What will The College of 2020 look like?

Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future

Niels Bohr

(Note: the following was first published as an invited contribution on The College of 2020 in parts 1 and 2. I reproduce it here for the benefit of my readers by permission of the editors of the College of 2020)

What will the College of 2020 look like? It probably will be similar in at least one way to the College of 2011 -there isn't any one archetypical College of 2011 and there won't be any one archetypical College of 2020 either. US higher education consists of about 4,500 accredited colleges of 2011 with an incredible diversity of sizes, approaches, missions, and resources. I would expect the same to be generally true in 2020, with some important caveats: I think there will be significantly fewer accredited colleges in 2020, and the mix of sizes, approaches, missions, and resources will be quite different from today.

These changes will be driven by two forces that push from different directions, but each leading to increasing fiscal constraints on higher education. On the one side, local and national governments are finding it increasingly difficult to support higher education at traditional levels. There a world-wide movement towards decreasing the role of government in providing social goods, and the US reflects that movement. In addition, other governmental costs such as health care, prisons, and retirements are growing rapidly and squeezing out areas such as education. On the other side, all of higher education utilizes a model whose costs over the last 30 years have steadily grown about 3% a year above CPI increase. In the tuition-dependent private sector, tuition has grown apace, i.e. roughly CPI plus 3% every year for the past three decades. The costs of higher education are reaching a point where government, parents, and students are beginning to question if the product is worth the price. The answer is increasingly "no" for private institutions that have lower brand value, but the "no" likely will move upstream in the value ladder over time as costs increase until only a relatively small number of high brand value private institutions are immune. On the public side, the answer is increasingly, "no, not given our fiscal constraints" no matter what the brand value of the institution.

Thus what we will likely see over the next decade in higher education is an attempt to create models that provide high educational value (often, perhaps, higher than at present) with less cost per student. So to imagine what the future might look like, we need to understand why costs are so high and increase so rapidly, and how that can be changed. Oversimplified, a few reasons for the high costs are:

• In this world in which institutional aspirations are increasingly homogenized around a model set by the richest institutions, there is a continuing "arms race" to upgrade and increase teaching, recreational, living and dining facilities; expand student activities and student services; and broaden curricular options – all very costly "improvements"
• Physical plants are generally are very expensive for the number of students served
• Increased bureaucracy is needed to manage the growing fruits of the arms race and ever increasing government regulations.
• Arms race expansions of the breadth of course offerings lead to lowering the average number of students/class, thereby decreasing teaching productivity (students educated divided by teaching costs).
• Colleges increasingly are being asked to remedy the educational failings of secondary education, and this diversion to a non-core mission adds a costly overlay
• Teaching approaches have varied little over the centuries and consequently there currently is little room for increased productivity in this core function.
• Costs tend to increase faster than CPI in any sector where costs are driven by personnel costs, the personnel are highly skilled, and no productivity increases occur.

Another significant driver of educational cost increases has been attempts by many institutions to move up the brand-value chain by increasing emphasis on faculty research. This results in significant cost shifting from faculty research into undergraduate education e.g.:

 

• Research faculty command higher salaries than teaching faculty and those higher costs are spread over fewer students because of reduced teaching loads. Thus teaching productivity gets a double blow.
• Research facilities and instrumentation are more expensive than teaching facilities, and research sponsors and donors seldom if ever pay the complete costs of building and maintaining those facilities and purchasing this instrumentation, leaving costs to be covered by unrestricted funds – which are generally primarily tuition income.
• Government regulations and the bureaucracies needed to respond to them go up exponentially as research comes in, and research funding almost never covers these costs completely, again adding pressure on unrestricted funding.

Different institutions will begin to respond to the financial constraints in different ways depending on their particular conditions and missions. One of the most widespread responses, however, is likely to be a stepping back from the increasingly homogenized view of what "quality" means in higher education. Perversely, "quality" is not currently defined by learning outcomes for students, but by costly surrogates such as quality of student services and amenities, quality of physical plant, quality of faculty research – in short, the elements of the arms race which is defined by reference to the richest educational institutions. Lowering overall costs will require in most cases that institutions define their own unique educational niche – stepping back from the rich-institution inspired arms race. This entails sharpening and redefining institutional missions in order to create niches that are both valuable for students and society, and fiscally sustainable. Different institutions will deemphasize components of the present arms race in different ways, and will create some new, less expensive value propositions in their stead. For example, one component of the response of many may be to narrow their curricular focus to a relatively few popular majors, or to focus on pre-professional training. Happily, many will probably decide that a key component of their new value proposition will be an increased focus on learning appropriate to their new sharpened mission, and on demonstrating that effectiveness. Thus the colleges of 2020 may well show a much wider aspirational profile than what we see today, and one which is more focused on demonstrated learning rather than surrogates.

Another response that likely will be widespread is to increase utilization of physical plant. This can be done by admitting more students, possibly moving to year-around operations. Of course, this only is beneficial if savings on plant are not spent on increased instructional costs. For many institutions, this will mean that faculty will be expected to teach more courses and forego summers away from campus- and many students will have the opportunity (and obligation) to break out of the traditional fall-spring academic year. Online learning will also likely play a major role in enabling more students to be taught without increasing plant or instructional costs proportionally.

In fact, one response that will be almost universal is greatly increased use of technology to improve both productivity and learning outcomes. In particular, online (and blended) learning likely will be a central component of cost cutting, increased learning, and increased access. For stronger brand institutions, targeted use of online and/or blended learning will lead to increased learning outcomes, greater student satisfaction, and better utilization of faculty. It will also be used extensively for projecting the brand beyond the current geographic boundaries of the institutions. For weaker brand institutions, the same uses will be found, but with much more aggressive implementation required in order to achieve fiscal sustainability. For example, groups of weaker brand institutions might jointly share an online curriculum, and differentiate themselves through individual tutoring support and student-life amenities.

Online learning of all types and levels of quality will become readily available as colleges and corporations rush into one of the few areas that holds promise to increase productivity in higher education. A number of these programs will involve visible, major scholars working with the best experts in pedagogy, and have demonstrated high learning outcomes. The widespread availability of such programs will provide a major challenge for institutions that provide a "generic" education that can be easily and cheaply replaced by a high quality online program. (In fact, many of these low brand- differentiation institutions already have significant financial problems because they have few competitive advantages.) These low-brand- differentiation institutions will need to change mission and approach in order to create a differentiated niche that provides value and competitive advantage. Many will not be able to respond creatively in a timely fashion, and will not survive.

Lower ranked research universities will find it increasingly difficult to afford their current profiles - research universities are by far the most expensive form of higher education yet invented. In addition, overall research funding is likely to fall significantly over the next decade, thus making many lower ranked programs even less viable. Options will range from completely leaving research and totally changing faculty profile, to intermediate scenarios that involve a larger teaching faculty and significantly smaller research faculty. Overall, the value proposition for this group of institutions likely will shift in the direction of high quality student learning.

All of this is on the cost side- but some additional changes will work on the side of the price students pay to get a degree. Numerous institutions probably will emulate the Western Governors University and move to competency –based evaluations that enable students to move through the system at their own pace. Such approaches allow students to acquire knowledge from many sources, including work or online programs of their choosing, and get credit from the "home" institution by demonstrating competency. Bologna-like approaches will also provide educational outcomes measures that will greatly facilitate transferring of credit from one institution to another, thus providing a diversity of different cost pathways to a degree. As a consequence, many four year institutions may find that their first two years have been "hollowed out" by less expensive two year organizations specializing in quality transferrable core courses. This loss of enrollment in the more profitable core courses will put additional pressure on the budgets of the four year institutions, thus forcing additional mission change.

So for 2020 – increased diversity of institutional missions, greater use of online and blended learning, 12 month academic calendar, fewer research universities, increased transfer opportunities, not all existing institutions will still be around, and student learning will be a key differentiating factor. Now what was it that Bohr said about predictions?

Comments

[Fat Man]

I am sure that there can be great savings in the use of physical plant. In a previous millennium when I was a student in college, we had classes at 8 a.m. My kids who went to college over the last decade(a Midwestern member of USC's peer group) never had an 8 a.m. class.

A week has 168 hours, you have to be able to use more than 16 of them for classes.

[Wallace Boston]

I agree that the Western Governors' competency based model will be attractive to some institutions. However, it's my understanding that competency based programs are not eligible for Federal Student Aid unless you were grandfathered with the 2008 Higher Ed reauthorization and evidently, WGU was the only institution grandfathered. Wonder when others will recognize that successful legislative lobbying effort?

Lloyd responds: I checked with an ex- Dept of Ed high-ranking official who said that he knew of no reauthorization exception having been made for WGU. He noted the obvious caveat that federal aid would not be available for courses that people tested out of or for which they got credit for life experiences. However, he said that if a college is accredited, and the student registers and meets the required course criteria of the college, then the student is eligible for aid. He noted that the 6/1/2011 definition of credit hour shifts to a competency-based approach in that a credit hour is now defined a" an amount of work represented in intended learning outcomes and verified by evidence of student achievement that is an institutionally established equivalence that reasonably approximates" the old-time based definition.

This, of course, ignores the reality that in the old-time definition different people had to do vastly different amounts of work in order to pass a course, but it does specify a couple of important points that support competency-based programs: 1) the course should have defined learning outcomes; and 2) evidence that those outcomes have been achieved is required.

On the other hand, to show that the Government is always working on our side, the latest regs on eligibility for student financial aid make it somewhat more complicated: "A school that wishes to award FSA funds in a program using direct assessment must apply to the the Department for approval of the program,using the E-App. The application must specify the equivalent number of credit or clock hours for a direct assessment program (or portion of the program, as applicable). (The clock or credit hours will be used as the
basis for the FSA award calculations described in Volume 3.) As a part of its application, the school must explain how it determined the equivalent number of credit or clock hours for the program." So you have to get approved for this radical approach, but just use E-App.

[Roxanne Sylvester]

I am thrilled to learn that articles focusing on the increasing cost of higher education will create awareness so something can be done to stabilize tuition cost. Adult learners are forced to choose between education and working to maintain financial obligations

[Elliptical reviews]

No offense, but if there's a facebook like button, it'll be much easier for me to share.

Lloyd comments: there is a like button at the very end of each post, along with tweet, reblog, etc buttons. Let me know if one doesn't work!

[Krista R]

Lloyd,

Thank you for your comments on my post. Having ongoing judgements to renew faculty appointments rather than tenure would not necessarily be a negative. At times, tenured faculty can become stuck in their own ways. With the rapidly changing times, it will be especially important for faculty to develop and change with their students.

[Renee K]

The changing face of education for 2020 is something to look forward to. With colleges springing up everywhere, the prediction that there will be fewer college is an interesting prediction. Maybe that is what is needed to ensure the "quality" of the education being received and perhaps to help control the costs at learning institutions?

The ability to transfer larger numbers of credits from institution to insitution and credit for work experience are both a long time in coming. The later, experiential learning can at times far out strip classroom learning.

The best prediction is that on instituting a 12 month academic calendar for higher learning. While some might not agree, professors and students alike, because it increases their workload, it seems perfectly logically. It will allow students to receive their degrees in less time or the same time while more evenly spacing their credit hours. I guess we will all have to wait and see if any of these predictions come to pass.

[Krista R]

All of these changes within the higher education community seem as is they might point in the direction of significantly decreasing tenure-track positions. This shift has already been happening, according to the article "Contingent Faculty and the New Academic Labor System" by Gwendolyn Bradly (2004), in 2001 44.5 percent of faculty were part time. Bradley compares this to the year 1969, where only 3.3 percent of faculty were appointed off the tenure track. In addition, she state that by the 1990s, online one in four faculty appointments was to full-time, tenure track positions.
It seems that higher education is well on the way toward this
To me, this also coincides with the increased focus on student learning outcomes. If a faculty position is dependent on the learning outcomes, then it follows that tenure may become obsolete.

Reference:

Bradley, Gwendolyn (2004). Contingent faculty and new academic labour system. Academic, 90(1), 28-31. Retrieved from the education resource complete database.

Lloyd comments: there are many reasons that the percentage of non-tenure track faculty has been increasing over time. Decreasing cost and increasing flexibility are among the important drivers. As focus turns on learning as a key output of higher education (strange that it isn't now, but that doesn't get rankings at present) it will certainly mean that faculty who can't or won't learn how to facilitate learning effectively will have to be replaced - and that does mean that there will have to be ongoing judgments made regarding renewal of faculty appointments. On the other hand, simply switching to a set of part-time non-tenure track faculty will likely lead to very poor learning outcomes. A solution that maximizes learning is likely to require creating a full-time non-tenure teaching track that has reasonable pay and security -perhaps through rolling contracts.

[Ebony B]

I think it is wonderful that higher education is making some badly needed changes. However, I am not totally convinced that the general public is buying into online learning. Many people still question whether or not it is as good as learning in a traditional setting. As an online student at a large online university, I can honestly say that it is just as difficult. Online learning requires a great deal of independent work. You have got to be able to properly read directions and interact with colleagues via email. Online learning allows me to communicate with people in different places in the world. Now that's true diversity.

[Mervelle Sage]

It is very scary when we can look forward to stipulate what the future may or may not hold. I do not agree that most colleges in 2020 will be unaccredited because there are so many new types of colleges popping up who are fighting to become accredited. I do agree that role of higher education will change with the times we are moving forward to. The way we educate adults must and will be different because it must match up with the current time and the needs of the community. Beyond fiscal budgets and all the political stuff what matters most is that we continue to create adult educators who can meet the demands of the rapid changing pace of higher education.

Lloyd responds: I agree that accreditation (probably of a different sort from the present) is important, and that it will be sought by new entrants into higher education. My statement about fewer accredited institutions relates to a later statement about the a number of "generic" institutions not being able to survive. I think that a significant fraction of the smaller, generic colleges in the country will disappear or be brought into new systems in the next decade, thus reducing the number of accredited institutions.