Sarah Pingel was hired as Vice President. Under a new president and vice president, NCHEMS has grown its project portfolio and strengthened its position in the field, especially related to state funding approaches, governance and organization of public higher education structures and challenges facing rural students, communities, and institutions.
The evolving demographic, financial, and competitive climate strains higher education in challenging and unfamiliar ways, and NCHEMS remains a go-to source for states, systems, coordinating bodies, and institutions to seek counsel and practical solutions. NCHEMS’ projects during the past decade have increasingly addressed topics such as strategic plans; structures, governance, and organization of postsecondary education; innovation; and funding, in particular, NCHEMS’ involvement in projects has helped shape new structures in Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Vermont, and several other states in ways that are designed to position public systems and institutions to evolve in ways that continue to meet state, regional, and student needs.
With respect to higher education finance, NCHEMS produced a framework for Institutional Funding Adequacy as a resource for institutional and state policy leaders. This framework aims to guide state allocation decisions to support informed discussions about higher education funding policies designed to ensure institutions are able to serve their missions effectively, taking into account the different types of students they enroll and the programs they offer. Institutions need foundational support; the framework considers institutional costs needed for asset maintenance, program delivery, and innovation, offering policymakers tools to balance state funding with student payments, and was applied in Missouri and Virginia to align funding with strategic educational goals.
Starting in 2023, NCHEMS received a multiyear grant from the Ascendium Education Group for their work Serving Rural America through Land-Grant Colleges & Universities: Unlocking the Workforce Development Potential of Extension Services. In this project, NCHEMS will develop and pilot a reimagined, contemporary vision to increase impact for the Cooperative Extension Systems. The goal of this work will be to balance state priorities with local workforce needs and rural students’ aspirations through updating the framework for LGU Extension programs.
NCHEMS continues to be a trusted, reliable partner, providing conceptual-based knowledge and insight through consulting and technical assistance efforts so that states, systems, and institutions have the data and information needed to make informed decisions within a rapidly changing landscape, while remaining true to our mission and purpose: To Create Opportunities for All People to Prosper.
NCHEMS staff from February 2024 Board Meeting.
