For some time, many experts have been predicting the demise of higher education in general and research universities in particular, at least in their current form. Has that day of reckoning arrived? It is difficult to know with precision, but it is easy to identify tough problems facing this "industry:"
Funding decreases. This problem is particularly acute at public institutions, as Medicaid and K-12 spending have slowly eroded state funding available for higher education during the past 40 years. All institutions are adversely affected by the decline in state and federal grant revenue in recent years, a trend that is likely to continue.
Bob Roper
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Demographics. Higher education institutions need students and the money they bring. Yet the supply of college-ready high school graduates apparently will be stagnant for the next several years, especially in Missouri.
The cost versus value issue. Tuition grew by 80 percent between 2003 and 2013. Middle-class incomes have been largely static during that time. The job market has been soft, and recently 4 in 10 college graduates have wound up in jobs that do not require a college degree. Instead of accumulating $33,000 in debt — the average amount in recent years — many potential students are rethinking the traditional, four-year higher education option. Alternatives include online learning; community college; apprenticeship programs at major manufacturing firms, where advanced technical skills are taught, often while the apprentice is a student at a community college with tuition paid by the company; and technical school, where one learns a valuable trade.
A costly delivery system. Higher education is costly and highly resistant to reducing costs. Look around, and you will see a small army of administrators and other non-teaching professionals whose numbers in recent years have grown faster than those of instructional personnel. You will also see a lot of expensive buildings that are costly to operate and maintain. What you will not see is that in recent decades faculty teaching loads have declined by one-third to one-half.
Further, higher education largely is in business nine months of the year. This is patently inefficient, as this huge, costly enterprise is operating at 75 percent of capacity. Does this make sense?
Part of the reason teaching loads have gone down is a concurrent increase in research. Fine, except for one small problem: A great deal of what passes as research has no value. As Page Smith, a professor of history at the University of California, put it: "The vast majority of the so-called research turned out in the modern university is essentially worthless." A lot of it is neither read nor cited by anyone. And even if it is, research is an incredibly expensive undertaking that rarely pays for itself.
Also, higher education seldom is able to close out nonperforming or low-enrollment programs. Ditto with nonperforming tenured faculty. It is easier to go with the flow and simply ask for more money each year.
Colleges and universities need to cut costs dramatically. It is unclear whether they are capable of doing it before market forces demand it.
PErosion of free speech. The gradual curtailment of free speech on college and university campuses is nothing short of scandalous. Once upon a time higher education campuses were bastions of free and open discourse, where robust debate was celebrated. Not now. Here is a typical example of what frequently happens on campus:
At California State University, Los Angeles, student members of the conservative Young America's Foundation invited conservative commentator Ben Shapiro to speak — ironically, about censorship on college campuses, among other things. A professor urged students to protest the speech, calling it "hate speech." The university president caved, canceling the event for security reasons. After the YAF refused to give in, the president reversed his decision but made sure he told the world he strongly disagreed with Shapiro's views. When the time for the event arrived, many putative attendees were unable to enter the room where Shapiro was to speak because protesters barricaded the entrances to the room. They also shoved and shouted at some attendees and would-be attendees and turned on a fire alarm while Shapiro spoke. More than a dozen campus security officers kept Shapiro and the attendees inside until the crowd dispersed and then escorted them to safety.
Sadly, the repression of free speech on campus is common. Check out recent happenings at Yale, Dartmouth, Princeton, Brandeis and UCLA.
What is going on here? A lot of liberal and far-left folks on campus are so thoroughly intolerant of those with whom they disagree that they believe they must be silenced. Craven, cowardly governing boards and administrators either agree with these sentiments or are afraid to oppose them.
According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, as of 2014 about 60 percent of the more than 400 colleges it surveyed seriously infringed upon the free-speech rights of students.
No wonder, then, that free-speech advocate Wendy Kaminer recently wrote that "Academic freedom is declining. The belief that free speech rights don't include the right to speak offensively is now firmly entrenched on campus and enforced by repressive speech or harassment codes."
Winston Churchill always said courage is the most important virtue of a leader. With respect to the free-speech issue, the "courage deficit" of most college leadership is appalling.
Next week: Do consumers of higher education get their money's worth?
Bob Roper is a retired bank executive who is active in local politics.
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Source: Higher ed 'industry' is on the ropes
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