"Twenty years ago we were among the first to focus on how markets and market forces were transforming U.S. higher education. Higher Education as Competitive Enterprise summarizes our formative work by exploring the determinants of price and competition across the market for undergraduate education. What makes some institutions medallions and others name brands, while still others serve a predominantly convenience/user-friendly clientele? The answer is presented as a market taxonomy explaining which campuses compete with one another, at what prices, and with what kinds of outcomes for their graduates." "Higher Education as Competitive Enterprise ultimately teaches that the successful college or university needs to be both market smart and mission centered. To meet today's challenges, institutional leaders and researchers must first understand the structure and then develop the analytic wherewithal for determining their institution's place in the market. This volume of New Directions for Institutional Research provides a set of rules and tools with which to jumpstart the process."--Jacket.