5. FUNDING: DEFINE VALUE AND INNOVATE
COVID-19 put a fine point on the financial reckoning colleges and universities were facing long before the pandemic began, and we are likely to feel its effects in the years to come. With declining enrollment revenues, state funding decreases, and rising expenses (training faculty and staff to deliver online learning, new cleaning protocols, adjustments to building systems and operations, and increased IT infrastructure demands, to name a few), colleges and universities face tough decisions about what to cut. To survive, many institutions must thoughtfully re-visit core values and innovate around funding.
The following insights may inform an approach:
Equity and Access
The funding crisis within education raises questions about core values, access, and equity. What and who gets cut out of higher education? Elite, well-endowed institutions may survive COVID-19 while many public institutions and small private institutions flounder, further widening the income and education inequality gap. Will higher education be just for the gifted and wealthy?
“Leaving post-secondary education without a degree or credential is the most serious problem,” says Nicholas Santilli, PhD, senior director of learning strategy, SCUP. “Some will argue that access has improved, but the resources necessary for persistence and completion to degree is where inequity comes into stark focus. Who does and does not complete is the real tragedy. Students leave institutions without credentials, a lot of debt, and no means of acquiring a job that will help them address their debt and standard of living.”
New business models will likely emerge, addressing student expectations for equitable access to education. Can we leverage this moment to impose better, more efficient business processes? Is this an opportunity to clarify the value of higher education by innovating around access and quality?
New business models will likely emerge, addressing student expectations for equitable access to education.
Life-Course Learning: Workforce Training Versus Traditional Education
As students engage with online learning and grapple with financial challenges in response to the pandemic and recession, there may be an increased interest in skills training and/or certificate programs that translate into viable careers. The pursuit of post-secondary training to fit a specific workforce need may overtake that of a formative education and the full “college experience.”
Whether engaged in skills training or more traditional four-year college experiences, students from diverse backgrounds will continue to expect a great deal of choice in their educational offerings, from when and how they learn to what they believe will bring value to their lives.
"The real potential in transforming post-secondary education is to drop the illusion of ‘lifelong learning’ and recognize that as careers become more complex, people will need ‘life-course learning,” said Nicholas Santilli, PhD, senior director of learning strategy, SCUP. This approach would meet people where they are with learning opportunities they need at particular moments in their life course; the education or training of 20-year-olds is different from that of 38-year-olds. Post-secondary institutions need to recognize what people need given the context of their lives rather than asking people to conform to a relatively rigid menu of educational options that may or may not fit what people need (and when and how they access it).
"The real potential in transforming post-secondary education is to drop the illusion of ‘lifelong learning’ and recognize that as careers become more complex, people will need ‘life-course learning,” said Nicholas Santilli, PhD, senior director of learning strategy, SCUP.
The Pause
Many colleges and universities are moving forward with planned construction projects for which they’d already obtained funding. At the same time, numerous projects have gone on hold, especially at state institutions dependent upon uncertain state budgets.
The viability of these projects and others is in question. Major considerations include the cost benefits of adaptive reuse against new construction, or new program mixes and scale requirements. How will our experience with social and physical distancing inform planning moving forward? Will housing projects, now opening at half capacity, be re-thought?