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The Business Model for All of Higher Education is Broken

from Presenter Media

I recently came across a very thoughtful and extremely well-written blog post This Needs to Be Run More Like A Business written by Jason McNeal. In this post, Jason gives an impassioned plea for a different approach to private education since “the business model approach to higher education is helping to discourage giving.” Jason suggests that board members and I would assume he would include administrators should know better than to say, “Our business model in higher education is broken.”  I am sorry Jason, but “The Business Model for All of Higher Education is Broken.” I say this as an administrator with 40 years of effective service in private higher education.  I have also spent considerable time praying, studying, thinking and writing about higher education. You do make a valid point when you imply a criticism of the board member’s statement, “I simply do not understand why our tuition and fees are not sufficient to cover our costs.”  In the worlds of private, non-profit, higher education and public, higher education, no traditional college or university covers its education and general costs with just tuition and fees. It is like one individual in a sinking rowboat trying to bail out the boat, with other sitting by, just watching and doing nothing to help. This model is broken. However, the model of using a leaking boat to try to get across a lake is also broken.

from Presenter Media

Why do we want to get across the lake? We want to build an excellent education that works for students, faculty, and the general public. This education must be affordable for everyone involved, including the students, faculty and the general public. This education must be sustainable not only in the short run but for the long run. I, for one, see problems in all the current approaches that we are using to reach these goals. For 40 years, I tried to work toward these goals in the best way that I could. I had some successes, but I also had some failures. I will discuss some of both in future posts. Why? Because we can learn from both our successes and failures. When Thomas Edison was asked about thousands of experiments on light bulbs that didn’t work, he is reported to have said, “We haven’t failed. We now know a thousand things that won’t work, so we are much closer to finding what will.” When we find something that partially works, we should try to determine why and what we could do to make it work better. These are the steps to success. Let’s work together to bail out the leaky boat, find the leak and fix it. Then we can row together across the lake to the land of success, where we will have excellent, affordable and sustainable education for all.

We can begin by looking at two partial successes. The two areas where we see tuition and fees possibly covering all the costs of fulfilling the educational mission of the institution are non-traditional higher education and proprietary, for-profit, higher education. I say “possibly” because more than half of the non-traditional programs or for-profit institutions lose money and eventually fail. The traditional higher education institutions have been variously described as time and location fixed, brick-and-mortar, bastions of teacher-centric delivery of education to late adolescents recently graduated from high school. Non-traditional education disrupts one or more characteristic of traditional higher education. In other blog posts, I will speak more about the differences between traditional and non-traditional higher education.

Institutions of higher education have five sources of revenue. I am sorry if I offend educational purists who do not want to use business terminology to describe operations within higher education. In using the term “revenue”, I did resist the temptation to use the more highly-charged business term “income.” Thus, I will label money coming into the institution to pay for the operations of the institution as “revenue.” There can be no argument that colleges are required to pay operating expenses like salaries, fringe benefits, construction and maintenance costs, utility and insurance costs, supply, equipment and service costs. Since I am focusing on the revenue side of the institution in this post, I will reserve discussion of the expense side to other posts.

There are four sources of revenue for the not-for-profit segment of higher education. There is a fifth source for public institutions.The five sources of revenue are:

  1. Tuition and fees;
  2. Fund raising, advancement or development efforts;
  3. Endowment income, appreciation, interest or dividends;
  4. Auxiliary enterprises;
  5. Governmental appropriations (Reserved for public institutions).

There are two very distinct ways to look at these sources of revenue. The first is how the general public sees these categories of revenue. The second is how colleges and universities are legally required to report them in audit statements. (OOPS, another hint at the trouble lurking within the presence of the higher education business model) In this post, I will restrict my attention to how the general public understands these five sources of revenue. In future posts, I will discuss how colleges are forced to handle and report the revenues associated with these categories.

from Presenter Media
  1. Tuition and fees: These are the charges (I apologize for another business term) the institution individually imposes upon students for the privilege of attending and obtaining an education, and possibly a degree or some other credential. By “tuition” I mean that portion of the financial obligation imposed upon students for enrolling in classes. By “fees” I mean extra charges for a number of other things such as student services or activities, laboratory, clinical, internship, practica, music, travel, technology, special class charges, health or insurance fees, parking fees, and a myriad of other add-ons such as application, matriculation, course change, graduation and transcript fees, . I also throw into this category “Room and board charges”  because these charges are individually assessed to participating students. These are the financial obligations imposed upon students who reside and eat in college-owned or operated facilities. The students and their parents see these charges on their college bill (a residue of a business model). Student and their parents refer to these charges as the total cost or the price of attending. I haven’t yet considered financial aid. Whether the financial aid is not from the institution or comes directly to the student as a government appropriation, it is usually considered a discount by the students and their parents Either way, when we get to the accounting of financial aid, it must be treated as a cost to the institution(another business model problem lurking in the forest).

    from Presenter Media
  2. Fundraising, advancement or development efforts: For the private, non-profit, and public segments of higher education, this category includes all charitable gifts and donations. These gifts may be in the form of cash, stocks, bonds, or physical property, including real estate, art, supplies, or equipment. They may also include services in lieu of payment. This category seems to be the area about which Jason is most concerned. From reading Jason’s blog, I know he doesn’t consider fundraising and development work as begging. However, in the eyes of many of the general public, this is what it comes across as. In the for-profit segment of higher education, this category also includes what is known in financial circles as the investment of assets. Investments are the purchase of assets with the hope of generating a profit. Investments are not always profitable and may incur a loss. Many colleges and universities, across all segments of higher education, raise funds through gifts that are known as grants. Grants are funds or products that do not have to be repaid given by the grant maker, which can be a government department, corporation, foundation or trust to a recipient. Usually, grants are awarded after the recipient has made a written request for funding of a specific project through a process that is known as grant writing. Most grants that are awarded will require of the recipient some level of verifiable compliance and reporting of outcomes. In future posts, I will consider the topic of university fundraising, including its rewards and perils.

    from Presenter Media
  3. Endowment income, appreciation, interest or dividends:  By an endowment, I mean a financial asset, which normally came into the possession of the institution in the form of a gift or donation. Endowments may or may not have a stated purpose at the bequest of the donor. This category of revenues also includes the return or dividends on the investment of charitable donations. It also includes the appreciation in value of the gifts that the colleges and universities are holding in “trust.” Most endowments are designed to keep the principal amount intact while using the investment income from interest or dividends for the “charitable” efforts of the institution. By “charitable” efforts, I mean those efforts which contribute to the stated primary mission or purpose of the not-for-profit institution. This category also includes what are commonly known as “quasi-endowments.” These are funds set aside by the institution from institutional funds. These funds may have come from donors or excess institutional funds. As with “endowments” the principal of quasi-endowments are reserved, and only the interest or dividends are expended. The management of endowment principals and investment demands close scrutiny on the part of professional managers, whether internal or external to the organization. In future posts, I will deal with the topic of endowments and their management.

    courtesy of GrahpicStock
  4. Auxiliary enterprises: Auxiliary enterprises are entities that exist to furnish fee-based goods and services to the general public, students, faculty or staff, acting in a personal capacity and not as an agent of the institution. Auxiliary enterprises should be self-supporting in the sense that the revenue covers the full direct and indirect costs of providing the goods and services. Some definitions of auxiliary enterprises exclude areas that are outside the core functions of an academic institution. For all academic institutions, core functions would include teaching and learning activities. For many, they would include research activities. For some, they would also include service activities. such as agricultural extensions for land-grant institutions.  There are many possible uses of the wealth of physical facilities associated with a college or university, which could be used outside the core functions of the college. There is an army of experts at a college which could be deployed to service students and the general public in areas outside the core functions of the college.  When auxiliary enterprises produce a surplus of revenue over expenses, those surpluses may be used to offset budgetary deficits in any area of the institution, including areas essential to the mission of the institution. Although there are many calls for colleges and universities to stick to their knitting, and stay clear of auxiliary enterprises, these programs may be a way for a college to fill in some budget gaps. I will speak to this argument in a future post.

    from Presentation Media
  5. Governmental appropriations: With recent rulings of federal and state courts, Departments of Justice and General Accounting Offices, this category may seem to be reserved for public institutions. Because education is not mentioned in the United States Constitution, including its ByLaws, it is one of the areas reserved for the prerogative of the states. However, Congress has enacted certain laws with which all employers and public buildings must comply. In addition, there is a federal Department of Education (DOE). The DOE exists primarily to safeguard the federal investment in education. This investment comes from the billions of dollars over the years that have been designated for educational concerns by Executive Orders and Federal Appropriations approved by the US Congress. These monies have been augmented by state and local appropriations. Although direct appropriations primarily only go to public institutions, the federal and state loans and grants to individual students greatly affect the well being of most private institutions. With the acceptance of federal and state funding, colleges and universities must also accept certain increased levels of governmental oversight. Compliance regulations control what colleges can and must do in many disparate areas. These areas include human subject research compliance, environmental health and safety compliance related to research, animal research compliance, export controls compliance, conflict of interest, technology transfer requirements, research misconduct requirements, accreditation, financial aid, FERPA, sexual misconduct (Title IX), Clery Act, drug and alcohol prevention, IPEDS reporting requirements, Title IX athletics administration, gainful employment, state authorization, and equity in athletics data analysis (EADA), immigration, disability, anti-discrimination, and environmental health and safety regulations outside of those related to research. Uncle Sam surfing the dollar is in control. The perverse version of the “Golden Rule: He who holds the gold, makes the rules,” dominates the day here. In future posts, I will discuss governmental funding and compliance issues in higher education.

As with any living organism, colleges and universities ingest monetary resources in order to perform the life functions of growing or producing fruit. For colleges, the desired fruit includes student learning, research and scholarship, and community service. The five categories listed above are the life-giving resources upon which colleges and universities depend. They are the food and water of colleges. If colleges and universities do not get enough funds for their nutritional needs over extended periods of time, they will starve to death. Thus, in higher education, we have three choices. We can 1) increase funding from these sources;  2) cut expenditures, or 3) do a combination of increased revenue and decreased spending. To me, this sounds like a business model. If we look more closely at each of the five funding sources, we will easily find huge difficulties in getting significantly more funds from any of these sources. Due to the length of this post, I will look at those difficulties in future posts.

 

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The Business Model for Higher Education is Broken, Part II

from Presenter Media

In Part I of this series on the business model for higher education, we postulated that higher education must be operated as a business. I begin this post by reinforcing that assumption by referring to two articles. The first one is the blog posting According to the Duck Test, Higher Education is a Business  that I wrote and published here in By’s Musings in August 2010. I began that post by relating an incident that occurred on the farm next door to our home as I was growing up. I remember vividly one instance when the farmer, completely frustrated with his broken down tractor, was yelling and screaming, and calling the tractor a “piece of junk,.” and threatening to send it to the “tractor graveyard.”  From my experiences of watching  and working with my father as he fixed broken machines, I learned that nothing was irreparably damaged. He operated under the principle that anything could be fixed. Our heavenly Father operates under this same principle. From scripture we know that if we confess our sins, truly repent of them, then God the Father will forgive us, cleanse us, repair us and not condemn us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9, KJV) and There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. (Romans 8:1, KJV)  When my facial and body expressions questioned the farmer’s judgment, he proceeded to teach me a lesson that I never forgot, and one that I have used many times since then.

The farmer looked at me and said, “Son, do you know the Duck Test?” I hesitated a little and finally said sheepishly, “No Sir, I don’t.” The farmer, with a condescending glance said, “Well you really should, so let me tell you. When I see an animal in the farm-yard that looks like a duck, waddles like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, and flies like a duck, I am very confident that animal is a duck.”

In my 2010 post, I went on to delineate many of the ways that Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) resemble businesses. Relying on the duck test, my argument that institutions of higher education (IHEs) are businesses consisted of the following premises:

  1. IHEs must be incorporated or chartered by the state.
  2. IHEs own or rent property.
  3. IHEs pay taxes or users’ fees.
  4. IHEs have employees, who form or threaten to form unions to gain bargaining power against an entrenched management known as the administration.
  5. IHEs must pay their employees wages at or above the federal or local minimum wage.
  6. IHEs must pay FICA for all employees, except those excluded legally. If the institution doesn’t pay FICA, the employees are required to pay FICA as self-employed individuals, making those individuals businesses.
  7. IHEs must provide medical insurance consistent with federal or local laws.
  8. IHEs must meet all federal and local compliance regulations placed upon businesses.
  9. IHEs offer products or services to individuals. Whether, you label those products or services courses, credit hours, instruction or an education, the institutions collect money in exchange for those products or services.
  10. IHEs compete for students (just like businesses compete for customers).
  11. Just like a business, the expenses of a given IHE can only exceed its revenue for a limited period of time. It doesn’t matter whether the IHE is classified as a not-for-profit or for-profit organization. If its expenses exceed its revenue for too long, the IHE can be forced to declare bankruptcy and close down.
  12. IHEs are required to undergo annual audits of finances including balance sheets and cash flow sheets, and submit them to the appropriate federal departments, including the Department of Education. In some states, these audits must be submitted to the Department of Commerce.

Since institutions of higher education look, act and speak like businesses, I am very confident that according to the duck test, IHEs are businesses.

The second article I mentioned in my introduction, A University Is Not a Business (and Other Fantasies) is  probably the more powerful of the two articles. It was written by Milton Greenberg and appeared in EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 2 (March/April 2004): 10–16. Professor Greenberg was professor emeritus of government at American University until his death in 2015. He  previously served as provost and interim president at American University, and as such devoted much of his work to developing and rewarding high-quality faculty. Greenberg once said, “College and university teaching represents more than expertise in a scholarly discipline. It means that you are privileged to be part of an extended community that constitutes one of the most important professions in the world.” Provost Greenberg was also known as the most eloquent expert on and spokesperson for the Servicemen’s Readjustment Act, also known as the “G.I. Bill,” which gave veterans across the country access to federal money to pay for higher education after it was passed in 1944.

courtesy of GraphicStock

In Greenberg’s article, he wastes little time in laying out the opposing positions in this war. His opening paragraph sets the stage for the epic battle that was to ensue. The battle lines are clearly drawn.

Academe emerges from—and largely remains within—a culture that sees only a remote and sometimes hostile relationship between its activities and the economic system. This view takes the form of an often-heard campus expression: “A university is not a business.”

Greenberg begins his attack with the two Washington Post December 2003 articles, “The Lesson Colleges Need to Learn,” and  “An Educating Use of Business Practices.”  These articles were written by one of their leading business columnists, Steve Pearlstein.  Pearlstein committed the “ultimate sin” in the eyes of the academy by questioning the efficiency of teaching the “same course” on many different campuses using many different faculty of varying calibre. Pearlstein suggested the unthinkable: greater efficiency and perhaps better learning could occur by using a simple technology like CDs to provide the same superior lectures by superior lecturers to all students across the many different campuses. Pearlstein came under general hostility and heavy fire from the higher education establishment, which considered learning “too special to be run like a crass business enterprise.” You can’t use the word efficiency in the same sentence with learning.

from Presenter Media

Greenberg continued by noting that although the usual readers of the EDUCAUSE Review had probably heard, and possibly even uttered, that same thought many times, this was most likely the first time it appeared on the front page of the business section of a leading U.S. newspaper. Pearlstein had done the unthinkable. He challenged one of the basic tenets of the academy right in front of the general public. How dare he do this? Higher education was one of the untouchable foundational columns of our society. It was beyond the pale of criticism or suspicion. It held such a position of high esteem that people didn’t dare question the academy or what it did. They trusted the academy. However, here was one of the leading newspapers in the country, raising doubt. This was treason! This was war! Faculty took to the streets, and joined the barricades. They raised their torches of the “true light” and shook their fists at this interloper who had the courage to question their legitimacy. How could higher education be a business? The guiding principle of the business world was antithetical to everything for which academy stood. What standard was this pariah attempting to foist on the academy? Simply stated the principle was “the hierarchical and orderly management of people, property, productivity, and finance for profit.”  Greenberg didn’t let up his attack. He continued by noting that in his observation, the ” ‘not a business’ mantra arises on a campus whenever an administrator expresses concern over a program that is losing money or whenever a governing board suggests that the faculty be better managed or supervised in their work. Any mention of such matters will call forth the faculty judgment that the administration has a corporate mentality and is treating the university like a business, the ultimate sin.”  The implication was clear. Faculty had the truth. Everyone else, especially those outside the academy, had to have faith in them and trust them. Here we had the first chink in the armour, the first admission from someone of stature, that essentially all IHEs were essentially faith-based institutions.

To be fair, Greenberg attempts to present another side to this argument by appealing again to the Washington Post for his ammunition. This time he turns to an October 2003 op-ed piece, “When States Pay Less, Guess Who Pays More?” by two economists, Robert Archibald and David Feldman. In their article they claim, “Our universities are not inefficient institutions on a bad business plan. Their administrators understand that a college degree is the ticket to the 21st-century economy. There is a crisis in higher education today, but it’s not well-publicized tuition spikes. It’s the long-term decline in political and financial support for the idea that all students should have access to higher education, regardless of ability to pay.”  At this point Greenberg leaves the revenue side of the equation and focuses his attention on the expenditure side. Since we’re not looking at the expenditure side in this blog post, we’ll leave Greenberg’s arguments for later posts, However, to whet your appetite for a good debate, at this point I include his closing statements: “…how the academy perceives itself matters. If higher education is to lead its own renewal, it must think about its people, its property, and its productivity in business terms.”

from Presenter Media

I am sorry Professors Archibald and Feldman, but our universities are grossly inefficient and operate on a very bad business plan. If you consistently have more expenditures than revenues, and you know your projections for increases in expenditures far outstrip projections for increases in revenues, then you have a bad business plan. We can (and probably will) debate why your education model is the very best model available. Before we proceed to the expenditure side of the equation, we will still have much to discuss concerning the revenue side. I am sure that we will end up debating many questions about the sources and potential magnitude of revenue sources. The debates will continue to expenditures as we argue about the manner in which we are using our given resources and, possibly of greater importance, how we should use them. To my readers, I apologize for adding argument after argument, seemingly complexifying this issue unnessarily. However, I am very interested in this topic and feel very strongly about it. Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. reportedly said, “I would not give a fig for the simplicity this side of complexity, but I would give my life for the simplicity on the other side of complexity.” Friends I am seeking simplicity, but I am afraid we will have to battle through complexity to get there.

 

 

 

 

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We’re Back in Business, Part II

As promised Higher Ed By Baylis LLC (HEBB) is officially back in business. This post is a continuation of Today is April 11! This is no April Fools’ joke. We’re Back in Business. So I begin this post with the third and fourth announcements which I had planned to make.

The above picture of a store front with a Grand Reopening  sign is only symbolic. HEBB doesn’t yet have a physical building. However, we are in the process of building a new viable, and vital business entity. I have placed emphasis on several words and concepts in the preceding sentence.The emphasis is on the word we.  From January 2013, the official beginning of Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, By Baylis was the only investor and only operating  consultant. My loving, loyal and responsible wife of 47 years, had access to all records of the HEBB, including the finances. I took this prudent step in case something happened to me, since twice in 2009, I entered a hospital as a member of the ABB (All But Bagged) Club. What does “All But Bagged” mean? The best description I can give probably came from the doctor that greeted Elaine when she got to the hospital when I first experienced the exploding artery, imploding tumor, and what looked liked a stroke. The doctor truly thought that I would leave the hospital in a body bag. When Elaine was introduced to the attending doctor, the doctor told her to call the family together. Elaine asked for an explanation. The doctor said, “If he survives the operation, he’ll never be the same.”

The first significant change is that HEBB will very soon officially be a “we” It will no longer be just By Baylis. Over the past several years, as I talked with potential clients about their needs, it became obvious that the needs and the potential solution to these clients’ problems were well beyond the capabilities of one individual. To remedy this deficiency, quoting the Lennon and McCartney song title, I have called for “a little help from my friends“. I have been in discussion with a number of former colleagues and the friends that I have built up over my 40 years of experience in the world of higher education. Out of those discussions, I am pleased to announce that almost a dozen highly qualified, experienced consultants and coaches, have agreed to work with me. There are several possibilities concerning the final cooperative arrangements. In some cases, the individuals may actually join HEBB and become principals. In other situations, HEBB and some consulting/coaching practices may form an alliance and work together cooperatively.

The above discussions are ongoing because they involve intricate legal negotiations. As soon as individual arrangements are finalized, we will make those announcements. I know I am pleased with the caliber of my current, potential partners. I am very confident that potential clients will find the collection of experts that emerges from these discussions to be a powerful force, which can easily and economically help them identify their watershed decisions and find practical and feasible answers to those organizational, world-changing questions.

It is not yet clear what form the final entity will take when it emerges from the above mentioned discussions. I guarantee that the final entity will share the dream that lead to the founding of Higher Ed By Baylis LLC. It was a dream of resilient, welcoming, wise, listening, flexible, entrepreneurial organizations that had a strong sense of integrity, honesty, confidence, determination, and quality. For Christian colleges, this meant they had to have a central anchor of Christ. Emanating from the proposition and relational truth expressed in Christ, were cultures of learning, scholarship, engagement, hospitality, evidence, excellence and worship. A culture is a group of people who have a foundational set of values, beliefs and principles. These people generally or habitually behave in a manner consistent with their values and have developed a collective knowledge base that has grown out of their beliefs and actions. A culture is who the people are, what they know, and how they  typically behave. I expressed my dream of  21st Century Christian University in the following diagram that appeared in the 2006 Winter edition of the Cornerstone magazine:

 

courtesy of By Baylis and Cornerstone University

Returning to a discussion of the words emphasized in opening paragraph of this fourth announcement,  some of you may be asking the question, “Don’t the terms viable and vital mean the same thing?” In one sense, they both carry the connotation of being alive. However, in another sense, they mean something very different. I am using the term  viable in the sense of being capable of success or continuing effectiveness. I see HEBB as having a good probability of being successful. It can easily be very effective. I am using the term vital  in its sense of having remarkable energy, liveliness, or force of personality. I foresee HEBB as a force with which to be reckoned in the coaching and consulting world. The team which we are assembling will be second to none. They will all be recognized as experts in their fields and masters of their trades. It is very important to note the plural designation on the words field and trade. HEBB will be a one-stop shop for organizations seeking help. In the educational arena, we are assembling a team that can cover the waterfront of accreditation, accountability, admissions and recruiting, advancement and fund raising, alumni relations, athletics, curriculum development and management, educational law, facility planning and management, finance, information technology, human resources and professional development, leadership development and succession, planning (including strategic, operational, tactical  and master planning), regulatory compliance, and student development.  HEBB will be able to work with and help any institution, whether public or private, at any educational level including primary, secondary, or higher education. Do you get the feeling of why I am excited to be back in business? Although the emphasis to this point has been with educational entitities, I foresee in the near future extending the vision of HEBB to service Christian and non-profit public service ministries, since there are many similarities in mission and operations with educational institutions. 

If you are an individual who would be interested in joining HEBB as a principal or you represent a  coaching/consulting practice that would be interested in collaborating in an alliance with HEBB, I would be very interested in talking with you. Please leave a comment in the reply box with your name, area(s) of expertise, an email address, a  phone number, and the best time to contact you. Since I have the protocols set so that I must approve any comments before they appear, your contact information will not be shared with anyone.

from Presenter Media
from Presenter Media

The fourth and final announcement in these two blog posts relates to the HEBB website which you can find by clicking here: HEBB. For almost 18 months the website has been effectively shut down. With the reopening of Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, that’s about to change. The website is going to experience extensive remodeling to reflect the changes in HEBB.

The first change you will see is a new welcome page which will introduce people to Higher Ed By Baylis LLC, its mission, vision and core values. There will be a staff page that will introduce people to the HEBB team, a brief bio and their areas of focus. There will be a blog page with links to the blogs written by our people. There will be page of introduction to HEBB services for institutional clients. There will also be a  page of introduction to services for individual and family clients. There will be a page of resources available to the general public. There will be a page of the cost of various HEBB services. These changes should be in place by the end of April.

 

 

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The Value of the Liberal Arts to the University

I have invited a friend and former colleague, Erik Benson,  to offer the first guest post on By’s Musings.  I first met Erik when I hired him at Cornerstone University in 2005. I was immediately impressed with this history instructor who brought history to life in the classroom and in the field. Less than one year later when I started CELT, the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Cornerstone University,  he was an obvious choice to be part of the faculty leadership group.  He has continued to impress students and colleagues at CU, where in 2013, he was voted “Professor of the Year.” He is currently Associate Professor of History, at CU, and Principal of ipsative, a company focusing on educational consulting and faculty development. If you would like to find out more about ipsative, please visit their website at ipsative.

This post grew out of a challenge that I set before Erik. Since I have been working on a project attempting to represent the many cultures that come together to form a university, I asked him to describe the ideal culture of history within the university setting. He eagerly took the challenge and expanded it to set history within the broader category of humanities and the liberal arts. This is the Erik that I knew at Cornerstone University. At least once a month, he would come by my office near the close of the day, stand in the open doorway, and ask, “Do you have a minute?” I almost always said, “Yes”, even though I know that the minute would end up more like an hour. Erik always had challenging questions about higher education in general and our university in particular. Together, we were working toward solutions for the tough, intractable problems facing higher education and our students. Some of those discussions are among my most memorable memories of my days at CU.

Without further ado, here is Erik’s post.

For what it’s worth: the value of the liberal arts to the university.

The last year has seen a seemingly endless stream of controversies in higher education. Among these were proposals to channel more government aid to students studying in “STEM” (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) fields, at the expense of those studying in the liberal arts. In Kentucky, the governor recently suggested that students studying “French literature” should not receive any state financial aid.

Debt, jobs, and basements…
The arguments are pretty straightforward. STEM fields are more promising in terms of jobs for graduates, and there is an unmet demand in the US for people trained in these fields. Amidst public concerns about escalating college costs and the resulting student debt, governments ought to insure that they fund fields best suited to meet the needs of both employers and graduates.
There is a certain logic to this. The public concern about tuition and student debt is undeniable. Furthermore, evidence abounds that there is indeed a demand for workers in STEM fields that promise large salaries upon graduation. (In fact, there is high demand for workers in skilled trades that do not require a college degree at all. A Michigan factory owner recently told me recently that he cannot hire enough skilled tradespeople, even though he actively recruits throughout the US and abroad.) In turn, the numbers are less promising for those graduating with liberal arts degrees. The anecdote of the humanities graduate moving back into the parents’ basement has become popular lore. In sum, the desire to channel students toward STEM majors seems a perfectly reasonable response.

Not so fast…
Yet in fact this response is ill-considered. For one thing, it is based on the premise that US colleges are churning out a slew of (unemployed) liberal arts majors. As Fareed Zakaria notes in his book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, between 1971 and 2012, the number of graduates with degrees in English fell from 7.6 to 3.0 percent; the number of business graduates rose from 13.7 to 20.5 percent. Only one-third of all degrees were in fields that could be classified as “liberal arts,” and this number was matched by business and health majors alone. In short, the stories of hordes of unemployed liberal arts graduates living in their parents’ basements are exaggerated.
Beyond this dubious premise, the fact is that the liberal arts approach in American higher education has served students well. Zakaria contrasts it with European higher education systems, in which students are channeled into specific vocations well before they reach college age; those that go to college are few, and they receive a rather narrowly focused training in a field. In the US, college education has historically been more “general” in focus due to being in a dynamic, changing economy and society. In short, the liberal arts have prepared American graduates to be more responsive and flexible in a changing world.
Zakaria points to a real strength of the American liberal arts education, as both anecdotal and statistical evidence attests. Numerous studies reveal that graduates with liberal arts degrees actually have fiscally rewarding careers. One such study, published in the Chronicle of Higher Education in 2014, found that while liberal arts graduates initially lagged behind professional and pre-professional peers in salaries, over time they caught up and passed them. The study noted that this was due in no small part to graduate degrees earned by liberal arts majors, which enhanced their earning ability. (Interestingly, even in pre-professional and professional fields, a comparable percentage had a graduate degree, suggesting they too received an earnings boost from this.) Still, only the most short-sighted of people would argue a degree outside the liberal arts is a better financial bet; in fact, considering the investment a college education entails, one ought to be considering long-term earnings forecasts rather than merely the entry-level job, which seems to be the focus of the moment.

On second thought…
Why liberal arts degrees offer such long-term earning possibilities is an interesting question. The answer seems to lie in what Zakaria points out—they better prepare one for a changing environment. Vocationally focused educations prepare one for a specific job or career track that can be lucrative at the entry level, but may limit one’s advancement possibilities over time. (Put simply, one might be trained to press certain buttons, but that likely will not lead to workplace advancement.) Worse, as technological and business advances change the workplace, jobs and entire career tracks can come and go. As Thomas Friedman points out in The Earth is Flat, many programming jobs in the US have easily been outsourced to Asia, and won’t be coming back any time soon in light of the cost differentials. This is why many who train in narrowly tailored fields have found it necessary to return to college later in life—their education did not prepare them for the change. Lest we think we can anticipate much of this change, consider how many jobs and fields exist today that educators and politicians could not even fathom 20 years ago. As a senior vice president at the Association of American Colleges and Universities admitted, “We are not good at predicting what jobs are going to be required in five years and 10 years down the road.” It is simply not a reasonable expectation.
My wife’s career experience attests to many of the above points. A graduate of a liberal arts college with a major in history and international studies, she went on to earn an M.A. in Mass Communication. She since has worked in both higher education and marketing, and currently has a thriving business in content strategy and writing. Her mass communication degree offered her hands-on experience in the then-emerging field of web design and development, which cued her into the new forms of media. That said, a significant portion of the technical knowledge she gained is now outdated because of the rapid advances in the last decade. She actually points to her B.A. as being more valuable and foundational for her career. Her studies in history and global culture ingrained in her a broader, more strategic perspective. She also credits them for making her a good writer, which is her “bread and butter” today. Finally, they made her more self-aware and confident, all of which led her to easily transition between jobs and career tracks without need of returning to school. In short, she epitomizes what Zakaria says about the liberals arts—it made her responsive and adaptable in a changing world.

Making the case…
While studies exist of the earning power of the liberal arts, and many faculty can cite numerous anecdotes of successful graduates, there has been a general failure to “sell” this to politicians and the public. Many in “liberal arts” fields lack an interest in informing potential students, their parents, and the public at large the career possibilities (or even proudly resist the idea). Too often, the “case” consists of rather ethereal assertions about the value of the liberal arts, the “life of the mind,” and avoiding vocational obsession, none of which are wrong, but which are not applicable for many considering college, with its expense and commitment. In short, we need to do a better job making the case.
In my case, I have occasion to meet with prospective students and parents who visit our campus. I emphasize that the study of history offers them much in terms of “life of the mind,” but also in terms of career preparation. In addition to citing studies on earnings (which many do not know), I explain specifically what history offers to them—highly transferable skills in research, critical thinking, and communication which will be proven useful over time in a constantly changing job market. I point out that these not only work for someone who might pursue a traditional career in the field (e.g. academia), but also someone working in marketing or government. I encourage them to think of how they might pair the study of history with a major or minor in another field, such as business. I even encourage students in other majors (such as business) to meet credit requirements with an applicable history course; I’ve had a number of graduates tell me this turned out to be one of the most useful things they did in college. In short, I can show them the practical benefits of their study—and they usually come to see the value.
Ultimately, in considering the issue of financing higher education and the liberal arts, the real consideration ought not be mere cost, but value. People will pay more for something they believe is worth it; they are bothered when they feel they have paid for something that is not worth it. We in academics need to make a better case for the value of the liberal arts to students.

References:
Patricia Cohen, “A Rising Call to Promote STEM Education and Cut Liberal Arts Funding,” New York Times (22 February 2016), B1.

Thomas Friedman, The Earth is Flat (Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 2006).

Beckie Supiano, “How Liberal-Arts Majors Fare over the Long Haul,” The Chronicle of Higher Education (22 January 2014). http://chronicle.com/article/How-Liberal-Arts-Majors-Fare/144133 (Accessed 1 March 2016).

Fareed Zakaria, In Defense of a Liberal Education (W.W. Norton and Co., 2015).

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What Makes a Better Neighbor: a Prison or a University?

In February 1980, one of the most horrific prison riots in US history occurred at the Maximum Security State Prison in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Several years later, at an academic gathering in the beautiful conference setting of quaint Santa Fe, the dinner discussion turned to the question of why the main branch of the state university was located in Albuquerque, while the maximum security state prison was located in Santa Fe. An administrator from a college in New Mexico, replied, “As State Capital, Santa Fe had first choice.” When I first heard this comment about 30 years ago, I thought it was a joke. However, I immediately recognized that this one-liner could come in handy in future discussions. Thus, I filed it away in my memory to pull out at an appropriate time.

I will admit that over the intervening years, in addition to employing it myself, I have heard others use the “first choice” quip on more than one occasion in discussions of seemingly anomalous situations. My next post, “Which Would You Find More Acceptable in Your Back Yard, a Toxic Waste Dump or a Murder of Crows?” represents such an occurrence. 

When I started this series of posts on the NIMBY syndrome, I figured it was time to pull out this old story and look at it more closely. I thought of three general questions that I should answer. Firstly, are there other state capitals which may have chosen prisons over universities? Secondly, what are positives and negatives for a community having a prison within its environs? Thirdly, what are the benefits and detriments that an institution of higher learning imparts to the community in which it resides?

I quickly discovered that arriving at the answer to the first question was much more time consuming than I expected it to be. I first ascertained that all 50 state capitals had jails, prisons, and/or detention centers of some stripe within their metropolitan boundaries.

Surprisingly, trying to determine how many state capitals hosted state-supported universities also proved a little trickier than I thought. I began by settling on a definition of state-supported university. For my purposes, I looked at institutions of higher education that: 1) called themselves public colleges or universities; 2) offered four-year baccalaureate degrees as the core of their undergraduate academic programming; 3) offered primarily full-time, traditional, residential programs; 4) offered campus housing to students; and 5) garnered a significant slice of their general operating budget from direct state appropriations. In my search I found 41 states that had institutions that met all five of my conditions. Besides New Mexico, the other eight that did not were Iowa, Maryland, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

The higher education options in the capitals of these nine states present an interesting mix. All nine of the state capitals have for-profit institutions offering non-traditional degree programs for adult students. Four of the state capitals do not have any private colleges or universities that offer traditional four-year baccalaureate programs.  These are Des Moines, Iowa, Pierre, South Dakota, Montpelier, Vermont, and Cheyenne Wyoming. Only two of the state capitals, Annapolis, Maryland and Pierre, South Dakota, do not have public two-year community colleges.

Although Annapolis, Maryland does not have any state supported four-year school, it is the home of the United States Naval Academy. As a national military academy, it is not the typical college. First students do not pay tuition. They “pay” for their education by a military service requirement after graduation or separation from the academy. The admissions process is also quite complicated, with the student completing a normal academic application and a nomination application to those individuals or groups that are authorized to nominate students to the national military academies.

Thus, Pierre, South Dakota seems to fall completely outside the normal pattern of educational opportunities in state capitals. There are no traditional college options, either public or private, in Pierre. Students just graduating from high school must leave Pierre and go elsewhere to attend any college.

Therefore, the data suggest that most state capitals have not picked prisons instead of colleges or universities. While 96% of state capitals had state supported, two-year technical or community college, a hefty 82% were also home to state supported universities. Thus, most state provided their state capitals with both prisons and state supported higher education.

Although most economic impact studies give the edge to universities over prisons in providing economic benefits to the surrounding community, there are a few negative blips on the radar screen. In the last quarter of the 20th century, the two unrelated trends of an economic downturn in rural America and the epidemic-like increase in U.S. prison population caused some rural communities to turn to prisons as a basis for economic development. While most economic and employment impact studies look at the increased revenue produced by the universities and prisons, they do not take into account the added costs of increased services required and social disruption.

With all the economic, cultural and educational advantages that colleges and universities provide communities, why would any community embrace a prison before a college or university? There are some economic reasons, but many of the reasons seem to be social. Whereas a college or university is likely to drastically change the culture of a community, a prison is very unlikely to cause any such changes. Colleges may attract a diverse student body that is very different from the community. This can cause tensions among the students and the local residents. Faculty and students are also by nature activists and push for change, while the local residents may be very content to remain in their status quo. College students are also generally free to move about.  I once read a newspaper account concerning a community resident complaining about a wild party which spilled over from a college into the surrounding community. It described the scene by saying, “The inmates were running wild.” With prisons, the inmates almost never run wild in the local community. Prisoners are locked up and have little or no contact with the surrounding community.

Once a prison is built, there are few extra demands on public safety services or transportation infrastructure. Once a college is built there are multiple extra public safety or infrastructure concerns. Colleges and universities have numerous, large events with a concomitant influx of visitors, which must pass through the community to get to the campus. Communities are left with the big question of who is going to pay. Since all public and most private colleges are tax-exempt organizations, they do not pay state and local taxes to cover the cost of the common public services that communities must provide like public safety, transportation infrastructure like roads and bridges, and utility infrastructure concerns like water and sewer. To get around the tax questions, some communities have asked college and universities and other tax-exempted organizations to pay user fees to cover what might be considered their fair share of the cost of providing community services.

One other concern with a number of college communities is the disruption that the expansion of a college causes the local neighborhoods. From personal experience, I have seen neighbors very upset with the way colleges have bought up properties and changed the nature of the neighborhood. With public institutions, the use of eminent domain can further alienate the locals.

 Why are prisons sometimes considered better neighbors than college and universities? Colleges and universities change the nature of their neighborhood. They are a disruptive force, costing more than they are worth in the opinions of some neighbors. Once prisons are built, they usually just sit there and have no interaction with the neighborhood.

 

 

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Life Cycle of Alumni: Part XIV – It Takes an Institution to Develop Successful and Satisfied Alumni

Alumni development can’t be delegated to just a few people. It takes the whole institution to develop successful and satisfied alumni. For more than 40 years, I was involved in the oversight of admissions offices and the processes of recruiting and admitting students. Since my earliest days in the admissions area, I have believed that one of the most important tasks of an admissions office was to begin the task of developing satisfied and successful alumni.

At that time, college education was definitely a family decision. The most significant people in helping prospective students with their college selection process were the parents. You must remember that this was more than a half century ago. At that time, students were different than they tend to be today. The over-whelming majority of students were traditional age (18 to 25 years old). Most of those students started college immediately after high school or a short stint in the armed services. My first administrative position was in a traditional liberal arts, residential college, with almost no commuter population. One of the largest tasks of the admissions office was to sell the campus experience.

I wanted our recruitment efforts focused on two ideas or pictures. The first was to help prospective students picture themselves as students on our campus. They had to see themselves on campus. What would that look like? How would they fit in? In developing these pictures, we could not forget the parents of these prospective students. Parents needed to see how our institution would assist their students in furthering the process of development that the parents had begun.

The second picture that I wanted to help prospective students develop was the picture of themselves as successful alumni. What did they want to do with their lives? What was the ministry, vocation or career to which they felt called? How would our college help them achieve their goals? I also wanted to plant the seed of the question: “As a successful alumni, how could they give back to their institution so that others could have the same experience?”  Not forgetting the parents, the institution needed to also show them the possibilities of what successful alumni were doing and could do. If their students were successful, these parents would become powerful allies, in their communities, as well as their social and professional circles, for not only the admissions effort, but also for the advancement office.

As I noted in a previous post in this series, the selling job does not stop once a student applies, has been admitted, or even enrolls. College admission did not guarantee graduation. The path from matriculation to graduation has been a hard journey for many students. Retention very much depends upon students seeing that their goals are stronger than the challenges that they incur. To assist in that process, we had to put faces on the successes of our alumni. Students needed to know that others had previously trod this path and successfully traversed it. It could be done. Success stories are an ecnouragement to those still on the journey.

To help paint the picture of successful and satisfied alumni, I recruited alumni to assist our efforts. I asked alumni to distribute materials and talk to their family, friends, neighbors and colleagues. I asked alumni to host admissions parties for other prospective students and their parents to meet real alumni and students, as well as the paid recruitment staff. Sometimes, I was even able to convince faculty to become involved in these efforts.

Once the prospective students became enrolled students, I continued my effort to involve alumni. I recruited alumni to become volunteer career counselors via telephone contact or campus and off-campus visits. At this point of time, email was a fledgling idea and not a practical option.  I used alumni in internships and practicum placements. I encouraged faculty to invite alumni into their classes to speak about the career opportunities in their fields or to give guest lectures about specific topics. This did two things. It kept the alumni involved with the institution, and made them feel good about giving back to the institution. It also planted the seed in the minds of students of the possibility of doing the same thing after they graduated.

The selling job on alumni is not even finished at commencement. The institution has to keep meeting the needs of the alumni. This definitely involves maintaining vehicles for the communications network that students had begun to develop while enrolled. This could also involve the maintenance of a placement office for career assistance. Another option is the provision of life-long learning opportunities involving faculty, staff, and other alumni as instructors and participants.

In the next post in this series, I will address some of the substantial educational questions involved in helping and guiding students from matriculation to graduation, and hence to alumni status. Happy, successful and satisfied alumni are much more eager to be involved alumni at all levels.