The Research On The Relationship Between The State Government And Public Universities In The USA

The research on the relationship between government and university has always been the core of the field of public governance in higher education.The United States,as the word's powerful country in higher education,it is obviously the focus for higher education in other countries to study and learn from.In the United States,the state government has direct governance powers to universities,and public universities' income mainly depend on the state government's financial support,so they are subjected more control from the state government,and they are more closely related to the state government than private universities,thus this paper takes the relationship between the state government and public universities as the main object of the study on the relationship between American governments and universities.The research on the relationship between the state government and public universities is not only beneficial to further enrich and develop the theory of "public governance in higher education" and "limited government",but also has a certain value for Chinese government to establish the modern university system according to the law of higher education and for the sublimation of Chinese universities form number to quality.In research methods,combined with the related knowledge of law,pedagogy,public administration and other disciplines,this paper comprehensively uses historical research,literature research,case analysis and jurisprudence research method and other research methods.The innovation of this paper lies in choosing a new research perspective and building a new research window.The new research perspective refers to exploring research problems in the field of higher education from the perspective of administrative science,and taking the boundary of powers exercised by the state government to public universities as the starting point,which is also the source of the contradiction between government control and university autonomy.The new research window refers to taking the relationship between the California government and the University of California as a typical case to analyses.This paper divides public governance powers in higher education of California government into three categories includes “creation power in higher education”,“supervision power in higher education” and “other governance powers in higher education”.This paper spends a lot of space on the in-depth research of California government with three types of public governance powers in higher education intervening in the personnel,financial,academic and administrative affairs of the University of California and the power boundary of the intervention.The research results show that the power limit of California government's involvement in internal affairs of the University of California based on the “creation power in higher education” includes the involvement in the personnel affairs of university's board of regents,revenue and expenditure managementof financial affairs and enrollment management of administrative affairs.The power limit of California government's involvement in internal affairs of the University of California based on the “supervision power in higher education” includes the involvement in university's general personnel affairs,budget management and revenue management of financial affairs,academic freedom,academic performance of academic affairs and enrollment management of administrative affairs.The power limit of California government's involvement in internal affairs of the University of California based on the“other governance powers in higher education” includes the involvement in university's general personnel affairs,revenue management of financial affairs,academic freedom of academic affairs and enrollment management,student management of administrative affairs.The main contribution of this paper is to draw the “power spectrum” of relationship between the California government and the University of California through the research of their power relation,then we can have a comprehensive and holistic thinking on the relationship between American State governments and public universities.Through the "power spectrum",this paper has the following conclusions: First,the California government intervenes in a wide range of internal affairs of the University of California based on the public governance powers in higher education.Second,the personnel affairs of board of regent of the University of California have a relatively adequate autonomy.Third,the biggest strength of intervention of internal affairs of the University of California is the California legislature.