How Bureaucracy is Holding Back Higher Education

Bureaucracy holds a negative connotation, and for a good reason. It’s known as a barrier to innovation, though it’s not expected to disappear any time soon. Students and faculty alike are pushing for change in higher education, seeking a more modern approach and a more streamlined experience for all parties. Bureaucracy touches every part of higher education, impacting the industry’s ability to move forward and create a desirable experience for learners. With increasing pressures on universities to compete for more students, institutions will have to push aside some level of bureaucracy in order to advance into the next phase of higher education.

Student experience

Beginning with admissions, the college experience is full of technicalities and best practices that have overgrown to the point of becoming a significant barrier to higher education. Even simple transactions such as transferring credits involve working with multiple representatives from at least two institutions. Many institutions hold unique transfer policies and this sometimes results in courses being rejected on a case-by-case basis. If students are not aware of the limitations of course transferability for each organization, the process can end in frustration and confusion.

As the economy and higher education demographics continue to evolve, adult learners increasingly seek flexible and customizable academic programs to suit their professional needs. While some institutions are working toward these goals, higher education is notoriously slow to progress. One method the higher education industry has worked with is competency-based education. This approach focuses on skills and direct career objectives in order to prepare learners for the workforce. While employing competency-based approaches helps modernize the objectives of a program, it leaves out important contextual skills that add to a student’s critical thinking ability. Programs that can be tailored to a professional’s immediate needs, as well as their future career path, are desirable, yet difficult to find.

Accreditation

Accreditation requirements are designed to ensure programs meet specific standards and provide students with an appropriate return on investment. They require high-quality instructors, specific course structure, and ambitious goals for students. Despite these efforts, many of the requirements are long expired. Lecture-based courses are becoming less relevant as learners become more laden with professional and familial obligations and seek more dynamic education options. Still, accreditors largely require an input-based assessment of each program that requires each learner to spend a specific amount of time in a classroom.

Universities that hold competency-based programs often integrate them with input-based education in order to appease accreditation organizations. Without updates to the accreditation standards, these institutions will be unable to accommodate the needs of the students.

Nonprofit vs. for-profit

Accrediting bodies and the Department of Education favor nonprofit institutions because they believe education is a noble enterprise and therefore universities should not make a profit. They’re right. Education is a noble enterprise and it should be accessible as a tool for intellectual freedom and opportunity development. But tuition is necessary for both for-profit and nonprofit schools in order to maintain operations. Additionally, many institutions, both public and private, hold significant endowments that are invested at least in part in bonds and other endeavors outside of the organizations’ educational pursuits.

Accreditation organizations must see colleges and universities for what they accomplish and where their priorities are rather than their business status. While nonprofit schools are considered more desirable by the Department of Education, for-profit schools also have the potential to add significant value to their students. If nonprofits and for-profit schools were measured by value-added to student lives and careers, rankings would look entirely different from what they look like now.

Costs

Tuition continues to rise with declining enrollments and reduced government investment, though schools have the power to mitigate some of these issues. Institutions can reduce the cost significantly by creating a sustainable business model that includes student-centered principles. With a student-centered model, learner outcomes become the central focus and, in many cases, operating costs are reduced. Holding a student-centered approach also allows for unique tuition payment plans such as interest-free payments. Although some look down on these stances, this business perspective allows students to be seen as the top priority.

Accreditation must be updated to reflect changes to student needs without sacrificing credibility and education quality. While that process has begun, it moves at a sluggish pace and higher education enrollments continue to decline. Provided that methods have been studied and deliver robust outcomes for students, accreditation standards should reflect learner differences and innovative instructional techniques.

Shared governance

In addition to the industry and regulators not keeping up with student needs, there are also internal conflicts that prevent institutions from moving forward. In traditional institutions, students, faculty, and the administration have equal power in deciding how a university function. They each compete for resources and have competing goals (though they occasionally overlap). While some view this structure as a democracy, the conflicts between these groups often act as stumbling blocks to advancement and innovation.

Many of the small private colleges that have closed in recent years have ultimately done so due to conflicts between the three governing bodies. While students struggle to pay high tuition rates, the administration fights to balance operating costs and profits. Meanwhile, professors push for higher salaries to match the high tuition rates. The universities function well when enrollments are high and tuition is high. The administration is happy at that point, but the faculty wants an increase in salary and students are strained by the crippling price.

Rather than having shared governance, colleges and universities would function better with participatory governance. This functionality allows for each concerned party to have input in how the organization is run, but ultimately a small group of leaders makes decisions. While equal rule is tempting, in some cases a single party must make a final decision that balances the needs of all three groups.

CalSouthern does not have shared governance, but that does not mean students and faculty do not participate in decision-making. It means that there is a method for making decisions that considers all parties but ultimately decides based on all factors including the needs of all groups and the business itself: participative governance.

Tying it all together

Bureaucracy has some advantages in providing a familiar method for viewing organizations. It’s an attempt at creating order in complex systems, adding measurable planning and accountability processes. However, layers of bureaucracy stand in the way of innovation by slowing down the process and systematically discouraging creative solutions. With so many layers in place, accreditation standards have inched forward with much resistance for decades.

The higher education industry assumes that nonprofit public (and sometimes private) schools are superior without examining the nuance within different institutional categories. It also leaves little room for analyzing universities outside their approved framework, pushing innovative organizations into the dark.

The good news

There are amazing, hard-working professionals working at all levels within universities. People in student affairs, admissions, the registrar’s office, and administration each want students to succeed and they work hard on a daily basis to ensure they contribute to institution and student growth. There are fantastic faculty who impart their knowledge and wisdom to the students they interact with and offer office hours to engage with students in different contexts to help them succeed.

There is also an increasing call for innovation in higher education. Due to reduced enrollments and economic changes, organizations are scrambling to innovate in order to stay afloat and increase student outcomes. Many are also working to increase student support services and to better support their staff and faculty. The next few years will determine the direction in which higher education will grow. The best place to start is to think of the student, and don’t be afraid to think big. Because big ideas are what higher education needs to adjust to our evolved market.