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Reforming Higher Ed in 2021
Anthony Hennen, Managing Editor
State leaders Need to Consider Shrinking or Closing Some Colleges
In April, Jeb Spaulding, chancellor of Vermont's State College System, proposed closing three campuses as the health and financial realities of COVID-19 became clear. His proposal would bury him.
Within five days, public outrage forced Spaulding to withdraw his proposal. Before the end of the month, and after no-confidence votes from faculty and staff from system colleges, Spaulding submitted his resignation.
Spaulding is a cautionary tale: Across the United States, public higher ed systems are losing students, can't control costs, and have few leaders willing to take action and make unpopular changes. If Vermont — with a shrinking college-age population and disappearing private colleges — can't embrace reform, the battle in other states to control college costs and adjust the status quo will be even harder.
For the good of public university systems in the future, state leaders need to take hard steps now. That includes cutting academic programs, the administrative bureaucracy, and athletics. The needed cuts may also mean closing campuses. As the Martin Center has written about previously, pandemic-related cuts have focused on professors and academic programs, preserving the too-high staffing levels of the bureaucracy. In states like Pennsylvania, which has had a 20 percent enrollment decline since 2010 in its 14-university state system, a baby boom will not come to save it. Mergers, consolidations, and closures may be the only way to sustain public colleges as educational institutions, rather than serving as a glorified jobs program for the towns in which they were built.
The cuts will be fought over bitterly. The people willing to lead the reforms will not be beloved, and it will be a thankless task. But, for the future of public colleges, the viral growth of their bureaucracies, athletic arms, and obscure research projects need to be stopped.
"Higher education is in the midst of a major sea change," Spaulding told the Vermont State Colleges board of trustees. "I believe then and now it was the best available path forward. Time will tell whether I was right or wrong." Other states should heed his example, rather than bow down to the mob that declared him a heretic.
Reform the College Transfer Process
If college admins are serious about aiding poor and under-served students, they need to make it easier for students to transfer credits from community colleges.
Transferring is becoming more common, but college transfer processes are still complicated. Transfer students don't always have an advisor to walk them through what credits will count at their new university. The difficulty in navigating a new place can delay their graduation or push them to drop out altogether.
Some colleges have made good progress on improving the transfer problem. In North Carolina, transfer (or articulation) agreements between the University of North Carolina system and the North Carolina Community College System has made transferring smoother. The Comprehensive Articulation Agreement (CAA) ensures students who earn an associate's arts degree or associate's science degree can enter a UNC school with junior status and provides a list of courses that are guaranteed to transfer to a UNC school.
UNC schools also have agreements with local community colleges to make it easier for students to transfer to a four-year college while staying close to home. UNC-Wilmington, for example, has agreements with 17 community colleges that includes more programs than the CAA. Private colleges in North Carolina, too, have made transferring easier. A group of 30 colleges works with community colleges to make sure students don't lose the credits they've earned.
Yet, room for improvement remains. Four-year colleges need to give community colleges more information about their requirements and what students need to do to succeed, and community colleges need to do better at advising students who want to earn a bachelor's degree. Both two-year and four-year schools need to support students and make it easier for them to navigate a bureaucratic process so they don't waste their time.
Student success begins with the basics. Students need to do their part as independent adults in meeting deadlines and taking responsibility for their future. And colleges need to make that process easier for them, with easy-to-access information and advisors who understand the common problems transfer students will face. It may not mean a flashy new building to show donors and prospective students, but it might mean a more affordable — and complete — education for the students who enroll.
Shannon Watkins, Senior Writer
It's Time for Colleges to Hold In-person Classes Again
Students need to be allowed back in the classroom.
There's little dispute: in many cases, online and in-person classes are not equal in quality and effectiveness. The differences are innumerable. Online classes, especially in their current "Zoom" form, lack many of the valuable — and arguably irreplaceable — features crucial to student learning.
For example, no matter how advanced a particular online platform may be, it is difficult to replicate the natural social interactions that take place in a classroom. This poses a unique obstacle to effective teaching in many disciplines. Courses in literature, history, or philosophy, for instance, are often centered around organic back-and-forth discussions taking place between the instructor and students.
There are additional struggles for students who take "hands-on" classes. Visuals, graphics, and powerpoints cannot adequately replace physical interaction tools, models, and equipment.
Another drawback to online education is that it's easier for students to "tune out" and do less work than they would otherwise have to in a face-to-face setting. For example, unless specifically prohibited by the professor, students can disable both the video and audio on their "Zoom class" and walk away from their computer — and yet still get credit for "attending" class.
Perhaps the most serious concern about online learning is that it is nearly impossible to prevent students from cheating on tests. Despite the development of software that essentially "watches" students through a webcam as they take a test, there still isn't a foolproof safeguard against academic dishonesty. Unfortunately, students are innovative in finding ways to take advantage of the lack of in-person accountability.
For all the above reasons, and given that the coronavirus does not pose a serious threat to most college-aged people, colleges and universities across the country should reopen their campuses for in-person learning. They can do so safely by taking proper health precautions, such as conducting robust testing and contact tracing, and requiring those infected to self-quarantine.
Of course, remote-learning options should still be made available for students who are high-risk.
Bring Back — And Keep — SAT Requirements
In July, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors (BOG) enacted an "emergency temporary waiver" of SAT admissions requirements. Advocates of the waiver argued that it was necessary due to the unforeseen challenges posed by COVID-19. Officially, UNC administrators proposed that the board "waive the standardized test requirement for students applying for admission in Spring 2021, Summer 2021, and Fall 2021."
While many students have been unable to take the SAT or ACT due to pandemic-related cancellations, it's unclear that a complete waiver of testing requirements was necessary. As BOG member Steve Long pointed out, schools could still require test scores, but make exceptions for those who are unable to get a score because of COVID-19. Such a policy would have been far less drastic.
Unfortunately, the temporary waiver has set the stage for schools to get rid of testing requirements altogether. The student representative on the BOG, for example, has expressed hope that the SAT waiver will lead to "something more permanent."
And university systems in other states have already announced plans to ax the SAT. In May, the University of California system announced plans to phase out the SAT over a five-year period. The system said it might create its own test or get rid of testing requirements entirely.
Higher education leaders, in North Carolina and nationally, should resist the temptation to allow a temporary emergency waiver to turn into a permanent policy change. Abandoning academic rigor may alleviate student stress in the short term, but long-term student success is dependent on institutions of higher education maintaining robust and rigorous standards.
Even in a pandemic-ridden world, admitting underprepared students into colleges and universities — and thereby increasing the likelihood that they will drop-out with student loan debt — is not a compassionate response.
Sumantra Maitra, Nonresident Fellow
It's Time to Slash the Bureaucracy
As we limp out of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher-ed in the entire Anglosphere is in desperate need of reforms. To start, downsizing administrative bloat will be a welcome course correction for the academy.
Prior to the pandemic, the higher ed model was already reeking with pressure. According to estimates, the growth in university bureaucracy in the last 30 years has been around 221 percent compared to around 10 percent growth in faculty. In some universities, staff outnumber faculty by a ratio of 2:1. Most diversity and inclusivity officers, to give one example, earn more than double the amount of any associate professor.
This has resulted in two things. The first is a massive increase in tuition cost to fund a Byzantine behemoth. From infrastructure to administrative salaries, it is the students who have to fund it, pushing them into more and more debt. It is unsustainable.
Second, university bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, follows the laws of self-sustenance and survival. We see more attempts by the university administration interfering in academic research, and when there are cuts due to COVID-19, faculty bear the brunt. As we discussed in the Martin Center policy brief "Higher Education after COVID-19," culling administrative positions is the key reform that needs to be initiated to ensure the survival of the academy.
Any such cuts should focus on protecting core academic functions and ruthlessly downsizing auxiliary capacities, including any administration positions involved in student services, student mental well-being, and such. Those are not core functions of any academic institution.
There needs to be an immediate hiring freeze and funding cuts, as well as a reduction in support staff. Most administrative functions should be delegated to junior academic staff and research students. That way, core academic functions will continue as tuition costs drop.
Students Deserve Rigorous Classes Again
The second reform I'd like to see is one that ensures more rigor in some disciplines.
As mentioned earlier, part of the reason student tuition has increased several-fold is due to a bloated bureaucracy focusing on corporate buzzwords and diversity initiatives while neglecting the core functions of the academy. But that is not the sole reason. Academy itself is to be blamed as well for its dilution of expertise.
Since the rise of interdisciplinary studies in the early 1990s, more and more academic disciplines and study centers were hijacked by concepts and paradigms which not only were less rigorous, but which questioned the very idea of rigor as Euro-centric and hetero-patriarchal. These disciplines, in James Lindsay's useful terminology, are collectively known as grievance studies. They have produced utterly ridiculous, ahistorical, ideological, and diluted research, along with replication crises, bloated and self-referential journals, and wastage of valuable scholarship funding.
Grievance studies also created academic echo-chambers as well as a gap between the Ivory tower and taxpayers. We charted the problem in detail, as well as provided solutions, in the Martin Center's brief "'Witches' and 'Viruses:' The Activist-Academic Threat and a Policy Response."
The reform I'd like to see is a return to rigorous research designs and a control on funding which results in more policy-relevant and historic research.
Go Back
State leaders Need to Consider Shrinking or Closing Some Colleges
In April, Jeb Spaulding, chancellor of Vermont's State College System, proposed closing three campuses as the health and financial realities of COVID-19 became clear. His proposal would bury him.
Within five days, public outrage forced Spaulding to withdraw his proposal. Before the end of the month, and after no-confidence votes from faculty and staff from system colleges, Spaulding submitted his resignation.
Spaulding is a cautionary tale: Across the United States, public higher ed systems are losing students, can't control costs, and have few leaders willing to take action and make unpopular changes. If Vermont — with a shrinking college-age population and disappearing private colleges — can't embrace reform, the battle in other states to control college costs and adjust the status quo will be even harder.
For the good of public university systems in the future, state leaders need to take hard steps now. That includes cutting academic programs, the administrative bureaucracy, and athletics. The needed cuts may also mean closing campuses. As the Martin Center has written about previously, pandemic-related cuts have focused on professors and academic programs, preserving the too-high staffing levels of the bureaucracy. In states like Pennsylvania, which has had a 20 percent enrollment decline since 2010 in its 14-university state system, a baby boom will not come to save it. Mergers, consolidations, and closures may be the only way to sustain public colleges as educational institutions, rather than serving as a glorified jobs program for the towns in which they were built.
The cuts will be fought over bitterly. The people willing to lead the reforms will not be beloved, and it will be a thankless task. But, for the future of public colleges, the viral growth of their bureaucracies, athletic arms, and obscure research projects need to be stopped.
"Higher education is in the midst of a major sea change," Spaulding told the Vermont State Colleges board of trustees. "I believe then and now it was the best available path forward. Time will tell whether I was right or wrong." Other states should heed his example, rather than bow down to the mob that declared him a heretic.
Reform the College Transfer Process
If college admins are serious about aiding poor and under-served students, they need to make it easier for students to transfer credits from community colleges.
Transferring is becoming more common, but college transfer processes are still complicated. Transfer students don't always have an advisor to walk them through what credits will count at their new university. The difficulty in navigating a new place can delay their graduation or push them to drop out altogether.
Some colleges have made good progress on improving the transfer problem. In North Carolina, transfer (or articulation) agreements between the University of North Carolina system and the North Carolina Community College System has made transferring smoother. The Comprehensive Articulation Agreement (CAA) ensures students who earn an associate's arts degree or associate's science degree can enter a UNC school with junior status and provides a list of courses that are guaranteed to transfer to a UNC school.
UNC schools also have agreements with local community colleges to make it easier for students to transfer to a four-year college while staying close to home. UNC-Wilmington, for example, has agreements with 17 community colleges that includes more programs than the CAA. Private colleges in North Carolina, too, have made transferring easier. A group of 30 colleges works with community colleges to make sure students don't lose the credits they've earned.
Yet, room for improvement remains. Four-year colleges need to give community colleges more information about their requirements and what students need to do to succeed, and community colleges need to do better at advising students who want to earn a bachelor's degree. Both two-year and four-year schools need to support students and make it easier for them to navigate a bureaucratic process so they don't waste their time.
Student success begins with the basics. Students need to do their part as independent adults in meeting deadlines and taking responsibility for their future. And colleges need to make that process easier for them, with easy-to-access information and advisors who understand the common problems transfer students will face. It may not mean a flashy new building to show donors and prospective students, but it might mean a more affordable — and complete — education for the students who enroll.
Shannon Watkins, Senior Writer
It's Time for Colleges to Hold In-person Classes Again
Students need to be allowed back in the classroom.
There's little dispute: in many cases, online and in-person classes are not equal in quality and effectiveness. The differences are innumerable. Online classes, especially in their current "Zoom" form, lack many of the valuable — and arguably irreplaceable — features crucial to student learning.
For example, no matter how advanced a particular online platform may be, it is difficult to replicate the natural social interactions that take place in a classroom. This poses a unique obstacle to effective teaching in many disciplines. Courses in literature, history, or philosophy, for instance, are often centered around organic back-and-forth discussions taking place between the instructor and students.
There are additional struggles for students who take "hands-on" classes. Visuals, graphics, and powerpoints cannot adequately replace physical interaction tools, models, and equipment.
Another drawback to online education is that it's easier for students to "tune out" and do less work than they would otherwise have to in a face-to-face setting. For example, unless specifically prohibited by the professor, students can disable both the video and audio on their "Zoom class" and walk away from their computer — and yet still get credit for "attending" class.
Perhaps the most serious concern about online learning is that it is nearly impossible to prevent students from cheating on tests. Despite the development of software that essentially "watches" students through a webcam as they take a test, there still isn't a foolproof safeguard against academic dishonesty. Unfortunately, students are innovative in finding ways to take advantage of the lack of in-person accountability.
For all the above reasons, and given that the coronavirus does not pose a serious threat to most college-aged people, colleges and universities across the country should reopen their campuses for in-person learning. They can do so safely by taking proper health precautions, such as conducting robust testing and contact tracing, and requiring those infected to self-quarantine.
Of course, remote-learning options should still be made available for students who are high-risk.
Bring Back — And Keep — SAT Requirements
In July, the University of North Carolina Board of Governors (BOG) enacted an "emergency temporary waiver" of SAT admissions requirements. Advocates of the waiver argued that it was necessary due to the unforeseen challenges posed by COVID-19. Officially, UNC administrators proposed that the board "waive the standardized test requirement for students applying for admission in Spring 2021, Summer 2021, and Fall 2021."
While many students have been unable to take the SAT or ACT due to pandemic-related cancellations, it's unclear that a complete waiver of testing requirements was necessary. As BOG member Steve Long pointed out, schools could still require test scores, but make exceptions for those who are unable to get a score because of COVID-19. Such a policy would have been far less drastic.
Unfortunately, the temporary waiver has set the stage for schools to get rid of testing requirements altogether. The student representative on the BOG, for example, has expressed hope that the SAT waiver will lead to "something more permanent."
And university systems in other states have already announced plans to ax the SAT. In May, the University of California system announced plans to phase out the SAT over a five-year period. The system said it might create its own test or get rid of testing requirements entirely.
Higher education leaders, in North Carolina and nationally, should resist the temptation to allow a temporary emergency waiver to turn into a permanent policy change. Abandoning academic rigor may alleviate student stress in the short term, but long-term student success is dependent on institutions of higher education maintaining robust and rigorous standards.
Even in a pandemic-ridden world, admitting underprepared students into colleges and universities — and thereby increasing the likelihood that they will drop-out with student loan debt — is not a compassionate response.
Sumantra Maitra, Nonresident Fellow
It's Time to Slash the Bureaucracy
As we limp out of the COVID-19 pandemic, higher-ed in the entire Anglosphere is in desperate need of reforms. To start, downsizing administrative bloat will be a welcome course correction for the academy.
Prior to the pandemic, the higher ed model was already reeking with pressure. According to estimates, the growth in university bureaucracy in the last 30 years has been around 221 percent compared to around 10 percent growth in faculty. In some universities, staff outnumber faculty by a ratio of 2:1. Most diversity and inclusivity officers, to give one example, earn more than double the amount of any associate professor.
This has resulted in two things. The first is a massive increase in tuition cost to fund a Byzantine behemoth. From infrastructure to administrative salaries, it is the students who have to fund it, pushing them into more and more debt. It is unsustainable.
Second, university bureaucracy, like all bureaucracies, follows the laws of self-sustenance and survival. We see more attempts by the university administration interfering in academic research, and when there are cuts due to COVID-19, faculty bear the brunt. As we discussed in the Martin Center policy brief "Higher Education after COVID-19," culling administrative positions is the key reform that needs to be initiated to ensure the survival of the academy.
Any such cuts should focus on protecting core academic functions and ruthlessly downsizing auxiliary capacities, including any administration positions involved in student services, student mental well-being, and such. Those are not core functions of any academic institution.
There needs to be an immediate hiring freeze and funding cuts, as well as a reduction in support staff. Most administrative functions should be delegated to junior academic staff and research students. That way, core academic functions will continue as tuition costs drop.
Students Deserve Rigorous Classes Again
The second reform I'd like to see is one that ensures more rigor in some disciplines.
As mentioned earlier, part of the reason student tuition has increased several-fold is due to a bloated bureaucracy focusing on corporate buzzwords and diversity initiatives while neglecting the core functions of the academy. But that is not the sole reason. Academy itself is to be blamed as well for its dilution of expertise.
Since the rise of interdisciplinary studies in the early 1990s, more and more academic disciplines and study centers were hijacked by concepts and paradigms which not only were less rigorous, but which questioned the very idea of rigor as Euro-centric and hetero-patriarchal. These disciplines, in James Lindsay's useful terminology, are collectively known as grievance studies. They have produced utterly ridiculous, ahistorical, ideological, and diluted research, along with replication crises, bloated and self-referential journals, and wastage of valuable scholarship funding.
Grievance studies also created academic echo-chambers as well as a gap between the Ivory tower and taxpayers. We charted the problem in detail, as well as provided solutions, in the Martin Center's brief "'Witches' and 'Viruses:' The Activist-Academic Threat and a Policy Response."
The reform I'd like to see is a return to rigorous research designs and a control on funding which results in more policy-relevant and historic research.
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