Jane Wellman

Senior Associate

"Any proposal to change the federal role in quality assurance should match a clearly defined problem with a workable solution. To pursue a general agenda with no particular purpose would only further diffuse already strained federal resources."

Jane Wellman is a Senior Associate with the Institute for Higher Education Policy, a non-profit research and policy group located in Washington, DC. She is a director of several of the Institute’s research and policy efforts, including The New Millennium Project, a national study of higher education renewal strategies; the “Seat-Time” study of uses and alternatives to the student credit hour unit of measurement; and a national study of trends in costs and prices. She collaborates with other national organizations on policy initiatives, including the American Council on Education, the Business-Higher Education Forum, The Association of Governing Boards, Campus Compact, the National Governors’ Association, the National Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance, and the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. Her recent work has centered on public accountability for higher education, at the federal, state, and institutional levels. She is the co-editor with Thomas Ehrlich of The Tie That Binds: How the Student Credit Hour Shapes Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 2003), and has authored a number of technical papers including Accounting for State Student Aid, (2003), Statewide Higher Education Accountability (NGA, 2003), State Policy and Community College-Baccalaureate Transfer (2002); The Double Whammy (2002); Assessing State Accountability Systems (2001); The State Tuition Puzzle (2000), and Contributing to the Social Good (1999).

In addition to research and writing, Wellman consults regularly with institutions, states and countries on different aspects of higher education policy. Clients include the Republic of Mozambique, the University of North Carolina, Indiana University, the California State Legislature, and the California State University. She is a consulting editor to the Association of Governing Board’s publication Trusteeship, a member of the editorial advisory committee to the American Council on Education’s The Presidency, and a Campus Compact Engaged Scholar.

Wellman has worked for over 20 years in higher education and government relations at the federal and state levels and with public and private institutions. Prior to joining the Institute in 1994 she was the Vice President for Government Relations with the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities, the Deputy Director of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, and the staff director of the Ways and Means Committee in the California State Legislature. She began her career in higher education finance and planning in the University of California, where she worked in the statewide budget office and on the Berkeley campus in the Center for Research in Management Sciences. She received bachelors and master's degrees from UC Berkeley.