Leading Change in Higher Education: The Great Compromise

Okay, I fully admit that I have shamelessly taken the concept for this blog from Ian Morrison and his 2011 book titled Leading Change in Health Care. I have done so because I see a clear connection between the state of health care and the state of higher education in America – both are an “ugly compromise among cost, quality, and access.” Where health care is challenged in balancing these for the vulnerable and sick, higher education is challenged in balancing these for the young and those seeking to make a change in their lives.

The Compromise of Cost

There are many forces driving the cost of delivering higher education and competition for students is top on the list. Institutions are building bigger and better facilities, adding more amenities and creating pleasing environments, all to attract and retain students. When my son and I were touring campuses a few years ago, our running joke was how long it took the admissions representative to talk about the world-class climbing wall. But it’s not all about recruiting students. Institutions are under pressure to recruit top-notch faculty with cutting-edge research projects and the accompanying grant dollars that come with them; or those faculty members who bring some level of prestige to the classroom based on the body of their academic work. Finally, there has been a significant increase in non-teaching jobs on campus to support students, faculty and the mission of the institution, sometimes driven by unfunded federal mandates, but often simply to meet a real or perceived need.

I was speaking to a local Rotary club recently and was asked a question about the cost of higher education. Like many parents, he was concerned about the rising cost of attending college and was looking for some justification from the “expert” in the room. My answer may have shocked him. I told him that college simply costs too much. By some estimates, the cost of attending college has increased by more than 200% since the mid-1980s, even when accounting for inflation. To ice the cake, this increase is outpacing the available financial aid causing more students to borrow and graduate with increasing debt.

The Compromise of Quality

How often have you heard someone say they need to attend the best college or university to ensure they have the best opportunity to get a job? But what defines the best institutions? Are the Ivy League institutions the best? Undoubtedly, there is a lifelong value in attending one of these institutions. Does US News and World Report define the best institutions? Drive along any highway in America and the billboards certainly seem to support this conclusion. But quality is something that is dependent on the context. There is no single accepted definition of quality. Phillip B. Crosby defines quality as “conformance to requirements” while W. Edwards Deming suggests quality is “meeting customer needs and wants.” Let’s explore these two definitions in the context of higher education.

There are many requirements placed on institutions of higher education by the public, by the accrediting bodies, by the government and by others. Simply conforming to these requirements does not imply a quality education – it suggests an average education. Excelling in these requirements is quality and this is a typical way we look at institutional quality. Consider graduation rates and job placement rates. The average graduation rate among four-year public colleges in America is 59% (six-year rate). For young adults (20-24) with a bachelor’s degree, the employment rate is 86%, but it is assumed that some of these people are under-employed. For institutions to claim to offer a quality education, excelling in these “requirements” is the standard for quality. This is accomplished in many ways through the curriculum and the services provided on campus.

To define quality through the lens of customer needs and wants is a very different approach. Consider what it would look like to measure student success through their goals. For some, it would look like graduating from a four-year college and getting a job. Or, it could be taking a few welding classes and then finding a good-paying job to support your family. For others, it may be bypassing college altogether and seeking an alternative career pathway. For the first student in the above scenarios, we would all classify that a quality education… but not so much for the other two students. Yet, all could be quality educational experiences with successful outcomes. Higher education needs to embrace multiple pathways more effectively.

The Compromise of Access

Enrollment in college reached a peak in 2010 but has been on a steady decline of almost 5% since then. There are many supposed reasons for this, and the improving economy is among them. Traditional aged students can forego college and go straight to work and post-traditional students are staying in their jobs instead of seeking new careers. But this is only part of the picture. The 2016 election brought into light the deep concerns about the opportunity gap in America and how many people feel left behind or left out. Many of our institutions of higher education have been party to this concern for the reasons discussed above. Inequities in economic opportunity and among disenfranchised populations have not adequately been addressed in higher education and beyond causing many to label colleges and universities as elitist and ivory tower.

But, this is misleading. While higher education has its flaws, it is egalitarian by design with opportunities for all. Focusing on diversity and inclusion are critical aspects of an accessible institution seeking to produce students who will benefit from such an environment. Increased state and federal funding are critical, but it is not the panacea we are looking for. More education on choice is necessary – students need to understand that they do not have to choose the elite private institution or the large state university… they can instead start at the local community college to begin their higher education journey. It is not all about cost when thinking about access. But, we need to make institutions more inviting and safe places for everyone.

The Bonus Compromise of Value

The great debate in higher education is centered on the value of the degree: is it attained for the purpose of learning or to prepare one for work? In practice, this may not be dichotomous, but it is often portrayed that way. I like to think that everything we learn in college has value for our future and that we are not educating students for their first job, but for a career. This means that there must be a balance and a shared responsibility among students, institutions and employers for lifelong learning. The value of higher education is clear: those with a bachelor’s degree earn nearly $1 million more than those with a high school diploma in their lifetime.

Like the Great Compromise of 1787 when small and large states determined our legislative structure to ensure equity, those of us in higher education and our stakeholders must understand the nuance of cost, quality, and access and seek to ensure that we are ever-diligent in our pursuit of value and equity. I’ll close with the words of William Butler Yeats, “Education is not filling a pail but the lighting of a fire.”

The Purpose of Higher Education

There is debate regarding the purpose of higher education – is it to get a job or get an education? My philosophy of higher education is that we are not preparing our graduates for their first job, we are preparing them for a lifetime of jobs. So, the short answer for me is the purpose of higher education is to get an education… or more precisely, to learn how to learn. Unfortunately, this answer is all too simplistic and deserves more attention and depth.

Rising costs of higher education have caused many to question the value of traditional degrees. This has been particularly true in recent years as graduates have struggled to find relevant work in their field of study. Certainly, there are fields where this is less of an issue, and we have seen placement rates rise in recent years, but it is still more challenging to start a career following college than it is to simply find a job… and a career is what graduates are seeking.

To justify the tuition and other costs associated with college, graduates are seeking to embark on a career and earn a living wage with enough resources to pay back their student loans. To be sure, I am not one who fully buys into the media hype regarding student loan debt. However, according to Forbes, the average student in the Class of 2016 graduated with $37,172 in student loan debt. But these numbers are somewhat skewed by the heavy debt load of some students. When you dig into the numbers, roughly 66% of borrowers owe less than $25,000 and 37% owe less than $10,000.

Now, before you post your angry response because you are a graduate who has borrowed significant amounts of money to pay for your education, I too am concerned with these rising numbers. I am simply making the point that rising costs, and the subsequent rising debt, should not alter one’s thinking about the purpose of higher education. It is still more about the learning than the job. But it does call into question one’s expectation when they enter college. Have we in higher education created an unrealistic expectation for both our students and the community of constituents who hire our students?

Practicality, not true learning, is becoming the norm so higher education institutions can confidently report meeting the needs of the workforce in communities across the nation. Designing degrees and creating programs that represent the local workforce has long been the purview of community and technical colleges, but now we are seeing state universities and private, liberal arts colleges jumping into the fray trying to beat the competition to the next great degree. And when you throw for-profit institutions into the mix, the dizzying array of degrees, programs and micro-credentials is almost alarming. Can higher education sustain this pace of change?

But all of this is an interesting discussion in the context of the purpose of higher education. In a 2016 report by the organization Imperative, it is suggested that the current generation of college students are more purpose-oriented than any previous generation. Not necessarily more driven to succeed or more intelligent, just more interested in pursuing learning defined by purpose rather than the traditional academic major. Generation Z students seem to understand the value of an education for the sake of learning. Of course, these students do not represent the majority attending college today, but wouldn’t it be interesting to transform our programs and curriculum to be more purpose-driven?

Historically, higher education has been focused on advancing knowledge and learning through faculty research. But this focus seems somewhat outdated with the growing population of post-traditional students who seek more relevancy and autonomy in their learning and the newest generation of students seeking purpose. The “sage on the stage,” who teaches what is relevant to them or their research, is fast-becoming a thing of the past; replaced by instructors who seek to teach and learn with their students. Discovering knowledge in creative ways is the new learning – both for students and instructors. Precisely defined learning outcomes and connecting students with real-world problems seems an exciting way to help students find relevancy and purpose. But we still think in terms of teaching and learning, a dichotomy that sets the instructor apart from the student. When I facilitate a class, I often learn as much as my students. I certainly have knowledge and experience to share, but so do the students. A vibrant learning environment allows this two-way exchange to occur.

I do buy into the idea that higher education should vigorously strive to develop in all parties a capacity for creation, change and innovation. This is consistent with my idea that the purpose of higher education is to prepare graduates to learn how to learn. When reading on this topic, I am often overwhelmed by the aggrandized language used to define this purpose. Language built around the idea of achieving the American Dream, diversity and inclusion, citizenship and democracy and other equally interesting, yet overstated ideas. Don’t misunderstand, I think these are all valuable outcomes of a college education and certainly central to social mobility and being productive members of our society. However, I think we over-promise and under-deliver. If we simplified (I know, this may come across as “dumbing it down”) our purpose to be clear and to-the-point, like learning how to learn, then does this not represent all the other articulated purposes out there? Would it not be more consistent with the relevancy and purpose our students are seeking?

Of course, we know that higher education is both knowledge and utility… seeking to educate and to prepare graduates for work. No longer is a college degree reserved for the elite, it is now open to anyone with the drive and ability to seek its opportunities. While much is written about access to higher education and the challenges many face in reaching this goal, I think there are increasingly more paths to a degree than ever before; there are certainly more paths to learning. Maybe the expectations we set as we recruit these students ought to be one of relevancy and purpose, not one of finding a job. If this were the case, students might be more comfortable choosing to start in a community college instead of the national research university. Imagine what this would do for access and student debt?