Joshua Brown is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education, Johns Hopkins University
His research is positioned at the intersection of public policy and organizational theory and examines how economic policies have incentivized colleges and universities with limited resources to pursue margins in new markets at the expense of their educational missions. The direct social impact of his work ranges from the development of new measures to assess student mental health to disentangling the complexity of government accountability policies to raising awareness of racial inequalities across learning platforms.
His work has been supported by competitive grants from the National Science Foundation, British Academy, Buckner W. Clay Endowment, and ACUHO-I Foundation. Joshua’s research has been published in a variety of academic outlets including American Journal of Education, Journal of American College Health, and Journal of College Student Development and covered by diverse media outlets that include USA Today, National Public Radio, Times Higher Education, and The Chronicle of Higher Education.
He is presently working on a book project entitled Capitalizing on College. Rooted in the accounts of over 150 university leaders, it tells the story of how neoliberal policies incentivize institutions to financially sustain themselves by pursuing new growth strategies that view “students as resources.” From the perspectives of the leaders themselves, the book chronicles the challenges they face in protecting missions of access and affordability in the highly competitive market environment of higher education.