Higher education policy discussions are largely shaped by competing viewpoints regarding who benefits from higher education—society or the individual (Bowen et al., 1997). This tension around who higher education most benefits informs decision-making for policy makers who might ultimately decide who should pay for higher education—the individual or state and federal governments (Labaree, 1997). Most importantly, the aforementioned premise undergirds policy makers’ perceptions of higher education as a justifiable public investment, which shapes their beliefs regarding their role in determining the function of public universities as state institutions (Labaree, 2013).