The current model of higher education is failing
In American higher education enrollments are down, tuition is up, and more schools are either shrinking their programs and their faculty or simply going out of business. Reforms are urgently needed in order to attract and retain students and to make postsecondary education more affordable.
On August 2nd, with faculty and students expecting to begin the school year, the trustees of Alderson Broaddus University in Philippi, W.Va., chose to close the school permanently. Its crushing financial problems had led the state to revoke its power to confer degrees. As one indication of its plight, the institution had received a notice from the city cutting off its utility services because it had not paid bills totaling $775,000. It had more than $39 million in liabilities.
The closure of this almost 100 year old school deeply affects the economy and the culture of the university’s rural area. It also affects the educational prospects of many young and older people in the area. Present students are scrambling to find new schools.
Small private institutions are at risk of closing. Larger schools, especially public universities, will survive. They risk gutting their work as educational institutions in order to save money.
West Virginia University, for example, facing a $45 million deficit, announced plans to eliminate 32 academic programs and cut 169 faculty positions in 22 departments. The cut that has drawn the most attention is the near elimination of courses in world languages. Despite low enrollment in some of these classes, canceling the study of languages undermines the educational mission of a university whose students will read world languages or work in other nations.
The problems are complex. Some are outside the schools’ control. The number of graduating high school students is decreasing, for example, and the labor shortage means that more young people have chosen jobs over college.
But the institutions themselves can do something about other problems. One is the cost of the education itself. The cumulative inflation rate for the last twenty years in the U.S. is 66 percent. However, in-state tuition and fees for public national universities over the same period increased by 175 percent, according to U.S. News and World Report.
Why the difference? If the schools’ basic expenses rose at roughly the rate of inflation, why did the cost rise even higher? One answer is the rise and rapidly rising cost of administrative and nonteaching positions. It is at least doubtful that they need so many.
Institutions have been spending freely on student services. Some, like mental health services, tutoring help, and workforce preparation clearly justified. Others, like, entertainment, intramural sports, and other extracurricular activities, not so clearly justified. Many of these services should be provided through partnerships rather than by the colleges themselves. This is the first area to consider for cost savings, rather than academic programs.
If higher education is going to be the engine of upward mobility as it has been in the past, then better financial management and some difficult reforms must move ahead.