The Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) is a unit of the Higher Education Programs located within the Office of Postsecondary Education, U.S. Department of Education. FIPSE's mandate is to "improve postsecondary educational opportunities" across a broad range of concerns. Although a small program, FIPSE has established a record of promoting meaningful and lasting solutions to various, often newly emerging, problems and of promoting the highest quality education for all learners. Through its primary vehicle, the Comprehensive Program grant competition, FIPSE seeks to support the implementation of innovative educational reform ideas, to evaluate how well they work, and to share the lessons learned with the larger education community.

FIPSE defines postsecondary education broadly. Its applicants include a wide variety of nonprofit agencies and institutions offering education after high school, such as colleges and universities (public and private, two or four year, undergraduate and graduate), technical and business schools, testing agencies, professional associations, employers and unions, state and local education agencies, student organizations, cultural institutions, and community groups. FIPSE supports new as well as established organizations, but it cannot award grants to unaffiliated individuals.

Background and Structure

FIPSE was established by the Higher Education Amendments of 1972 as a response to the concerns of several major commissions and studies. Current FIPSE programs focus on problems that are still unsolved, as well as on new agendas. The Director and staff are selected for their professional involvement in postsecondary education and their understanding of improvement processes.

Principles and Approaches to Grant Making

FIPSE has mainly worked through modest "seed" grants serving as incentives for improvement. FIPSE grant competitions share certain characteristics:

• They focus on widely felt issues and problems in postsecondary education, rather than on special interest groups or prescribed solutions.
• FIPSE programs are responsive to local initiatives, leaving to the applicants the tasks of identifying specific local problems and proposing solutions. Responses to local problems, however, should have the potential for wider influence.
• FIPSE programs are comprehensive with respect to the variety of problems addressed and the range of institutions and learners served.
• FIPSE projects are action-oriented, usually involving direct implementation of new ideas or approaches rather than basic research.
• FIPSE is risk-taking in its willingness to support new and unproven ideas as well as proven ones.

Priority Setting

The most unusual feature of FIPSE, compared to other education programs, is its broad mandate, allowing a unique capacity to respond to needs and problems as they arise. FIPSE views postsecondary education as a system involving related concerns, and within that system FIPSE's mission of improvement requires strategic choices to establish and pursue priorities. The whole portfolio of FIPSE projects thus represents an agenda for improvement that could not be derived from more categorical approaches. FIPSE becomes aware of postsecondary problems through wide consultation, beginning with its Board of Advisors and including many groups in the field. The Comprehensive Program establishes priority concerns through published guidelines and through the responses of large numbers of applicants. From time to time FIPSE also sponsors targeted competitions to focus resources on a more particular problem.

The appropriateness of this process of setting priorities but not prescribing solutions can be seen in the high rate of projects that continue after FIPSE support ends (about 70 percent of all projects). FIPSE projects generally address problems as they are experienced in local settings.

Other Leadership Roles

FIPSE is proud of its distinctive procedures for selecting and monitoring grantees. Project monitoring is done on a collegial basis, with FIPSE staff providing technical assistance. Program staff are recognized experts on a wide variety of issues in postsecondary education. An annual Project Directors' Meeting encourages networking among grantees.

Evaluation and dissemination of FIPSE-supported projects have become major priorities, with the purposes of finding out what works, sharing valuable information, and encouraging the adaptation of proven programs. FIPSE has sponsored national conferences on assessment, writing improvement, liberal education, and college-school collaboration.

Policy-makers increasingly look to FIPSE as an appropriate agency to take on new or expanded responsibilities. FIPSE's projects, staff, and National Board represent a considerable resource of useable knowledge for educational improvement.

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