Last Thursday, I had the chance to attend TIME’s Higher Education Summit. Attendees ranged from presidents of elite privates to large public research institutions and systems to prestigious liberal arts colleges. In addition, the room of about 100 held faculty, US Department of Education officials, philanthropists, CEOs, online innovators, reporters/editors, policy analysts, think tank fellows, former governors, and one retired Supreme Court Justice. In short, it was a fairly impressive crowd.
If you followed my twitter feed throughout the day, you got a good sense of the flow of the discussions. Kayla Webley of TIME has also summarized what were, from her perspective, the three big takeaways from the day’s wide ranging conversations. I’m going to add to Ms. Webley’s list by offering three more takeaways—which are admittedly influenced by my community college experience.
1) The gap between privates and publics is wide and getting wider:
Many of the panels included an overrepresentation of presidents and presidents emeriti of private colleges (e.g., NYU, Harvard, RPI, Georgetown, Tulane, Bard, etc.). They were quite eloquent on value and quality when asked about cost, arguing that they could cut costs but only at the expense of quality. This, they noted, was why—though their annual cost neared or exceeded $50,000 a year—they actually offered extraordinary return on this investment. In stark contrast, the public college heads described their charge as finding a way of delivering the same quality at half the cost or, similarly, producing twice as many graduates with the same budget. They faced ongoing budget cuts from states that, in the words of one former governor, “will no longer pay anything” [as in any amount] for higher education, especially when cost escalation has begun to resemble “an arms race.” Yet, these presidents and chancellors were equally concerned about maintaining and increasing quality, but they recognized significant and increasingly firm boundaries on cost that did not apply to their private college peers.
2) Community Colleges are still an underused asset in higher education:
In a room of 100, community college leaders made up 4% of attendees, even though we educate almost 50% of all undergraduates. The vast majority of that day focused on traditional college-age students, with almost no attention paid to adult learners, second career students, and skills upgrading. There was no conversation of the importance of community college transfers within state higher education systems; of community colleges to the STEM pipeline; of community colleges’ role in serving the growing minority majority, women, veterans, low-income students; of our access mission. The model of college held up by most of the panelists was a residential campus with robust student life and study abroad opportunities, but as was pointed out even by TIME, this “movie version” of college is now experienced by less than 20% of undergraduates. Today, most are commuter students who earn credits at multiple institutions, across multiple states and multiple timelines. In other words, they are our students—and very few in the room understood them or us.
3) The ground is shifting faster than we might want to admit:
Following the panel that was keynoted by Coursera founder, Andrew Ng, moderator Fareed Zakaria chided the panelists for “defensiveness” (his word). Speaking both as a commentator on global issues and as someone in the news business, he advised all of us that we likely have far less time to “rethink college” (TIME’s theme) than we imagine, reminding us that just that morning Newsweek announced it would no longer appear in print—something unthinkable a few years ago. The growing presence of open online providers was not embraced by many, who saw it as antithetical to the humanistic impulse of higher education, so it was somewhat ironic that Ng provided the most explicit connection between education and values. He reminded the doubting panel that the choice for most students around the world is not between “Stanford and a MOOC” but between a “MOOC and nothing,” and both opened and closed with a simple, yet profound, declaration: “higher education is a fundamental human right.” As the economy around us shifts even more rapidly than higher education, several in the room echoed our responsibility to assure this right is a reality.
It’s amazing that—in the midst of all that’s going on—TIME devoted a cover story to higher education, and it says much about the importance of what we do. I hope that their interest in the topic continues and the discussion expands to include students, families, K12, and employers—as well as a global perspective. Until then, I’d love to hear your view of how we “rethink college.” Please share your thoughts on the blog.
Anne M. Kress
President
10/24/2012 |