Jensen is a native of Homewood, IL; he earned his Ph.D. and master’s degrees in economics from the University of Michigan and and his undergraduate degree in economics from the University of Miami. He most recently served as provost of Hamline University in Saint Paul, MN.
Earlier in his career, Jensen was a faculty member at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va. Jensen also served as a Visiting Scholar in Economics at the University of Indonesia and worked for four years with the College Board to develop and implement its Financial Aid Strategy Tool (FAST), which enabled participating institutions to individually tailor financial aid offers to admitted students.