Reimagining Higher Education (McKinsey Report)- My Thoughts

Happy 2021! While I have been caught up in the pleas of late to get past 2020, I’m trying not to be overly optimistic that this will be a far better year. We clearly have at least another half year before the Corona virus vaccine has reached enough people to signal any relaxation of masking, social distancing and hunkering down. And even after that, recovery will be slow and many business may never reopen. Some aspects of remote life are sure to continue long after Covid 19 abates and assuming that the vaccine’s effectiveness is somewhat long-lasting. 

I’ve had many thoughts about what to write about for the new year but hadn’t honed in on anything until I read this report from McKinsey: 

https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/public-and-social-sector/our-insights/reimagining-higher-education-in-the-united-states#

Candidly, I’ve been shying away from the numerous pundits writing obsessively about the decline in higher education and the various adjustments and transitions colleges and universities need to make to survive. I do agree with much of what’s being said, but, I admit to some skepticism when many who are commenting have never actually worked on a campus. I also find that writer A gets quoted by podcaster B who is then cited by Facebook-Live interviewer C whose commentary is recycled back to writer A. Okay, I’m exaggerating a bit, but you get my drift. 

The McKinsey piece, however, resonated with me and I thought I might offer a few reflections on each of the broad areas referenced in this report. 

1. What makes our university distinctive?

Institutional isomorphism is a concept well known to many graduate students. The concept suggests that most institutions morph into comparable models of peer versions because of shared principles and practices, professional interactions and the comfort that comes with the familiar. I would add that higher education, as I’ve observed it, is also extraordinarily parochial with fear of change and risk-taking having even more influence that just the comfort of the familiar. 

Covid challenges have forced college and universities to adjust consistent with individual campus and community circumstances and, perhaps, with the Borg-like connectivity broken, the hive-mind comparability of institutions can change. It seems to me that there are more tools available than ever in support of institutional distinctiveness and differentiation:

• On-Campus vs remote teaching/learning
• Global presence embedded within the multi-year experience
• Various approaches to degree, credential and certificates
• Degree of commitment to post-graduate job and career development
• Part-time vs full-time study and number of credits/years required to graduation
• Mobility options from/to other institutions: community colleges, other system campuses, etc.
• Experiential learning opportunities ranging from various practica options to a full coop model
• Breadth and depth of co-curricular options: Intercollegiate athletics? Fraternities/Sororities? Residential living models? Work-study expectations? Service-learning models

I can’t imagine a better time for renewed strategic planing by most colleges and universities with an eye towards a more unique representation of what strengths, opportunities and outcomes can be brought to the higher education market in ways that will enable thoughtful consideration by the next generations of entering students. Those schools that can both differentiate and deliver on their distinct advantages will thrive in the years ahead.

2. How can we build a diverse and inclusive institution?

The struggles to effectively respond to this challenge have gone on for decades. As a new professional back in 1973, I was made well aware of this obligation and challenge. I certainly hope that my own efforts have had some positive effects over the past half decade but I’m well aware that progress has been slower than desired, choppy in execution and confounded by forces external to higher education. 

The McKinsey report focuses mostly on the inevitable demographic changes ahead and the evidence of positive effects of diversity on business performance. But, the challenges go well beyond these two facts. If we’ve learned anything from these past four years, we’ve learned the deleterious and dangerous consequences of divisiveness. We’ve learned how pernicious extreme income inequalities laced with class, race and gender distinctions will be. We’ve learned that those in positions of power will do whatever it takes to sustain their control of others even if it means suppressing human and constitutional rights. 

In the next episode of collegiate advancement, attention to diversity and inclusion must transcend the obvious. If the concept of ‘tolerance’ was purged years ago as the end game (and I’m not sure everyone has come to accept this) of diversity efforts, the obligation ahead is to move past equal access in favor of authentic equal opportunity. Personally, I believe that this must include consideration of reparations for past offenses, recommitment to acting affirmatively wherever possible and purging rules of engagement that falsely proclaim equity and justice while really keeping the status quo largely intact. All of this will require substantial overhaul of how applicants are recruited, are qualified for admission, distribution and recovery of financial aid, academic pathways and support to graduation and networking models of job and career attainment that heavily advantage those already inside the privilege bubble. 

3. What services are necessary to create a high-quality student experience? And what aren’t?

This is a topic near and dear to me…one I’ve struggled with for decades as a student affairs practitioner/educator and, in particular, over the last two decades as someone in a leadership role. Let me say at the outset that I don’t buy the assertions of administrative ‘bloat’ as often described by those clueless about the genuine lives and struggles of students. I vociferously defend the disproportionate growth in many administrative roles as legitimate responses to institutions recruiting (appropriately, imho), more broadly and admitting many more students with a host of challenges previously unseen on most campuses. Fundamentally, I believe that if schools reach and stretch to admit those challenged but with the potential to succeed, then those students need appropriate and effective support for that to happen. 

That said, the question of “boundaries of institutional support” is a legitimate one and one I raise annually in the module I have taught for nearly 20 years in the Higher Education Executive Doctorate program at the University of Pennsylvania. In my course I ask the students to keep several questions in mind as we discuss a host of service delivery areas including physical and mental health, opportunities for student engagement around interests and identities, athletics and recreation, and various ‘auxiliary’ services (I hate that term, btw) such as dining and housing. The questions I pose are:

• What, if any, should be the boundaries of institutional involvement for addressing the needs of students in any particular service domain?
• Who should pay for the provision of this service? Just those who require the support or as a ‘tax’ to all students?
• How should a campus determine the effectiveness of the availability and utilization of these services?

These are all hard questions but deserving of institutional attention. They force us to ask ourselves if counseling centers should set limits on the number of visits offered to students before they are encouraged (required) to seek help elsewhere and on their own dime. They inspire us to consider the use of a fee applied to all students when we may know that only 20% of the population avail themselves of the service. They obligate us to do something we as practitioner/educators do extremely poorly: conduct genuine evaluations and assessments of outcomes vs the objectives we had in mind when these services were created or expanded. 

The McKinsey report oversimplifies this critical issue by simply advocating for administrative surgery. To be sure, some retrenchment may be appropriate, but, I would bet the farm that in most cases students remain underserved. Any argument for further growth will require serious consideration of the questions I’ve raised coupled with genuine and compelling evidence of the need and the effectiveness of proposed staffing and interventions. 

4. What delivery channels and models should we use to fulfill our core educational mission?

This question, to me, is somewhat of a restatement of the first question on institutional distinctiveness. The argument that brick and mortar campuses are archaic and anachronistic may be true for some institutions, but in my experience, the benefits that come from face-to-face learning, interactions with other students and the college ‘quad’ can never be replaced by online models. I don’t mean to portray myself as a Luddite or collegiate romantic (Ok..I am a bit of a higher ed romantic and traditionalist) and fully agree that the future of education will include far more synchronous and asynchronous online methods, but I also firmly believe that the residential model will still be highly desirable for many and that campus aesthetics, infrastructure and environment make a meaningful contribution to the quality of the educational experience for those who chose that approach. 

This is not suggest that these kinds of campus cannot be more creative with their facilities and environments. Year round educational models should be considered as well as models that include significant mobility away from the campus both to the local communities, as well as at some distance from the campus. This will require different cost and financing methods and less reliance on fee structures that prohibit time away from campus, exclusive reliance on fixed site learning and building design and construction that constrains flexible use and the nimbleness required as pedagogies evolve. 

5. What is our business model? How do we challenge the conventional wisdom?

I’ve combined the final two questions since I see them as a matched set. Revising campus business models, as I’ve suggested in the preceding question, will necessitate some veering from conventional wisdom about best practices. Several conditions inhibit proper attention to these two questions, including:

• Persistent reductions in state funding to public high education which has dramatically increased family contributions and acquisition of debt to cover the costs of education;
• Expenditure models on campuses that favor replication of costs within each school and college and administrative unit of a university. 
• Compliance requirements to meet the increasing expectations imposed on institutions from state and federal initiatives.

Presidents and Provosts generally rise from the faculty to these significant administrative roles. This approach has well served higher education for many years and has ensured leadership focused on teaching and learning, research and development of successive generations of thought and practice leaders. But, the managerial and administrative requirements for these roles have grown exponentially and faculty who aspire to such positions will be well served to acquire formal training that will equip them to make the hard decisions about institutional priorities, goal setting, resource allocation and assessment of programmatic effectiveness. Higher education faces hard questions ahead, including:

• Should fields of study offered and subject to faculty research be related to ‘market’ conditions, such as the number fo students who elect to major in the field?
• What’s the appropriate ratio of full-time to adjunct faculty a campus should employ?
• What percentage of the undergraduate student body should we have housing for on campus? What are the principles that should even determine our housing objectives?
• Is our objective to exclusively admit and graduate the most privileged and capable students or to do whatever we can to advance those most challenged and struggling but are are determined to learn and achieve?
• How do we best deploy institutional debt capacity? When do we partner with the private sector for new construction versus acquiring more debt and building ourselves?
• Do we need extraordinary endowments? If we’re so fortunate to have built some small (or large) fortune in an endowment, what are our preferred spending rules?
• How do we insure research integrity? 
• What role should a college or university play to rectify conditions in the local community related to past behaviors and biases of the institution? 

The questions can go on an on and how any institution will respond will certainly be based on preferred business models developed through careful consideration of institutional distinctiveness, commitment to societal needs and priorities and the various competencies and convictions of those in campus leadership roles. 

So, these are but a few of my Jan 1, 2021 thoughts. Of one thing I am certain: I’ve left out many relevant issues and facts! I certainly hope this little essay inspires others to comment! And I thank authors Andre Dua, Jonathan Law, Ted Rounsaville, and Nadia Viswanath from McKinsey & Associates for their commentary which inspired my response. 

Larry Moneta, Ed.D

Jan 1, 2021