Irvine Foundation Funds Think Tank on Universities : Education: Purpose of $6-million grant is to study access, price and quality in both public and private institutions. State budget crisis prompted project.

The formation of a new think tank on higher education in California was announced Tuesday, along with a $6-million grant from the James Irvine Foundation to fund the effort.

The California Higher Education Policy Center, to be headquartered in San Jose, will study issues of access, price and quality of education in both public and private colleges and universities, according to Patrick Callan, executive director.

“This kind of conversation about the future of higher education needs to take place at a much deeper level than it has in the past,” said Callan, a well-regarded education expert. He stressed that the center will be independent of campuses and have no affiliation with government.

The $6 million over five years from the James Irvine Foundation will fund research, polling and consultants, as well as salaries for a full-time staff of five, officials said.

The foundation decided to get involved because California’s ongoing budget crisis is quickly undermining many traditional assumptions about higher education, said Dennis A. Collins, foundation president.

“Our concern is some decisions about higher education in the state now, as in a number of other fields, like health, are necessarily ad hoc and necessarily driven by budget constraints and are not as thoughtfully or fully developed as policies should be,” Collins said.

Reports from the new organization will attempt to reflect public opinion more than the work of the California Postsecondary Education Commission, the state panel that advises the Legislature, Callan said. Callan was executive director of the commission from 1978-86 and later served as a vice president of the Education Commission of the States, a national group.

“The public has to be brought into it if we are going to get support for any changes,” Callan said. He declined to express opinions on such issues as whether the UC system should build a 10th campus or what an appropriate fee level might be for the Cal State system, saying he had “no preconceived notions of outcomes of that sort.”