Dr. Denisa Gandara is an Assistant Professor of Higher Education. She earned her Ph.D. in Higher Education at the University of Georgia. Her research agenda broadly explores higher education policy formulation processes and impacts, especially on populations traditionally underserved in higher education. Her work appears in The Journal of Higher Education, Research in Higher Education, and Review of Higher Education, and she is a co-author of the book Outcomes Based Funding and Race in Higher Education: Can Equity be Bought? Dr. Gándara is the recipient of an AERA Research Grant and a dissertation fellowship from the Ford Foundation and the National Academies of Sciences. 

Recent Publications:

Gándara, D. (2019, Online First). How the Sausage is Made: An Examination of a State Funding Model Design Process. The Journal of Higher Education, 1-30.  https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00221546.2019.1618782

Gándara, D. (2019). Does Evidence Matter? An Analysis of Evidence Use in Performance-Funding Policy Design. The Review of Higher Education, 42(3), 991-1022. http://muse.jhu.edu/article/720768

Gándara, D. & Ness, E.C. (2019, Online First). Ideological Think Tanks and the Politics of College Affordability in the States. The Journal of Higher Education, 1-27. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00221546.2019.1574696

Gándara, D. & Hearn, J.C. (2019). College Completion, the Texas Way: An Examination of the Development of College Completion Policy in a Distinctive Political Culture. Teachers College Record, 121(2). https://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentId=22490

Li, A. Y., Gándara, D., & Assalone, A. (2018). Equity or Disparity: Do Performance Funding Policies Disadvantage 2-Year Minority-Serving Institutions? Community College Review, 46(3), 288–315. https://doi.org/10.1177/0091552118778776

Gándara, D., & Toutkoushian, R. K. (2017). Updated Estimates of the Average Financial Return on Master's Degree Programs in the United States. Journal of Education Finance, 43(1), 21-44.

Gándara, D., Rippner, J. A., & Ness, E. C. (2017). Exploring the ‘How’ in Policy Diffusion: National Intermediary Organizations’ Roles in Facilitating the Spread of Performance-Based Funding Policies in the States. The Journal of Higher Education, 88(5), 701-725. 

Jones, T., Jones, S., Elliott, K. C., Owens, L. R., Assalone, A. E., & Gándara, D. (2017). Outcomes Based Funding and Race in Higher Education: Can Equity be Bought? Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.amazon.com/Outcomes-Based-Funding-Higher-Education/dp/331949435X