Academic advising administrators, academic advising professional organization leaders, and academic advising scholars have not had access to information about how academic advising is organized in their states. The purposes of this study were (a) to describe the organization of academic advising in Ohio's two-year public colleges; (b) to explore the influences budgets, institutional policies and the Ohio Articulation and Transfer (OA&T) Policy had on academic advising; and (c) to examine the levels of influence budgets, institutional policies, and OA&T Policy had on decisions about who should deliver academic advising and where academic advising should take place.
The researcher used an exploratory mixed-method design that included: (a) structured phone interviews conducted with five state-level leaders in Ohio and (b) mail questionnaires sent to academic advising administrators at Ohio's two-year public colleges. State-level leaders in Ohio reported that in general institutional budgets for academic advising would likely decrease and impact the effectiveness of academic advising. Institutional budgets remained stable over the last year, and grant budgets were rarely used. Academic advising administrators most frequently reported “no change” in institutional budgets and reported grant budgets were “not applicable” in their academic advising programs during the past year. Results indicated that institutional variables (institutional policies and institutional budgets) had more influence on academic advising than external variables (state policies and grant budgets) had on academic advising.