Biography
With over thirty years of experience, Dr. Finney served on executive teams for the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education and the California Higher Education Policy Center. She was a senior policy director at the Education Commission of the states. In these roles, Finney worked with state and national elected officials and appointed education leaders to improve higher education through policies in governance, finance, and student success and equity. Over the last twelve years, she was a full-time faculty member at the University of Pennsylvania.
At the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, Dr. Finney led the development of the first state-by-state report card, Measuring Up (2000-2008) on higher education performance. She launched, with Patrick Callan, the National Center’s Associates Program; a model program that encouraged networking and substantive policy work for mid-level professionals from state governments, national associations, and foundations across the nation. She has served on many not-for-profit boards and she was a founding board member for the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the nation’s premier data warehouse on the college enrollment, retention, and graduation of students enrolled in U.S. colleges and universities. Finney was on the executive committee for Change: The Magazine for higher learning over the past twelve years. Finney has co-authored four books and numerous reports related to higher education.
For the past twelve years, Finney was a Professor of Practice for the Higher Education Division of the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She was also the director of the Institute for Research on Higher Education (IRHE) at Penn. She was appointed as a faculty affiliate with the Wharton Public Policy Initiative and with the Education Policy Division at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education. She taught graduate courses in public policy and the public finance of higher education. Finney chaired over twenty doctoral dissertations and was a committee member on many dissertation committees. Five of her doctoral students received recognition for dissertations with distinction.
Finney also served as a consultant or advisor to national and regional policy organizations including the National Conference of State Legislatures, the State Higher Education Executive Officers, the Western Commission for Higher Education, the Southern Regional Education Board, Ithaka, and HCM Strategists. Her current work includes a collaboration with states to develop policies to improve the finance of American higher education and improve the equality of opportunity for students.
Finney has testified before the United States Congress and state legislatures on higher education policy. She has advised gubernatorial campaigns and served as an independent fact-checker on Presidential campaigns.
