Higher Education's Future: Discuss! - NYTimes.com

I saw the poster in the window of one of the New School buildings. ?The Future of Higher Education: A Panel Discussion, Monday, December 3, 6:30 ? 8.? To say that I have heard the topic discussed before would be an understatement (maybe 50 times), but I can?t resist the (unlikely) possibility that someone will say the magic word. At the very least I went in with a certain anthropological curiosity. What are they going to say this time?

?They? on this occasion were four college presidents, Stephen J. Friedman of Pace University, Robert A. Scott of Adelphi University, Debora L. Spar of Barnard College and David E. Van Zandt of The New School. The format was good. No prepared statements, just questions posed by Van Zandt acting as moderator and a freewheeling yet structured discussion.

The presidents took turns mapping out the new landscape of higher education ? runaway costs, skyrocketing tuition, low graduation rates, the promise and burden of technology, crushing student debt, the effects of globalization ? while at the same time expressing intermittent nostalgia for an older one. ?Whatever happened to the idyllic liberal arts model?? asked Scott. The answer was, first, that no one could afford it (no more specialized courses with two or three students, said Spar) and, second, that many students don?t seem to want it in an age when the value of courses and degrees is measured by the likelihood of future career earnings.

The tension between a market model and a Socratic model was nicely captured by two statements Spar made in succession. The first warmed my heart: ?We want to teach students things they don?t want to know.? That is, rather than regarding students as consumers (all the rage these days in places like England and Texas), we should regard them as yet-to-be-formed intellects who are often best served by saying no to their desires ? as we have traditionally. But then Spar immediately added, ?Yet, we can?t be too removed from the marketplace.?

So the trick may be to give students strong guidance and less choice (surely an overrated value) and at the same time to give them enough of what they want in the hope that they will swallow the medicine that will be good for them. But the things students want are expensive ? elaborate student centers, athletic teams and facilities, advisers and hand-holders (Spar?s term) of every kind. The trouble we?re in now is in part the result of being full-service institutions. We are, Spar lamented, ?caterers,? vendors offering an array of goodies calculated to appeal to every taste.

Friedman reported on another model situated between the online universities that have almost no classrooms and buildings and certainly no ?frills? (although just the other day I read about an online university planning to field a football team) and universities with campuses larger than many small towns. Some European universities, he said, ?are just schools, no teams, no dormitories, just ?brick and mortar?? and teachers; and these, he added, ?can be quite high-quality.? But no one picked up on what he said and I assumed the judgment was that minimalism was unlikely to be the ticket here.

The emphasis was on trying to figure out how to lower costs without changing the game completely. Some of the suggestions were larger classes, better use of facilities (i.e., Friday and even Saturday morning classes), cooperative consortiums in an effort to reduce duplication, tinkering with the four-year-two-summer model, a hybrid of online and in-person instruction, fewer administrators, smaller athletic programs. Nothing exactly new; in essence, the kind of tightening up imagined when people speak about closing loop holes as a way of avoiding the fiscal cliff. Sounds good and even virtuous, but will it really be enough?

The conversation bore more than a passing resemblance to the one we?re always having about entitlements. The word itself tells you why the problem is largely intractable. So it is in education. Salary costs and student aid were cited as the two largest expenses, and, as Spar pointed out, they are difficult to cut. She noted too that most colleges and universities have strong brands ? self-images they believe in and market ? and therefore have ?a vested interest against doing anything drastic.? Our costs, she concluded are ?baked in.?

Scott gestured in the direction of the elephant in the room when he observed that ?We?re having this conversation because the media is focused on tuition and debt.? In other words, the crisis is in part one of public relations. The newspapers are full of horror stories calculated to alarm and outrage the general public, and, Scott complained, ?too many people hear those stories.? There were more than a few references to a New York Times piece of just a few days before titled ?Saying No to College,? which reports on the growth of an ?uncollege? movement that is particularly attractive to young people who are used to ?seeking out valuable content free on Napster and BitTorrent.?

And then it was over, apart from a few questions from members of the audience, two of whom asked the presidents to define the purpose of higher education. The responses were honorable, but not edifying: ?to create effective citizens,? ?to prepare people for professional careers,? ?to become steeped in knowledge, skills and values.? The instrumentalism of these familiar justifications was disheartening, but not surprising given everything these presidents were going to face the next morning when a pleasant collegial conversation would be succeeded by the problems that were just barely addressed and certainly not solved this evening.

Not that I have anything more scintillating to offer. I?ll just wait for the next panel discussion and hope to hear the good news.

Source: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/10/higher-educations-future-discuss/

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