Chairs

Michael Shires

Vice Chair of Education Opportunity

… because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future will always be ours.

- President Ronald Regan

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Dr. Michael Shires is a higher education leader and innovator who serves as Vice Chair of America First Policy Institute’s Center for Education Opportunity. Mike is a leading expert on all aspects of higher education governance, finance and leadership. He is particularly qualified to address issues around preserving free speech, ending discrimination, expediting workforce preparation and reforming governance and finance in our nation’s universities ands colleges, having most recently guided the launch of America’s newest free speech-focused university as the Chief of Staff at the University of Austin (UATX).

Prior to joining UATX, Dr. Shires served for 23 years as an administrator and a professor at the Pepperdine School of Public Policy, and before that, as a Fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California and the RAND Corporation. He has also served on the national boards of several public policy professional associations bringing the academic and practitioner worlds together to create better outcomes for Americans. His scholarly work in recent years has focused on preserving economic opportunity and social mobility for lower- and middle-income Americans and redefining the role that universities can play in that process. He has served as a frequent television and media contributor on a full range of political and economic issues. He received his M. Phil. and Ph.D. in public policy analysis from the RAND Graduate School of Policy Studies and his M.B.A. and B.A. in Economics from UCLA. In his free time, he and his wife, Ann, enjoy hiking and traveling to discover new places and ideas, and visiting their two sons, Zane and Marshall.

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