In the 2012 season of flowing academic regalia and stirring graduation addresses on campuses across the country, an unwelcome guest crashed the Commencement party—the cost of higher education.
More to the point, the public’s growing
concern about the value of what tuition dollars purchase these days is a storm
cloud over college admissions offices that just won’t dissipate. It’s a
challenge to college recruiters that could be even more damaging than the
recession has been. In an economic downturn, consumer confidence will
eventually recover. Lack of confidence in higher education’s services shows
signs of being just as pervasive, and equally complex to solve.
The good news—and there is
some—seemingly can’t arrive too soon.
In April, I was invited to attend a
conference, the “Lafayette Group,” convened by President Daniel H. Weiss of
Lafayette College, who framed the discussion with a detailed opening keynote
address that provided a far-sighted perspective on trends in higher
education. Sixty of America’s most
prestigious private liberal arts colleges, including my institution, Bethany
College, were represented.
Cost, competitiveness and value were
dominant themes of President Weiss’s analysis. We learned that college expenses
have grown at rates in excess of the cost of living, and that educational costs
now make up more than half of median family income. On campuses, the
cost-per-student rate has risen faster than the economy.
What’s driving up tuition and fees? The
Lafayette Group conference focused on some of the usual suspects—the need for
ever-changing technology, competitive salaries to lure top faculty and
administrators, increasing costs of the latest science equipment and digital
databases. What it costs to educate students properly these days and what we
can charge to meet those expenses are way out of alignment, driving up the need
for more scholarship funds, increasing the rate of tuition discounting (helping
families defray the sticker price of enrollment by packaging student aid) and
leading to risky practices like wholesale slashing of tuition when an
institution can least afford it. All of this is as true of public,
“state-supported” colleges and universities as it is of private ones.
President Weiss noted that the
overheated competition between institutions for students has produced a kind of
“arms race” to provide the latest features in campus housing and student
services while consumer confidence in the value of higher education itself has
steadily fallen. One statistic from a Pew Research Center study drove home the
point for the college CEO’s in attendance: although 42 percent of college
presidents believe that college is affordable for most people, just 22 percent
of the public believes it.
One need only to observe the mounting
student-debt crisis in this country, coupled with dimmed employment prospects
for newly minted alumni, to conclude that higher ed could use a public-relations
offensive.
We are already seeing some results of
shifts in consumer confidence toward traditional colleges and universities.
These include a proliferation of online education and for-profit providers and
growing discussion about the number of years it takes—and should take—to complete
a four-year undergraduate degree. A June 3, 2012, article in The Washington
Post reminds us of government figures that show a four-year graduation rate of
31 percent for public institutions, 52 percent at private schools. Some
institutions “are working the four-year theme into recruiting events as a
selling point to the cost-conscious,” reports the article’s author, Daniel de
Vise.
So where are we headed? The good news
for private colleges, according to President Weiss and the Lafayette Group
conference, is that those institutions offering a comprehensive, residential
learning environment, committed faculty, strong post-graduate outcomes and the
formative educational approach offered through the liberal arts, with careful
financial management and wise investments in technology, will be sustainable.
For all institutions, it is clear that demonstrated outcomes tied to student
satisfaction, on-time graduation and career success will continue to shape the
student-recruitment market, and strengthen public confidence in their
investment in higher education.
I would add that sound strategic
planning, ongoing recruitment and training of qualified leaders at all levels
of colleges and universities, understanding of shifting demographics in the
higher education market and a focus on student-centeredness are imperative.
From the turbulent 1960’s emerged recognition of the need to take stock of institutional practices. Some observers, like Lafayette’s President Weiss, are saying that today’s changing higher education environment is no less revolutionary in spirit, and perhaps even more far-reaching as students and parents are beginning to protest not by sitting in but rather, by sitting out.
Higher education is a business; as such,
it is increasingly defined by how well it adheres to best business
practices—including the ability to satisfy its customer base year after year.
Dr. Scott D. Miller is President and M.M.
Cochran Professor of Leadership Studies at Bethany College. A graduate of West
Virginia Wesleyan College, he has served as president of three private liberal
arts colleges during the past 22 years.
