Royel M. Johnson, associate professor of higher education at the University of Southern California Rossier School of Education, has been appointed editor of The Review of Higher Education, the flagship journal of the Association for the Study of Higher Education. Dr. Johnson will begin his five-year term in November 2026.
“The Review of Higher Education has been a space where rigorous scholarship meets real questions about who has access to higher education and why,” said Dr. Johnson. “I look forward to stewarding that legacy while pushing the field to grapple with the systems that form a student’s academic trajectory leading up to a college campus.”
As a scholar, Dr. Johnson examines access, equity, and belonging in higher education. In addition to more than 60 scholarly articles, Dr. Johnson has published several books, including The Big Lie About Race in America’s Schools (Harvard Education Press, 2024) and From Foster Care to College: Navigating Educational Challenges and Creating Possibilities (Teachers College Press, 2024).
At the University of Southern California, Dr. Johnson holds a joint appointment with the Dworak-Peck School of Social Work and an affiliation with the Pullias Center for Higher Education. He also co-directs the Research Institute for Scholars of Equity. Previously, Dr. Johnson served as the Ph.D. program chair for the Rossier School and as director of student engagement with the USC Race and Equity Center. Before joining the USC faculty in 2021, he taught at Pennsylvania State University for four years.
Dr. Johnson received his bachelor’s degree in political science with a cognate in African American studies and a master’s degree in education policy, organization, and leadership with a specialization in social and cultural studies from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. He earned his Ph.D. in higher education and student affairs with a cognate in race and social policy from Ohio State University.
