Reforming Higher Ed Differently: A Response to Selingo and Kirschner’s Seeming Focus Only on Elite Institutions

Of course, higher education writ large needs improvement. What aspects of our society don’t need improvement? We can and should always strive to do better across all sectors.

In reading Selingo and Kirschner’s opinion piece in the Boston Globe, I saw much to laud, including the need for fewer silos across HE (and more broadly in our nation I would add) and the import of effectively integrating new technologies into all aspects of academic and student life. Yes, it is time to move HE forward.

But…

But, the S & K piece seems largely focused on our elite institutions with elite and largely well-prepared students and in so doing, fails to recognize some of the remarkable developments at non-elite colleges across our nation in the past decade, places that serve thousands upon thousands of students that elite institutions do not and will not serve and with remarkable faculty dedicated to teaching.

These non-elite public and private institutions, serving a wide swath of students including some who could be considered “at risk,” are not simply stuffing students into small seminar rooms with part-time faculty. These places of learning are embracing internships and practica; they are (and have been) linking theory and practice with regularity; they are preparing students in fields that will lead to employment including but limited to law and medicine and high finance; they are preparing students for fields such as nursing, radiologic technology, social work, teaching K — 12, environmental science, lab technology, IT programming and policing and corrections. These non-elite places enable small business leaders to learn and grow. They encourage employment in our communities. They are connecting increasingly with their communities.

For non-elite colleges, the focus on real work, while students are in college and thereafter, is not new. It is baked into their DNA. For these institutions, unlike the suggestions in the S & K opinion piece, there is not huge administrative bloat. These places run pretty lean and mean, which is why they struggle in a tight economy with low endowments and students often in need of a myriad of supports (financial and beyond) to enable their success, which become in turn familial and societal success.

True, elite institutions can and could think more about whether they are functioning optimally in today’s world. But the vast majority of colleges and universities do not have the endowments or well heeled alums of say Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, UPenn, Williams and Amherst. The vast majority of colleges and universities have students who seek opportunity and work and are struggling to lift themselves and their families to new heights. Some of these students struggle with food and housing and transportation shortages; they want and need academic and psychosocial supports. But they can and will enter our workforces and improve our communities and create/enhance families and enable a functioning economy.

A Focus Shift Different from S & K’s

I think we would be better off talking and focusing less on elite HE or at least recognizing overtly that HE is not a single behemoth where one set of fixes fixes all. Might we be wise to ponder how to enable these amazing non-elite places that graduate those who populate our most needed jobs to thrive, not just survive? Instead of eliminating supports to them, why not figure out how to make them more stable and fiscally viable?

Here’s the real question for me: How can we make quality HE education for the non-elite feasible (in all senses) in today’s world?

I recently saw a suggestion (similar to one I suggested a decade or two ago) regarding redistributing wealth from large fiscally strong HE institutions and/or their donors to less well endowed places that serve many students well. The idea goes like this. Rather than taxing endowments of elite institutions, a certain percentage of these earnings or a small percentage of new gifts in excess of $5 million could go to support the vast majority of HE that is working to produce graduates right now who will join the workforce.

Sure, this idea would be radical in nature but it recognizes this reality: we need to shore up the survivability of institutions that actually enable our students to become workers across sectors across our nation.

So, my response to S & K is this: it is time to focus less of our time and brainpower on America’s elite institutions of higher learning and more on how to support the plentiful non-elite institutions that, with remarkable teaching faculty and supportive staff and coaches, work to help non-elite students become their best selves and contribute meaningfully to this nation. We need these institutions, both public and private, to do more than survive. We need to help them thrive.