Don't Panic over Higher Education; But, Don't Stay Calm Either

There is an excellent recent piece by Bowen and McPherson on the state of higher education and the effort to create scare tactics that will discourage college attendance.  https://time.com/money/4284269/whats-really-wrong-with-college-today/?xid=tcoshare.  

I have yet to read their newest book. But, here is my short response to their quality piece cited above -- with only a few "not so wee" observations:

I agree that we are setting up armageddon (wrongly) and while there are clear issues in education, the sky is not falling and many of the suggested solutions will not address the real issues. It was like saying Sweet Briar's calamities meant all small colleges were going the way of the do-do bird. Same with saying The Mount's governance catastrophe means no business folks can be effective leaders of colleges.  Not true. And, Campos' claim of administrative bloat is off-base -- as in way off.  Start with how to define administrators.  And state cuts are real.  Sad but true.

But, there are two points that merit attention. First, we are most assuredly not effectively, systemically and systematically addressing the needs of low income first generation students -- who are and will continue to be the students of the 21st century. That's a huge issue and a critical one.  The growing equity gaps threaten our values as a nation.

Second, we should not stay calm; innovation requires some unrest and some disquiet and some anger and some tumult (that's why student protests are not a bad thing).  So keeping calm and carrying on isn't my motto for how to precede with what ails us in education.  Hardly.  We need to speak up and out.  We need to close equity gaps across the educational pipeline.  We need to find quality in education and praise it and replicate it.  And we need to enable students to be thoughtful members of the workforce and their communities.

These observations and key caveats notwithstanding, this article is a worthy read indeed.