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Navigating Higher Education in the 21st Century

Explore the challenging landscape of higher education in constant change, from financial pressures to technological disruptions. Discover how universities must innovate and adapt to stay relevant and ensure student success.

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Navigating Higher Education in the 21st Century

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  1. Constant Change: The Challenging Context of the 21st Century Athens State University George L. Mehaffy 20 March 2015

  2. In fifty years, if not much sooner, half of the roughly 4,500 colleges and universities now operating in the United States will have ceased to exist. “The End of the University as We Know It.” Nathan Harden. The American Interest. January/February 2013. http://www.the-american-interest.com/article.cfm?piece=1352

  3. Great reputation, loyal alumni, beautiful campus, $ 84 million endowment

  4. What Happened? • Location: Rural • Type of School: Women’s College • Students: Competition for Shrinking Base of Students • Costs: Rising Costs

  5. Technology Changes Everything

  6. Think about the impact of technology: On journalism… On photography On the music business… On the book publishing/selling business… The Long Tail. Chris Anderson (Hyperion, 2006)

  7. One of technology’s impact on business: store closings Abercrombie and Fitch 180 By 2015 Barnes and Noble 223 Over 9 years Aeropostale 175 Next few years JC Penney 33 By mid-2014 Radio Shack 1,100 Just announced Staples 225 By 2015 Sears 500 Going Forward Family Dollar 370 2014 http://247wallst.com/special-report/2014/03/12/retailers-closing-the-most-stores/

  8. Robert Darnton • Four Great Information Ages • Invention of Writing, Mesopotamia, 4,000 BC • Moveable type • Mass steam-powered presses, Industrial Age • Internet, after 1993 • Now You See It: Attention and the Future of Learning. Cathy N. Davidson, http://chancellor.ucdavis.edu/local_resources/pdfs/colloquium-11-12/ccvol2_cathy_davidson.pdf

  9. Nine (9) Challenges to Public Higher Education The Meta-Problems

  10. State Expenditures for Higher Education • (as a percentage of all expenditures: local, state, federal, personal) • 1975: 60% 2010: 34% But huge variations in states: From 1980 to 2011- Colorado 69 % decline Minnesota 56 % decline North Dakota 1 % increase Wyoming 3 % increase Based on the trends since 1980, average state fiscal support for higher education will reach zero by 2059. State Funding: A Race to the Bottom. Thomas G. Mortenson http://www.acenet.edu/the-presidency/columns-and-features/Pages/state-funding-a-race-to-the-bottom.aspx

  11. 2. Cost Model

  12. Sources: College Board, “Trends in College Pricing, 2008”; Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009, www.bls.gov ; U.S. Census, Current Population Study-ASEC, 2008. From the Delta Project. Courtesy Jane Wellman

  13. Simple Numbers: Median inflation-adjusted 7% household income, 2006 – 2011 Tuition at public four year 18% Institutions, 2006 – 2011 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/01/opinion/my-valuable-cheap-college-degree.html?_r=0 Public higher education – an historic threshold: Students about to pay a higher percentage than the state. 2012 – net tuition 47% of public colleges’ costs. http://chronicle.com/article/StudentsStates-Near-a/137709/

  14. 3. Business Model Higher education is a set of cross-subsidies: graduate education subsidized by undergraduate; upper division subsidized by lower division Jane Wellman, Delta Project http://www.deltacostproject.org/ We also have cross-subsidies by disciplines.

  15. NCES, BPS, undergraduates only Courtesy Jane Wellman

  16. Moody’s Inventor Services Report January 23, 2012 “Tuition levels are at a tipping point” Higher education must innovate to remain viable • Collaborations between colleges • More centralized management • More efficient use of facilities • Reduction in number of tenured faculty • Geographic and demographic expansion of course offerings http://chronicle.com/article/article-content/130434/

  17. 4. Evidence of Success 2006 American Institutes for Research (AIR) 20% of U.S. college graduates only have basic quantitative literacy skills… …unable to estimate if their car has enough gasoline to get to the next gas station. More than 50% of students at 4-yr colleges lack the skills to perform complex literacy tasks, such as comparing credit card offers or summarizing the arguments of newspaper editorials. http://www.air.org/news/index.cfm?fa=viewContent&content_id=445

  18. Academically Adrift R. Arum & J. Roksa Study has indicated that 36% of students did not show any significant improvement in Collegiate Learning Assessment (CLA) performance over four years.

  19. Graduation Rate, 2010 Study 63.2% of 2003 students who began at a 4 -year college earned bachelor’s degree by 2009. Beginning Postsecondary Survey, National Center for Education Statistics, U.S. Department of Education. http://www.quickanded.com/2010/12/u-s-college-graduation-rate-stays-pretty-much-exactly-the-same.html New Study 2012 Full time students: 75% in 6 years Part time students: 32% in 6 years New National Tally of College Completion Tries to Count All Students. http://chronicle.com/article/New-National-Tally-of-College/135792/

  20. 5. Public Opinion *** 60% (six out of ten) of Americans in 2010 said that colleges today … focused more on the bottom line than on the educational experience of students. http://www.highereducation.org/reports/squeeze_play_10/squeeze_play_10.pdf *** In a recent survey, 80% said that at many colleges, education received is not worth the cost. Time Magazine, October 29, 2012, p. 37 *** Lumina survey in November/December 2012, three quarters (3/4) of respondents said that college is unaffordable. http://chronicle.com/article/Americans-Value-Higher/137023/

  21. 6. The Role of Venture Capitalists New Start-Ups Udacity Udemy University Now Coursebook Coursekit Courseload CourseRank http://chronicle.com/article/A-Boom-Time-for-Education/131229/

  22. 7. Debt Debt Student loan debt exceeded credit card debt for the first time last year. More than $ one trillion dollars Seven in 10 college seniors (71%) who graduated last year had student loan debt, with an average of $29,400 per borrower. http://projectonstudentdebt.org/state_by_state-data.php

  23. 8. Inequality 1996 - 2012, public colleges and universities gave a declining portion of grants—as measured by both the number of grants and the dollar amounts—to students in the lowest quartile of family income. The task of educating low-income students has increasingly fallen to community colleges and for-profit colleges. http://chronicle.com/article/Public-Colleges-Quest-for/141541/

  24. Who Receives Merit Aid? 1 in 5 students from families with income over $ 250,000 1 in 10 students from families with income under $ 30,000 Percentage of 24 Year Olds with College Degrees 1970 2011 Top-income quartile: 40% 70% Bottom-income quartile 6% 10% http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/29/magazine/freebies-for-the-rich.html?_r=0

  25. “The higher education system is more and more complicit as a passive agent in the systematic reproduction of white racial privilege across generations.   Since 1995, 82 percent of new white enrollments have gone to the 468 most selective colleges, while 72 percent of new Hispanic enrollment and 68 percent of new African-American enrollment have gone to the two-year open-access schools.” http://cew.georgetown.edu/separateandunequal/

  26. 9. Career Preparation Career Readiness: Colleges are doing a good job of preparing graduates. Agree: Provosts 96% Business Leaders 11% https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/02/26/provosts-business-leaders-disagree-graduates-career-readiness

  27. Employers are in broad agreement on college learning outcomes for all students, regardless of their chosen field of study. Students/total agree 94% 85% 86% 83% 87% All college students should have educational experiences that teach them how to solve problems with people whose views are different from their own 96% All college students should gain an understanding of democratic institutions and values 87% Every college student should take courses that build the civic knowledge, skills, and judgment essential for contributing to our democratic society 86% Every college student should acquire broad knowledge in the liberal arts and sciences 78% All college students should gain intercultural skills and an understanding of societies and countries outside the United States 78% “Falling Short? College Learning and Career Success.” AAC&U study and presentation. Hart Research Associates. November/December 2014. Used with permission.

  28. Employers give college graduates lower scores for preparedness across learning outcomes than current students give themselves. Proportions who believe they/recent college graduates are well prepared in each area* Working effectively with others in teams Staying current on technologies Ethical judgment and decisionmaking Locating, organizing, evaluating information Oral communication Working with numbers/ statistics Written communication Critical/analytical thinking Being innovative/creative *8-10 ratings on zero-to-ten scale (continued)

  29. Are we vulnerable to disruption? Christensen and Eyring argue that disruption comes from cheaper and simpler technologies that are initially of lower quality. Over time, the simpler and cheaper technology improves to a point that it displaces the incumbent. The Innovative University. Clayton Christensen and Henry J. Eyring. 2011

  30. Our Critical Vulnerability: The College Degree The college degree is a proxy for student ability Digital badges, e-portfolios, and competency credentials Watch “LinkedIn” in the years ahead

  31. Clay Shirky --- “The biggest threat those of us working in colleges and universities face isn’t video lectures or online tests. It’s the fact that we live in institutions perfectly adapted to an environment that no longer exists.” http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2014/01/

  32. The greatest challenge to our survival and success is our inability and/or unwillingness to change.

  33. What might a 21st century university look like?

  34. Core Commitments

  35. Commitment to Access Mission Statement: Arizona State University “measured not by who we exclude, but rather by who we include and how they succeed” “I don’t think the taxpayers of Florida voted to tax themselves to build a university that their children could not attend.” John Hitt, President The University of Central Florida (UCF)

  36. A commitment to ACCESS: Multiple entry points • Make every effort to get students into the university: • early college programs in high school • summer preparatory academies • testing in 11th grade and using 12th grade for remediation, etc. • community college pathways • And then make sure they succeed!

  37. Commitment to Student Success A set of studies by AASCU, Ed Trust, and the National Association of System Heads (NASH)

  38. Commitment to Reducing Costs • Time to Completion • 120 hours for all majors • Reducing bottlenecks in completion • Charging out-of-state for 30+ credits beyond graduation requirements • Intrusive advising and early remediation • Flat rate for summer courses

  39. Commitment to the Right Incentives What counts in the new university? What really matters? What are the metrics of success? Who gets rewarded / recognized?

  40. Perverse Incentives Cardiac surgeons turned away the sickest and most severely ill patients after adopting performance-based health report cards. Health disparities widened among White, Black, and Hispanic patients after introducing physician report cards. http://www.learningoutcomesassessment.org/documents/HillmanViewpoint.pdf

  41. Commitment to Rethinking Status and Prestige The winners will be those institutions that can define themselves and find the unique value that they provide. Most universities are organized around envy models….in order to pursue higher-ranked institutions, a university has to become more selective, more elite, and more disconnected from its community.

  42. Rules for the 21st Century • Define your value • Forget about who is above you • Focus on what differentiates you • Establish your own brand • Don’t romanticize your weaknesses • Be open • Abelard to Apple: The Fate of American Colleges and Universities. Richard A. DeMillo

  43. Internal Vulnerabilities

  44. Internal Vulnerabilities • Teaching Not Learning • Honoring Research Over Teaching • Changing Faculty Work/Culture • Bifurcated Model of Instruction • Faculty-Centric Model

  45. 1. Teaching Not Learning Our institutions were created as teaching institutions, instead of learning institutions. From Teaching to Learning - A New Paradigm for Undergraduate Education. Robert B. Barr and John Tagg. Change Magazine. Nov./.Dec., 1995.

  46. What Are the Key Learning Outcomes? What are the key work and citizenship requirements of the 21st century? --- Solving unstructured problems --- Working with new information --- Carrying out non-routine tasks--- Complex communication --- Expert thinking The New Division of Labor: How Computers Are Creating the Next Job Market. Frank Levy & Richard J. Murnane. 2005

  47. 2. Honoring Research Over Teaching Comparing Teaching Effectiveness: Tenure and Non-Tenure Faculty Ac­a­dem­ic per­form­ance, 8 co­horts of freshmen: 15,662 students, from fall 2001 to fall 2008. Taking a course from non-tenure track fac­ul­ty mem­bers: • In­creases the like­li­hood that a stu­dent will take an­oth­er class in the sub­ject • In­creases the grade earned in that sub­se­quent class • Produces the greatest gains for weakest students Northwestern University Study http://chronicle.com/article/Ad-juncts-Are-Bet-ter/141523/

  48. 3. Changing Faculty Work/Culture Faculty will work in a networked world --- in a collaboration of faculty, other experts, and students across time and space. “As individuals we will have to abandon that sense of ourselves as independent actors and agents.” Checklist for Change. Robert Zemsky. http://chronicle.com/article/How-to-Build-a-Faculty-Culture/141887

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