Oxford Education Research Symposium

Dr. F. King Alexander is an academic scholar and a national leader in higher education funding and public policy. He has been a frequently invited expert witness in US Senate and US House of Representatives Congressional hearings and has contributed to many mainstream news sources such as The Financial Times, The Economist, The Hechinger Report, The Washington Post, Insider Higher Education, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Politico, and Policy Matters. He has co-authored numerous books including Maximizing Revenues in Higher Education and Financing Public Schools: Theory, Policy and Practice. He is a member of the Royal Society of Arts and a notable alumnus of St. Peter’s College, University of Oxford. He has also served as a public university president and chancellor at four large public universities in four different U.S. states for over two decades. 

Dr. Stephen (Steve) Gregory Katsinas is Director of the Education Policy Center (EPC) at The University of Alabama, where he also serves as a Professor of Higher Education and Political Science. The Center is UA’s oldest center or institute.

Dr. Katsinas earned his bachelor’s in History from the University of Illinois, and his Master’s in History and doctorate in Higher Education from Southern Illinois University. He worked for U.S. House Postsecondary Education Subcommittee Chairman Paul Simon, and wrote the background report for the first hearings on Hispanic Access to Higher Education. From 1985 to 1987, Katsinas directed UA’s Institute of Higher Education.

At the University of Alabama, he heads the Education Policy Center, which has produced 32 issue briefs and reports on access, finance, and governance issues. He has also authored or coauthored 7 books and monographs, and 28 articles since 2005 on access, finance, and governance issues.

Nathaniel J. Bray is a Professor of Higher Education Administration and Associate Director of the Education Policy Center at The University of Alabama. He joined UA as an Assistant Professor in 2004, was promoted to Associate Professor in 2010, and to Professor in 2018. Prior to joining the faculty at UA, he was a Research Analyst conducting Institutional Research at Virginia Tech. Dr. Bray earned his Masters (MEd) and doctorate (PhD) at Vanderbilt University at the Peabody College of Education, working with such mentors as John Braxton, Terry Deal, Jeff Milem, Kassie Freeman, Berta Vigil Laden, and Alma Clayton Pedersen. His undergraduate degree was in Biology at Harvard University, where he graduated cum laude in General Studies. He has taught multiple courses in the Higher Education Administration program as well as in Educational Research, focusing on quantitative methods and research design.

Published in 2022 by Harvard Education Press, Educating the Top 100 Percent is co-authored by Stephen Gregory Katsina, Nathaniel J. Bray, and Martha J. Kanter. Educating the Top 100 Percent assesses the decline of higher education funding and offers ambitious policy recommendations to restore accessible, affordable education for all. The authors probe the complex interplay of federal, state, and local policies and illustrate how government actions have, over time, contributed to the long-term slide of US education attainment. The book demonstrates how stable, sustainable funding policies can scaffold a better public higher education system for all.

Dr. Walter McMahon is an economist engaged in research, writing, and guest lecturing on education and development, education financing, and macroeconomic analysis. His primary fields are the Economics of Education and Macro Economic Theory (unemployment, inflation, and growth).

He is the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Education Finance Association. His recent books are The External Social Benefits of Higher Education (Forthcoming 2022), Higher Learning, Greater Good: The Private and Social Benefits of Higher Education, Johns Hopkins University Press (2017), winner of the PROSE Award for the best book published in Education, Education and Development: Measuring the Social Benefits by Oxford University Press (2002), Education and Development, an edited 4 volume reference work by Routledge (2012), and Improving Education Finance in Indonesia, UNICEF & Government of Indonesia (2002).

His most recent book, Higher Learning, Greater Good: The Private and Social Benefits of Higher Education, published in 2017 by Johns Hopkins University Press, examines the chronic underinvestment in higher education and its serious ramifications for both individuals and society. A college education has long been acknowledged as essential for both personal success and economic growth. But the measurable value of its nonmonetary benefits has until now been poorly understood. In Higher Learning, Greater Good, leading education economist Walter W. McMahon carefully describes these benefits and suggests that higher education accrues significant social and private benefits.

Professor Richard Pring is an Honorary Research Fellow in the Department of Education, Green Templeton College, University of Oxford. Since retiring as Director of that department in 2003, he has led the Nuffield Review of 14-19 Education and Training in the UK and several subsequent large-scale research projects. He has continued to publish extensively on philosophy of education, educational research, faith-based schools, and vocational education and training. 

Professor Ken Mayhew is Emeritus Professor of Education and Economic Performance and Emeritus Fellow of Pembroke College, University of Oxford. He was formerly Economic Director at the UK National Economic Development Office and has worked as a consultant for a number of private and public sector organisations at home and abroad. In the UK these include the Department of Education and Skills, the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Confederation of British Industry. Abroad they include the EU, the Polish and Belgian Governments, SIK (Sweden), and Group Training Australia. He was on the Academic Advisory Board of the National Skills Taskforce. He was the founding Director of SKOPE, a multi-disciplinary centre on Skills, Knowledge and Organisational Performance. His current research is mainly in four areas: labour market segmentation, the ageing workforce, the economics of higher education, and low paid work in the UK and Europe.