He took a “sabbatical” in 1986, earning a Master’s in Public Administration with a concentration in finance at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government with the support of a Bush Foundation Leadership Fellowship.

Jim went on to become senior vice president of the Minnesota Private College Council, Fund, and Research Foundation. In this capacity, he developed a policy and management research operation that earned national recognition, culminating in the Lilly Endowment-funded study Ways and Means: How Minnesota Families Pay for College. Among many findings, this was the first study to document that the state’s publicly-subsidized flagship university enrolled a more affluent student body than its private colleges. This led Jim to found Hardwick~Day—in 1994—as a private company with a mission to help private colleges and universities gain strategic competitive advantage in the higher-education market place.

In between working with clients to craft and implement their financial aid policy regimes, Jim finds time to pen reports such as Values that Matter: A Comparative Advantage Catholic College and University Alumni Study (see link below). The National Catholic College Admission Association commissioned Hardwick~Day to conduct this study in 2006.

Jim has authored, by invitation, both chapters on the strategic management of aid published by Jossey-Bass in 1997 and 2007 as part of its peer-edited journal Key Issues in Enrollment: New Directions for Student Services. In his 2007 chapter, “The Future of Financial Aid Leveraging”, Jim identifies historical challenges facing colleges engaged in leveraging financial aid and presents four adaptive strategies that institutions may employ to sustain net tuition revenues.

» Values That Matter.