This dissertation investigates the policy strategies of major foundations in higher education, with a focus on the college completion agenda. Recently, researchers have begun documenting the pronounced role of philanthropic foundations in higher education policymaking. Philanthropists have long exercised influence in higher education, working to promote an array of social and political agendas throughout the sector. However, journalistic accounts and recent empirical research suggest that philanthropists' approaches to higher education have shifted drastically in recent years. Contemporary foundations, such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation, have introduced a high-leverage, policy-focused strategy called "advocacy philanthropy." The newer foundations not only adopt an activist approach to higher education philanthropy but also stimulate grant recipients around college completion initiatives. Advocacy philanthropy is closely linked to the college completion agenda, a powerful reform movement that includes policymakers, private foundations, business interests, educational nonprofits, think tanks, consultants, and membership entities. These groups have coalesced around the goal of increasing degree productivity nationally. One aspect of advocacy-focused philanthropy is a reliance on intermediary organizations, which are translational entities that operate between funding agencies and the systems that they are attempting to influence.Despite the growing significance of philanthropic foundations in public policymaking, little is known regarding how this is operationalized. In fact, such processes are rarely examined in an empirical and robust manner, with many researchers simply taking the influence of philanthropy for granted or failing to notice philanthropists' active presence in the public policymaking process. This motivates the basic question of this dissertation: How do major philanthropic foundations interact with public colleges and universities, state and federal governments, and political and economic elites in raising awareness of completion and implementing their social agendas? This study utilizes a mixed-method research design, drawing on an original dataset of nearly 7,000 grants representing nearly $3 billion in higher education-filtered dollars. Moreover, 40 semi-structured interviews were conducted with high-powered officials from the philanthropic, public policy, and higher education sectors that contextualize the grant analysis.This study demonstrates that philanthropic foundations regularly work to shape and influence public policies and organizational practices in higher education. In particular, I find that philanthropic organizations mobilize policymakers, business representatives, and institutional leaders around college completion. In fact, over the course of a decade, the field of higher education philanthropy has shifted, with a decrease in traditional forms of philanthropic grantmaking and an increase in field-building efforts. Indeed, philanthropic dollars are elevating a network of intermediaries that now influence the field of higher education toward completion. My analysis reveals that philanthropic foundations are becoming not only more strategic in their grantmaking efforts but also influential coalition builders. More generally, this study extends postsecondary policy analysis from a state-centric approach to one that considers the role of nonstate actors in policy advocacy and educational reform.
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