Work-Study Without the Work

Excerpts from my newsletter, Next.?Sign up here.

It's Labor Day in the U.S. as another academic year is underway on most college campuses.

“So this is what college is supposed to feel like,” a college president told me last month at a dinner I hosted in Indianapolis, quoting a junior on her campus.?

In recent weeks, I’ve hosted three dinners for college and university leaders in Indianapolis, Pennsylvania, and Chicago. These dinner conversations follow the?Chatham House Rule, so while I can share what I heard, I can’t always share who said it. In listening to these college presidents, provosts, and vice presidents, a few common themes emerged as we enter what might be the first normal fall on campuses since 2019.

First, is that after an historic enrollment drop in higher ed—nearly 1.3 million students since the spring of 2020—several said they are welcoming their largest freshman class in years.?Teenagers "want the traditional college experience and we weren’t necessarily giving that to them the last two falls," said one president. "So, they sat on the sidelines."?

That said, it doesn’t mean these college leaders aren't worried about enrollment. Most of the colleges and universities—both public and private—that gathered at these dinners are less selective when it comes to admissions.

Enrollment is the lifeblood of their campuses, and some had to pull every lever, and then some, to fill seats this fall. Most gave out larger tuition discounts. Many tried new tactics to “yield” students who had choices. A few experimented with?direct admissions, where would-be students are told they’re in without ever applying. One vice president for enrollment said he used robocalls this year to reach accepted students who usually ignore email and even text messages.

Second, the “Great Resignation” is on everyone’s mind as they all seem to be struggling to attract talent and fill jobs.?Many had stories of their IT staff leaving for tech companies because they could now work from anywhere.

"Even the top of our range on campus doesn’t compete with what is available at certain local employers."

Even student workers are difficult to find. Jonathan Green, president of Susquehanna University in Pennsylvania, told me after one of the dinners that chains near campus, such as McDonald’s and Target, are offering $15-$20 an hour in pay. “Even the top of our range on campus doesn’t compete with what is available at certain local employers,” he said.

Susquehanna, like many colleges, are trying to make?campus employment more meaningful to students, so that they see a job as more than a paycheck but also skill building for their career after graduation.

Still, if students are using a job to pay for school, “they will logically choose the higher pay,” Green told me. “It becomes a Hobson's choice. Unfortunately, those are the same students who are likely to benefit the most from the on-campus experiences.” And boosting wages on campus is nearly impossible for most institutions who are struggling to balance their budgets already.

Third, the state of the post-pandemic economy isn’t just impacting student employment but also student housing.?Before Covid, students couldn’t wait to live off campus. Now, in many parts of the country, housing is so tight and expensive that students are clamoring to?get back on campus. And it’s everywhere, even at non-residential campuses. California Community Colleges?just received $375 million from the state?for the next two years to build dorms. Florida Atlantic University has?800 students on its waiting list for campus?housing as rents have roughly doubled there in the past 15 months.

"Higher education has the dubious distinction of having lost the confidence of the American public faster than any other institution measured by the Gallup polling organization."

Finally, beyond enrollment, two other long-term trends college leaders are talking about:

• Declining public confidence in higher ed.?“Higher education has the dubious distinction of having lost the confidence of the American public faster than any other institution measured by the Gallup polling organization,” The Hechinger Report 's Olivia Sanchez wrote in her?newsletter?this week. A few leaders at these dinners brought up something that Sanchez mentioned in her newsletter for this decline in confidence: the mismatch between the culture of campuses—which tends to be more liberal—and the many communities where students are coming from. “They don’t feel welcome and belonging is a big factor to students staying,” said one vice-president for enrollment management.
• What was lost during the pandemic.?Whether it was the loss of academics or social engagement during the pandemic, many college officials seem just as worried—or even more worried—about retaining students as they are about enrolling them in the first place. “Students are having trouble engaging in groups or asking faculty members for help,” one president reported.

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?? For Your Calendar

? Wednesday, September 28, at 2 p.m. ET/11 a.m. PT, is the?Next Office Hour?Our topic:?how colleges and universities can better meet the needs of an increasingly “nontraditional” learner population with a flexible and personalized learning design that is student-centered.

• You’ll hear from a panel of people with deep experience adapting programs to serve the needs of today’s learners—from recruiting adult students to incorporating 21st century skills.
• Joining me will be Sabrina Sanders, Ed.D. , director of the Toro Reengagement Program at? California State University-Dominguez Hills ; Scott Ralls , president of? Wake Technical Community College , Diane Tavenner , author of?"Prepared: What Kids Need for a Fulfilled Life,"?and Barbara Gooch , a student at?University of Maine at Presque Isle.
• ???Register here. (Support from the Charles Koch Foundation )

???We're taking Next on LinkedIn Live?on the road September 14.?I'll be coming to you live from?Workday’s?Rising?conference in Orlando, which is one of the largest gatherings of college and university technologists all year. We have two great conversations lined up.

• At 11 a.m. ET/8 a.m PT: Milo? Topi?, the CIO and Chief Digital Officer at?Grand Valley State University,?about how higher education needs to strengthen its digital backbone to enable innovation and transformation.
• At 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT: Ravi Ravishanker, the CIO and Associate Provost at Wellesley College?about how higher ed needs to connect innovation to their overall strategy.

?? To join us, click on "Attend" in one of the posts linked above or click +FOLLOW on?my LinkedIn profile?to be notified when we’re live (the conversation will also be archived right here).

???Finally, on September 13 at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT,?I’ll be joined for?Next on LinkedIn Live?by Tim Fields and Shereem Herndon-Brown, co-authors of a new book,?The Black Family’s Guide to College Admissions: A Conversation About Education, Parenting, and Race.

• Click +FOLLOW on my?LinkedIn profile?to be notified when we’re?live?(and the conversation will also be archived right here).

Higher Ed Needs an Innovation Strategy

Most colleges and universities are under pressure to innovate on their business models coming out of the pandemic as Covid-era federal funds dry up.

• On average, colleges rated by S&P Global Ratings received $11 million from Uncle Sam, Jessica Wood , S&P’s education sector told me during the?Next Office Hour?I hosted last week. “It’s not an insignificant amount,” Wood said. “These funds certainly reduced credit risks for schools.”
• Indeed, the average operating margins (i.e. profit) at private universities rated by S&P were about 2.5% in 2021 and 4.3% at public universities—meaning the one-time federal dollars essentially made up the entire financial cushion for many campuses.

What’s happening:?Unfortunately, innovation has become such a?buzzword in higher ed that it has lost its meaning with the very people it is meant to inspire. Too often innovation is promoted simply because the word sounds good. It’s about marketing more than mission.

• For institutions to successfully change coming out of the pandemic, they must take a hard look at their identity, measure their place in the larger ecosystem of institutions, and anchor their innovations in their mission.
• For higher ed as a whole, innovation in the near future means improving outcomes for all learners and helping students find a sense of belonging that truly maximizes the impact of institutions.

How it works:?Innovation is both overused and misunderstood in higher education. It’s critical for colleges and universities to have an innovation strategy—a framework for how they source and apply new ideas, Randall Bass , vice president for strategic education initiatives at 美国乔治敦大学 , said during the webinar. Bass leads the?Red House?at Georgetown, basically a?skunkworks that is headquartered in a red house across from the main campus.

• At Georgetown, Bass described a “three level innovation model” the university has developed. “We call it the Zen-stone model,” he said.
• At the very top of that model is “venture research and development.” That’s the highest risk innovation. It doesn’t necessarily have the biggest failure rate, he said, but it has the “tightest learning cyles”—meaning fail fast and often and continue to iterate on the ideas.
• The next level down is “applied innovation.” That's where the university is taking proven pilots in one department, or part of campus, and scaling them to seeing “what it looks like to move them into different kinds of disciplines, different schools, or just scaling them themselves,” Bass said.
• The bottom part of that model is “long-term institutional transformation” that changes the structures and practices of the institution.

Why it matters:?Most college leaders blame faculty and shared governance for the lack of change on their campuses. An innovation strategy and framework is critical in working within faculty governance, Bass said.

• “There’s a faculty governance group [at Georgetown] that was created whose sole purpose is to review and approve and monitor the projects that only happen at that venture R&D level,” Bass said.
• As a result, as a separate committee (made up of representatives from different schools at the university), they’re using different rules and criteria for a special class of projects. But because they review the work on a regular basis, they better understand what the university ends up funding downstream.

The big picture:?Bass acknowledged during the webcast that Georgetown, with its reputation, location, and billions in endowment, sits in a privileged position in higher ed. But the principles behind the university’s three-tier model can be applied elsewhere, he added.

• Having an innovation strategy and framework allows institutions to better understand the “long-term transformation that they think they’re effecting,” Bass said. Are you trying to expand revenue into new markets? Are you trying to improve student retention and success?
• Every institution, Bass suggested should have a portfolio of strategies—much like an investment portfolio. “Some of those strategies should be high growth, high risk—you want to put some of your money there, you want to put some of your energy there,” he said. “Some should be more surefire slow growth, safer, but you know that they have a long-term transformational impact.”

Bottom line:?The end of federal Covid funds for higher ed means the sector is running out of time to innovate on its business model. Sure, there might be a short-term enrollment bump from students who sat on the sidelines during the pandemic, or by the simple fact that many campuses were starting from a lower baseline of enrollment the last two years. But a demographic shift is already underway, with the high school graduating class of 2025 expected to be one of the largest for quite some time.

???To watch the full webcast?on?demand,?register here?(sponsored by Workday).

Until next time, Cheers — Jeff