• The board consists of 11 members who serve staggered four-year terms.

• The governor appoints seven members and the top four legislative leaders appoints one each.

• Both houses confirm.

• Is the central policy-making authority of public higher education. Selects and hires the commissioner of higher education. Prepares a consolidated operating and capital budget for all constituent units of higher education. Develops a higher education master plan. Sets tuition and student fee and financial aid policies. Merges and closes institutions. Approves recommendations by constituent units to establish new academic programs. Maintains central higher education information system.

1. What are the greatest challenges facing higher education in Connecticut? How can the Board of Governors address them?

2. The board’s job is to establish statewide policy and guidelines for Connecticut’s system of higher education. How has the constituent units’ increasing autonomy, particularly in budgetary matters, affected this role? Are the responsibilities and roles of the board and the constituent units well balanced?

3. Are Connecticut secondary schools doing an adequate job of preparing students for higher education? Do colleges have to spend too much time and money on remediation?

4. To what extent should colleges prepare students for the workplace? And to what extent should employers shape education policy and programming? What is the role of higher education in the 21^st century?

5. How will distance learning technologies affect higher education?

6. Several states have established statewide higher education accountability systems intended to help them make funding decisions based on each institution’s performance. What do you see as the advantages and disadvantages of such systems?

7. Why do higher education costs continue to outstrip the consumer price index? What factors contribute to this? Can these factors be controlled? At what point will public higher education in Connecticut become to costly?

8. How do rising costs affect the ability of low-income students to attend college? Is sufficient need-based financial aid available to make higher education accessible to them?

9. What are your views on laws in Texas and elsewhere that guarantee admission to state universities to any student who graduates in the top 10% of his or her high school class?

10. Students are taking longer and longer to graduate both two- and four-year colleges. This increase the cost of education to students, parents, and the state. How can this trend be reversed?

11. Many people note that Connecticut experiences a “brain drain” when its high school students leave to attend college elsewhere. How well do Connecticut schools do in attracting students from other states? Are the students who come here as academically talented as those who leave?

12. An increasing percentage of Connecticut population is foreign-born. How are Connecticut’s colleges responding to this trend?