STORM WATERS ARE RISING AROUND ACADEMIA'S ANKLES

Saturday, October 26, 2002

Is American higher education heading into a perfect storm, where it will be overwhelmed by forces coming at it from every direction? Perhaps not, but a lot of thoughtful people look around and see the winds and waters rising.

The research organization Public Agenda summarizes what they're thinking in Meeting the Competition, a report prepared for the Futures Project at Brown University. Public Agenda brought together small groups of similarly situated people -- faculty members, presidents of community colleges or universities, legislators -- to talk at length about the problems they face.

The 47 participants are identified, but their comments -- their very candid comments -- are not attributed. Many of them, writes author John Immerwahr, ``said things they clearly would not say in public.''

Growing competition was a major theme of the discussions. Competition for students, for faculty, for research money; competition with institutions close by or far away; among private, public, for-profit and online institutions.

One university president commented on ``the craziness about lists,'' noting that applicants all have copies of U.S. News and World Report (which publishes an annual ranking of colleges and universities).

Another commented that competition from the University of Phoenix had ``badly damaged'' extension operations that used to be profitable for the institution. Adult, employed students, the president said, ``have to come to us, but Phoenix goes to them wherever they are.''

Phoenix is part of the Apollo Group Inc., which just released its year-end figures. Phoenix has 133,700 students, 49,400 of them online, and more than $1 billion in revenues, up 30 percent over last year.

Another president confessed, ``My daughter sold out and now she teaches for the University of Phoenix in their distance education program. They trained her for a year before she even logged on; we can't quite do that.''

Others feared the convergence of growing competition and shrinking public funding. A chief concern was that competitors would pick off the parts of higher education most likely to make money (or cheapest to provide) and leave traditional institutions with no way to fund socially valuable but financially unsustainable programs. (Think FedEx and the post office.)

The researchers found ``a deep division between academics and the legislators who regulate them.'' Indeed, Immerwahr says, ``even the way these two groups describe the problem is so different that it is hard to imagine they are talking about the same thing.''

The academics complain they are unable to be flexible and innovative because they are so burdened with legislative micromanagement; the legislators say they have to keep a close eye on higher education because it is resistant to any change and unwilling to accept measures of accountability. And they don't agree, either, on what accountability should mean.

``We are constantly dealing with whatever is the question of the week in the eyes of the state legislature,'' said one president. ``The system heads respond to that problem, and then the staff spends weeks writing reports that no one reads.''

Another complained about how much time and money are spent at the commission on higher education. ``You sit through two days of meetings, of which maybe one half-hour is directly applicable.''

There's no reason to suppose that the speaker was talking about the Colorado Commission on Higher Education, which in my experience is doing a responsible and creditable job fulfilling the duties the legislature assigned to it. But I was surprised, when I came to Colorado, to discover how extensive and detailed those duties were, when other states seem to manage quite nicely with a far lesser degree of centralization.

Competition for the best students is fierce, with the debate focusing on the philosophical question of whether scholarships should be offered only for financial need or also for excellent academic performance. ``If the system in your state is income-based,'' one person said, ``the kids who graduate at the top will go out of state, since they can get merit (awards) somewhere else.'' An opponent of merit-based awards said, ``We reward people who are already achieving because they can afford to, as opposed to helping people who could achieve if they got some help.''

And last, but definitely not least in importance, institutions aren't competing for disadvantaged students. Competitors, said one community college president, ``aren't interested in the poor, because it brings too many burdens.'' And a legislator asked, ``Why do you take the hardest to reach and most distressed people in the system and provide the least resources for educating them?''

Good questions, but few answers. The weather in academia will get worse, maybe much worse, before it gets better.