Next week Tuesday, I’ll be reviewing Jeffrey Selingo’s College (Un)Bound for the Rundel Public Library’s “Books Sandwiched In” program. Written by the Editor at Large for the Chronicle of Higher Education, the book has been a higher education "must-read" since its publication earlier in the year. It’s easy to see why.
Selingo captures most of the current hot topics and trends in higher education in a series of engaging stories. There are graduates overwhelmed with debt; students enrolled in MOOCs; adult learners maximizing credit for prior learning; students who complete their two, four and graduate degrees without ever leaving their community college campus; and more. While I don’t agree with all of his arguments or his conclusions, Selingo has produced a book that recounts the many changes, some big and some small, that seem to be hitting higher education all at once, and he concludes that this volume of disruption (to use the term of the moment) may lead to the end of college as we know it.
Central to the book are what Selingo, in a bit of understatement, calls “five disruptive forces that will change higher education forever.” Without addressing the merit of his list, let me summarize the five:
1. “A Sea of Red Ink” Selingo reports that a third of all colleges and universities are on an unsustainable financial path and another 25% are at great risk of joining them. So, over half are at some risk of failure. Private colleges’ practice of tuition discounting has begun to work against them, and research universities are seeing fewer dollars flowing from DC to support their costly infrastructure. His argument is that the financial model that once sustained higher education is simply no longer sustainable.
2. “The Disappearing State in Public Higher Education” In 2012, 29 states gave less to colleges than they had in 2007; despite signs of an economic recovery, funding to higher education is not being restored to pre-recession levels. Selingo finds that community colleges, which make up the largest type of college in the US, have been hit the hardest. He predicts that these patterns suggest that by 2022, states will begin “getting out of the business of supporting higher education.”
3. “The Well of Full-Paying Students is Running Dry” Selingo traces the increasing public college reliance on both international and out-of-state students to balance their budgets. The number of parents willing to pay full freight to send their children to any but the highest tier private colleges is dwindling quickly, and national demographic and economic trends make this pool smaller and smaller each year.
4. “The Unbundled Alternatives are Improving” Currently, only colleges are able to award recognized degrees, and these are the credentials privileged in the workplace. But, there is a movement to recognizing non-degree, non-credit, non-classroom bound credentials (like the badges championed by the MacArthur Foundation). Selingo believes that once such credentials achieve legitimacy, their low cost will draw significant numbers of students away from traditional higher education. Their appeal will be strongest with the next generation of students: digital natives who have grown up expecting individualized, personalized interfaces and are not willing to accept traditional higher education’s “one size fits all” model.
5. “The Growing Value Gap” In a recent Pew survey, about half of respondents reported that higher education is doing a poor or fair job of providing value for the money spent. Stories about recent graduates struggling with no job and high student debt abound, and there is almost uniform concern across students, parents, and the federal government about college affordability. Selingo believes the value gap to be the greatest challenge higher education faces.
What is your take on Selingo’s list? Do you think these are lasting issues that will change higher education or just the latest in “the sky is falling” rhetoric? I’d love to know your sense of what the future holds. Please share your thoughts on the blog.
Anne M. Kress
President's Office
09/18/2013 |