12 Trends Killing College; 7 Ways to Restore Trust & Value

Does college still matter? The Department of Education makes the case that college is more valuable than ever: degree holders earn $1 million more that workers without postsecondary education and the innovation economy is likely to require a more educated workforce. But averages and projections hide the rapid loss of faith in higher education as the escalator to the middle class.

Frustrated with increasing costs and underemployed grads living in their parent’s basement, less than half of American adults have confidence in higher education, a big decline in the last three years according to Gallup.

With this rapid loss of faith in higher ed expensive nonselective colleges are in trouble. A dozen trends have conspired to create the beginning of the end of college as we know it.

1. Declining enrollment. The number of high school graduates peaked in 2013 is flat and will begin to fall in the next decade as a result of lower birth rates. College enrollment has declined since a peak in 2010–2011 putting pressure on many smaller second and third tier schools.

2. End of degree inflation. After several decades of adding degree requirements as a simple screen of ability and persistence, employers are focusing more on skills than pedigree. Google, Apple and a dozen other leading employers stopped requiring degrees for many jobs. Groups like Opportunity@Work have been expanding career opportunities by leading the shift to skills-based hiring.

3. Cheap & sponsored higher education. In 2012, some thought the rise of massively open online courses (MOOC) would transform higher education. It did extend global access to quality content but mostly to degree holders. In the last few years, MOOC providers Coursera, EdX and Udacity have begun offering certificates and degrees creating new low cost competition for second tier institutions.

Community colleges have been offering online courses for 20 years. Most universities followed by offering some programs online. They’ve been joined by the rise of mega universites ASU, Purdue, SNHU and WGU offering affordable, flexible online degree programs.

Education as an employee benefit is on the rise. Starbucks offers access to ASU degree programs. Guild Education helps companies like Disney, Lyft and Walmart offer education as a benefit to employees. Coursera for Business is also offering sponsored education

Cheap or sponsored higher ed will continue to put cost pressure on second and third tier colleges.

4. Alternatives to higher education. A variety of coding bootcamps, training and certification programs—what investor Ryan Craig calls “last mile training programs” are proliferating. As Walton Family Foundation official Bruno Manno said, many good jobs don’t require college.

5. Advocacy bubble. Twenty years of well-intentioned advocacy sent more people to college. Equity advocates (including myself) urged historically underserved groups to get four year degrees because they appeared uniquely valuable. Colleges loved the rush, raised prices and even got another enrollment boost in the Great Recession when millions were out of work. The rush felt good but the underlying value proposition didn’t match the growth—they call that a bubble (see #11 and #12).

Over the last two years, the advocacy pendulum swung back to career and technical education (CTE) with excitement around emerging earn and learn employment ladders (#4) but it remains an open question if this renewed emphasis on CTE can yield equitable results or just retrack high schools.

6. Rising prices. The price of a four-year degree doubled between 1989 and 2016—about eight times faster than wages. That means that each successive cohort of graduates is worse off than the last. In the last decade, tuition at four-year schools in eight states is up more than 60 percent. This doesn’t end well.

A recent poll suggests that 83% of students said affordability was a factor in deciding which college to attend, up from 75% last year. In addition, 71% of students said costs could determine whether to attend college at all—up from last year’s 65%.

7. State disinvestment. One reason tuition increased at public institutions is that state funding for public two and four-year colleges in the 2017 school year was nearly $9 billion below its 2008 level.

Instead of growing a citizenry, critics have argued the rapid public disinvestment in higher education has made it private rather than a public good. “The idea of a university education has moved from being a public good where an educated population benefits the preservation of a healthy democratic society, to the idea of a university education benefits an individual and her ability to get employment,” said UT Arlington professor Geroge Siemens. “Once you have an individual paying like they’re a customer, they’re going to start acting like they’re a customer,” added Siemens.

8. Student loan crisis. More people going to college plus rising costs equals more debt. More than 44 million U.S. borrowers owe $1.7 trillion in student loan debt—more than auto loans and credit card debt combined.

9. Worst case scenario. About a third a people that attempt degrees rack up debt without completing a degree—the new disaster scenario. This trend surfaced in the Great Recession and when combined with the indebted underemployment of many college graduates, began to dampen enrollment and “all students go to college” advocacy.

10. For-profit implosion. Based on weak employment rates and lots of debt without degrees (#9), Secretary Duncan’s team issued tough regulations that killed off hundreds of for-profit colleges. More than 100 colleges closed in the last two years (20 nonprofit colleges shuttered during that period). For-profit enrollment was cut by about 70 percent from 2010-2019.

You’re thinking, “No loss, they were shysters.” But it was the venture-backed R&D lab of higher ed, the most agile purpose-built part of the sector. Now it’s more likely that big postsecondary innovations will come from China or India.

11. Obsolete architecture. It’s quickly becoming a ‘show what you know’ world but colleges are stuck in a courses and credits model—it’s the organizing principle for architecture, schedules and communication. The resulting transcript (i.e., list of courses passed) is a terrible way to describe what a person can actually do.

Reorganizing around capabilities development rather than seat time is a massive undertaking. It means supporting short personalized skill sprints and extended community-connected challenges. It will require new ways to signal new capabilities (comprehensive learner records including badges, certificates and portfolios).

The new architecture of college will also move beyond the confines of a four year degree to a lifelong learning relationship where short sprints prepare learners for new opportunities. The open question is whether the winner in this new race will be a university or Udemey, your alma mater or LinkedIn?

12. Perpetuating inequality. Perhaps most disturbing is that getting to and through college remains highly segregated. A child from the bottom socioeconomic quartile with high test scores in kindergarten has a 3 in 10 chance of having a college education and a good entry-level job as a young adult, compared to a 7 in 10 chance for a child in the top quartile of socioeconomic status who has low test scores. In addition to simply propelling the well-heeled students into careers, the crisis of debt without a degree (and debt with the wrong degree) plagues the bottom income quartiles.

About 10% of universities are highly selective—and they’ll be fine for the foreseeable future (notwithstanding the enrollment scandal which illustrated how inane the admissions process is). Most have big endowments and the perception of value—despite the fact that most don’t deliver on the promise. It’s the expensive second and third tier colleges that are taking a beating. Many are going out of business whether they know it or not.

How to Fix Higher Education: Seven Keys

As a result of demographic and market changes, most colleges are losing enrollment and finding it harder to raise prices. Despite the bad news, there are new entrants and updated incumbents that are dramatically improving their value proposition. Following are seven keys to a vibrant future for higher education.

1. Clarity of Purpose. Key to delivering value in higher education is clarity of purpose. Thriving institutions have created a distinctive mission and focus on active engagement around priority outcomes.

As the most selective university program, the Minerva Project just graduated its first undergraduate class. Designed from scratch to develop global leaders, the program hosted by the Keck Graduate Institute focuses on 100 success habits and foundational concepts. Minerva instructors use the Forum platform to engage learners in active dialog in socratic seminars. As they study in seven of the world’s leading cities, students participate in place-based projects.

Northeastern is a 120 year old institution transformed into a global, experiential, research university built on a tradition of engagement with the world. New programs like Network for Experiential Teaching and Learning (NExT) create a global platform for educators to connect practice to more innovative, workplace-based learning.

Colorado School of Mines is a 145 year old school with an updated mission focused on Earth, Energy and Environment with a new commitment to engaging students in active learning and doing good in the world. Mines is part of the KEEN network of 44 universities training engineers to spot opportunity and deliver impact. 

CEMS is a global network of 32 business schools engaging learners on sustainability and value creation.

2. Broader Evidence. Garrett Lord, CEO of career network Handhshake said two thirds of messages on the platform did not include GPA, companies are more interested in evidence of job ready competencies.

Following the lead of employers, more than 30 brand name colleges are looking beyond test scores and considering real evidence in search of youth ready to make a unique contribution now and in the future. The Coalition for College is 140 institutions supporting a common application and portfolio resources to increase access to higher education.

With growing interest in demonstrated competence over seat time and pedigree, many high schools want to present a more complete picture of a young person’s capabilities. Dallas County high schools are going to deploy an extended transcript to more fully share career readiness information. Another example is the 250 schools that have banded together in the Mastery Transcript Consortium to create a new way to share demonstrated capabilities.

3. Focus on Employability. Students are clear about their focus on employability and colleges are following their lead by focusing on job-ready skills.

“Higher education can be both intellectually stimulating and practical,” said Gordon Jones, dean of Boise State University’s new College of Innovation and Design. He argues that education and training can co-exist in the same programs. However, he added, colleges need to acknowledge that traditional deliverables—knowledge, a network, a credential and transformational learning experiences—are increasingly being assembled outside formal sources.

Following the lead of Olin College, more institutions are focusing on design thinking and entrepreneurship. Others are partnering with companies like Trilogy (recently acquired by 2U) to add employment-focused bootcamps.

4. Supporting Adult Learning. Many community colleges have long served so-called nontraditional students (25 and older) but they’re becoming the norm on many four year campuses as well. The need for lifelong learning is accelerating this trend.

Now that we all need to keep learning, the scramble is on to support your learning plan. “Institutions must prioritize and recognize ongoing learning—both formal and informal—for their faculty, staff and students,” said the NMC Horizon Report. Professional schools, alumni associations and online marketplaces (Udemy, Skillsoft, Linkedin) all want to be your primary learning provider.

Startups like College Unbound are demonstrating the importance of flexibility, strong supports and recognizing prior learning in serving working adults and boosting completion rates.

5. Active Monitoring. Using chatbots, big data sets and predictive algorithms, a growing number of institutions are monitoring academic and social health and pinpointing interventions to boost persistence.

Georgia State tracks 800 items to track undergraduate progress and spot at-risk behaviors allowing advisers to respond in a timely manner to get students back on track.

At Florida State University every student is on a “success team” which includes academic, career and College Life counselors and peer mentors. Monitored progress, smaller classes and stronger engagement boosted on time graduation.

6. Focus on Affordability. ASU has put access first, control costs, and support completion. In addition to cost control measures, universities are following Purdue’s lead and holding the line on cost and exploring income sharing agreements to reduce student debt.

A great way to make college affordable is to go to work for a company that will subsidize it. Walmart’s Live Better U includes 14 tech degrees and certificates for $1 a day in partnership with Guild Education. (See more examples of education as a benefit.)

7. Agility. The education advocacy group America Succeeds calls this new era the Age of Agility. The institutional ability to become responsive to a dynamic market may be the single most important characteristic of sustainable higher education.

A new example is the Udacity nanodegree for AI Product Managers. Created with Figure Eight, the curriculum and design projects teach students how to build AI-powered products and bring value to their businesses using AI. This job category is about two years old and growing fast.

Agility and market awareness doesn’t mean higher education should abandon liberal arts—they still prepare thoughtful citizens and provide transferable skills. But they must be accompanied by a new path awareness (i.e., how and where are you going to get a job), work experiences and development of career skills.

The new formula for higher education success includes clarity of purpose, embracing broader measures of success, focusing on employability and affordability, active monitoring and support, and market-responsive agility.

The most important fix to higher education might be the choosing function—helping high school students and working adults make good choices. This is the subject of Michael Horn’s new book and the next blog in this series.

For more, see:

• Guided Pathways and Meta-Majors
• How to Be Employable Forever (advice from Olin president Richard Miller)
• Promoting Pathways to Good Jobs: Strada Education Network
• College Unbound Helps Working Adults Earn Fast Affordable Degrees
• Engineering Good in the World
• Rethinking Educator Preparation: Experiential, Connected, Applied (podcast with Northeastern University leadership)