Reining in College Costs

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Varied Impact

I'm not quite as pessimistic about the continued viability of our colleges and universities. I do believe that advances in digital technology will lower costs and enhance learning and fundamentally change the way postsecondary education is done in this country. If the Obama Administration is successful in its efforts to spend $500 million commissioning the development of high-quality online coursework that would then be distributed free to any institution that wants to use it, higher education would be transformed almost overnight. But whether it happens quickly or more gradually, I suspect that this transformation will impact the different sectors of higher education in different ways.

It's likely that the elite institutions will find no shortage of families willing to pay large tuition bills so their children can reap the benefits of a prestigious degree. And the research programs and athletic teams of public flagship universities probably lend enough prestige to their degrees that they will continue to attract students whether or not their instructional systems change. But it's the community colleges, comprehensive public universities, and private colleges without national reputations—schools that enroll 95% of the 19 million students attending accredited institutions across the country—that may be the most vulnerable.

I suspect, as well, that few colleges and universities will have the luxury of using a slow, evolutionary strategy that entails transforming their courses one by one. There are enough for-profit and not-for profit institutions that are quickly putting the pieces together to be in a position to mass-market multiple, high-quality, low-cost degree programs that students of all types will find enormously attractive. Some of these programs may appear at residential colleges where students and their parents will be willing to pay an extra premium to gain the social maturation, independence, and self-reliance benefits that come with being a full-time residential student. Others will be aimed at the huge market of potential students who, for one reason or another, can't or won't choose to live in a campus residence hall.

Transforming Academic Culture

To achieve success in this environment, colleges and universities, at least those that have no immunity from the winds of change, will need to begin to develop high-tech/high-touch programs as a means to lower costs and improve quality. To do so, presidents must convince their governing boards and their faculties that change is necessary and that it will require a shift from "teaching" to "learning." This will be no easy task, for shifting from one paradigm to another is to radically transform the academic culture of an institution, an entity that has proven to be remarkably resistant to change.

As they work to prepare their institutions for an uncertain future, the leaders of our colleges and universities might well heed the wisdom of Charles Darwin, who wrote, "It is not the strongest of species that survive, or the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

Michael Bassis is the president of Westminster College in Salt Lake City.

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