A More Honest Higher Education System?
Usually something costs more because it’s more valuable. But in higher education, the cost appears to belie the outcome. The cost of college rises every year, forcing millions of Americans to take on a tremendous amount of debt. “In 2017, Americans owed more than $1.3 trillion in student loan.” Yet, at the same time, the value of a traditional college degree has declined: “74% of surveyed young people felt their schools fail to fully prepare them for the professional world. Work force execs say students struggle with critical thinking, communication and other interpersonal skills.”
Last Friday, Prof. David Demarest shared with us these stunning statistics that reflect challenges the American higher education system is faced with. As Stanford’s Vice President for Public Affairs, Prof. Demarest has done extensive research on reputation management of higher ed. Of the eight narratives he showed to the class how the outside world sees the system, I want to highlight a few:
-Students are leaving, when they graduate at all, with loads of debt but without evidence that they grew much in either knowledge or critical thinking.
-Administrative costs, splurging on “resort” amenities, and an obsession with expensive capital projects have run up the cost to students without enhancing the value of the education they receive.
-Too many professors are spending too much time “writing papers for each other”, researching abstruse topics of no real utility and no real incremental contribution to human knowledge or understanding.
-Athletics, particularly in NCAA Division I, is out of control both financially, and as a priority of university attention.
The reason why I highlighted these narratives is that they remind me of an interesting read I recently came across. In his book “College Disrupted: The Great Unbundling of Higher Education”, Ryan Craig points out the problem with college rankings: rankings are now only one of the four Rs:
-Rankings
-Research
-Real Estate
-Rah! (sports)
According to Craig, these four Rs are dominating the higher education landscape. They are easy to measure and communicate to alumni and other development constituencies and a university’s reputation relies heavily on them. The most elite schools thrive in these metrics. Because these are designed to measure what elite colleges do well: lavish money and resources on really bright and motivated students. But non-elite campuses are also seeking to climb the rankings ladder. So, the result of this reputation race is isomorphism, the phenomenon by which American universities have acquired similar characteristics. It has put in place a uniform model of program delivery through which most American colleges and universities aim to become “the Harvard of the _________” (fill in the blank for the region). They attempt to offer the same range of programs and provide the same services as an institution with an endowment of nearly $30 billion.
“Are these narratives just perception issues or are they actually grounded in some reality?” Prof. Demarest asked.
In my opinion, others usually perceive you as how you define yourself. So, these perceptions aren’t groundless. They came exactly from how universities are trying to label themselves. Universities are all focused on delivering the same type of inputs rather than outcome. This Harvard-envy is a pernicious practice. It ill-serves the cause of the vast majority of students and is disconnected from student outcomes.
Further, isomorphism in American higher education is at war with the diversity that makes it wondrous: private and public; traditional age and mature students; elite and open. Different institutions do different things to benefit different types of students. The four Rs don’t work so well for the other 5,950 non-elite colleges and universities.
So, what can be done to counteract such narratives? In his book, Craig boldly predicts that we are heading for a two-tier system of higher education: the bundled elite and unbundled for everyone else. The elite legacy campuses will persist, but many of the non-elite campuses will be forced to become hybrid universities focused strongly on student learning and outcomes. These hybrid universities will be built around competency-based learning, and will focus on delivering job-relevant capabilities, leading to enhanced student outcomes and satisfaction.
Will this two-tier system be the future of the American higher ed? No one knows for sure. But at least it will be a more honest system than the one we have today and should be encouraged. After all, honesty is in the first chapter in the book of wisdom.
