[Excerpt] An extraordinary amount of research has already been directed towards understanding the behavior of selective private institutions; Clotfelter (1996) and Ehrenberg (2000a) are but two recent examples of this research. In spite of the fact that the vast majority of American students attend public institutions, much less is known about their behavior and how the states that support them interact with them and with the private institutions within the states’ boundaries. I turn next to a summary of some of the things that we do know and a set of issues that still needs attention from researchers. In the section that follows, I discuss some research issues that are raised by the growing proprietary, or for-profit, accredited higher education sector, the growth of distance learning, and the pressures on institutions to diversify their revenue streams.