October 8, 2015

I was struck by some headline today that cried out "colleges need to support low-income students at risk."  I would be the first to agree with that statement.  However, I am torn by all of the other "needs" that so many pundits (and, granted, this is the internet, where any idiot can be dressed up to look like a pundit, even Bill O'Reilly).  A ten-minute Google search on the combination of "Colleges need," "College needs," and "Universities need" produced 43 statements of need (I could have added "University needs" as one more collection device, but when the pail is already too heavy to lift, why bother straining myself?)

Looking at just the headlines, I know now what everyone else seems to think colleges need . . .

• to sync-up student skills with modern employer demands (as if our credit hours aren't too many already);
• fire safety awareness;
• skin in the student loan game;
• professionals to support students;
• better data on assault (please bear with us while we struggle, as does the rest of the world, with how to define assault fairly and equally);
• to focus on student success (uh, as with "assault," please bear with us while we come to a common definition of "success.  It might take awhile.)
• to better engage with adult learners;
• to stop protecting sexual predators;
• to put students first;
• SWAT teams (we might ask the University of Cincinnati how that idea of armed police on campus is working out);
• to teach the teachers to produce quality (who are going to be those teachers?);
• measured on quality, not inputs;
• preferred name policies for the safety of transgender students;
• privacy education;
• their imperfect critics (I have a feeling they are all represented with this list);
• global common curriculum (then, why have separate distinct instutions? Why can't we all just be one giant Phoenix?);
• public officials to help curb binge drinking (this one was clearly written by someone at a college);
• to act like start-ups;
• quotas favoring men (when did we ever think we might get this headline?  Apparently, when it is revealed that there are now more women getting higher education degrees than men! That response didn't take long.)
• to expand gender-inclusive housing (the housing units need to be recognized by whether they have units or not?);
• a denouement (too much whimsy here, must be another writer from academia);
• a definition of anti-semitism (good Jehovah, if we can't define this, how will we ever commonly define "success"?);
• global outlook  in war for talent (didn't even know there was fighting going on);
• philanthropies to stay the envy of the world (this was specifically about American universities; didn't know we were the envy of the world);
• a new model of governance;
• to change so students learn to keep up with the world (Note, that the writer wants us to set up the students to learn, not keep up directly.  O.k. the much despised liberal-arts-based education of the past, by the way, did prepare students to do this.);
• to disclose top salaries;
• brands (don't even get me started.  Plenty of past blogs lambasting this idea.);
• to leverage design thinking (goodness, as if higher education needs to bring in even more external jargon);
• to focus on training students in sports analytics (o.k. this probably doesn't mean "all" students, but the headline certainly reads that way);
• to change immigration rules (can't we just ask Donald Trump to do that for us? He is sure to give us a thoughtful recommendation);
• to stop discriminating against students with psychiatric disorders;
• to manage hate speech, not stifle freedom of speech;
• to capitalize on mobile technology;
• more unified communications;
• remedial anti-fraud measures (the measures are remedial themselves?);
• reignite the relationships they have with their students (this might be in contradiction with the need to stop protecting sexual predators);
• middlebrow literature (be still my heart.  What is middle-brow, though?  Nick Hornby, I hope?);
• special office for lifelong learning;
• greater access to supercomputers;
• rethink their missions (oh, God, please no.  Another strategic planning exercise is not what most colleges need.);
• protect themselves against fraud;
• information literacy now more than ever.

Isn't higher education so lucky to have so many well-intentioned critics (not counting Mr. imperfect critic above)?  With so many experts on higher education, we have quite a "honey do" list.

However, the next time your ignorant friend, co-worker, neighbor, stranger laments the high cost of education, remember this list.  Almost everything on this list, if we were to try and legitimately meet those needs, costs a lot of money, with little return on the investment.  (The cost of the SWAT team, at who knows how much money, and who is probably never needed, has to be funded from somewhere.)  Yes, salaries at executive levels are very high. Less frequently noted is that faculty salaries at many institutions are very high.  However, the real explosion of cost of higher education the last 30 years has come from institutional needs assessment that leads to an office of life-long learning, or an office of diversity, or a security team.   Be careful in telling us what you think we need.