New England futures

New England Journal of Higher Education, The, Winter 2001 by McMahon, Eleanor M

Higher Education Prepares for Change

Recognizing the changes occurring in American higher education, the Pew Charitable Trusts recently funded a proposal entitled the "Futures Project" to develop the policies and practices seen as essential to the effective evolution of the American system of higher education with particular emphasis on a more market-oriented and performance-oriented approach.

The proposal to Pew-prepared in large measure by Frank Newman, then president of the Education Commission of the States, and Kay McClenney, then vice president of the commission-aimed to develop new ways for academic and political leaders to prepare for a future sure to be marked by profound demographic changes, growing demand for more advanced workforce skills, rapid growth of technology and the emergence of new kinds of higher education providers including for-profit and nonprofit institutions as well as established institutions taking on new roles.

Specifically, the Futures Project aims to develop a fuller understanding of the changes occurring in higher education and institutions' responses to date, a clear picture of how well institutional and political leaders understand these changes and their consequences, and a statement as to what states will need from higher education over the next decade. The project also will convene political and academic leaders to focus on the nature of the problems facing higher education, policies that work and the development of regular mechanisms for ongoing planning. Finally, the project seeks to deliver new policies to govern a more complicated higher education system while preserving such essential elements as broad access.

When Newman joined Brown University's Taubman Center for Public Policy as a visiting professor, the project went with him.

The Futures Project may learn a great deal from a study by the former California Higher Education Policy Center, now the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, in which detailed case studies focused on seven large and diverse higher education systems (California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York and Texas). The National Center identified major challenges, which over the past 20 years have had serious impacts on colleges and universities.

The first challenge to higher education is to close the gap between rich and poor by ensuring that human talent is developed across socioeconomic classes.

A second challenge is the increase in enrollment as the nation's high school graduating classes grow dramatically at least through the year 2008. A third is that just as student numbers are increasing, higher education's resources are shrinking because of public resistance to tuition increases and escalating competition for federal and state funds from services such as public schools, health services, welfare and corrections. As a result, consensus on financial support has eroded. In the 1980s and '90s, the United States drifted into

a policy of heavy reliance on student debt to pay for college. So while the economy demands more and better educated citizens, public policies make paying for higher education more difficult.

A fourth challenge is quality. Those who know higher education best are increasingly critical of how well it works. Public policy must include responsibility for seeing that higher education performance meets public needs and for recognizing and supporting quality assurance mechanisms.

Finally, a fifth challenge is the powerful but unpredictable impact of information technologies. Technology has already revolutionized research and has had a major impact on higher education administration.

The central question now is how technology will affect the quality and accessibility of instruction on and off campus. Technology also has stimulated greater competition in the entry of new providers of higher education and threatened the efficacy and relevance of many policies predicated upon geography, such as institutional service areas, regional accreditation and, some would suggest, state boundaries themselves.

New England's Response

In New England, a number of initiatives by the New England Board of Higher Education (NEBHE) respond to the challenges identified by the National Center.

For example, by aiming to increase the participation and success of underrepresented minority students at all levels of education, the NEBHE Excellence Through Diversity initiative responds to the challenge of reducing social stratification. The program's Science, Engineering and Mathematics Support Network, which meets each year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, involves more than 300 minority high school and college students and more than 150 professionals from business and academia who serve as advisors and mentors to network students. This NEBHE initiative also helps students obtain summer internships at businesses, campuses and government laboratories and notifies students of fellowship competitions, conferences and other academic and career enrichment opportunities. All six New England states have established state networks serving more than 5,000 students since 1990. In addition, NEBHE has collaborated with the Western Interstate Commission on Higher Education and the Southern Regional Education Board to support a national doctoral scholars program.