America’s Call for Higher Education Redesign

The most recent Lumina Foundation and Gallup report, "America's Call for Higher Education Redesign," was released on February 5, 2013.  The findings suggest that the respondents acknowledge the critical role of postsecondary education in employment and financial stability, but think the current model is flawed.  Three-quarters said college is unaffordable, and more than half said the quality of higher education is the same as or worse than in the past.

Some of the questions addressed in the study are:

• How important is having a certificate or degree beyond high school?
• How important is higher education to personal financial and job security?
• What are the most important reasons people get education beyond high school?
• How likely are adults to go back to school to earn a college degree or certificate?
• What are some of the barriers adults face in pursuing higher education?
• How do Americans perceive the quality of higher education institutions in this country?
• Is higher education affordable for everyone who needs it?

Additionally, respondents favor changes in higher education that would make obtaining a degree more realistic for working adults.  A majority of respondents said that they supported the awarding of credit for prior learning and skills acquired outside the classroom.  Three-quarters of those surveyed reported that they would be more likely to enroll in college if they could receive credit for prior knowledge.

A panel of higher education policy leaders at the Gallup event agreed that the findings should encourage campuses and policy makers to rethink outdated ideas about who students are, why they enroll in post-secondary programs, how to educate them in the technological age, and how to assess what they have learned.  All believe that evidence-based measures are critical and that it is more important than ever to be transparent about the results.

Paul LeBlanc, President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU), said that breaking free of the credit hour, as currently defined, could liberate colleges and universities to be innovative in delivering a quality education to students.  At SNHU the creation of competency-based education has allowed for a more-direct determination of what students are learning.  This approach, which has been approved by the university's regional accreditor, would allow students who pass a series of assessments to earn credits without attending the usual semester-long classes.  He also said that this new model would lower costs.

Michelle Cooper, President of the Institute for Higher Education Policy, said that a successful redesign would be modeled on a student-centered perspective versus the current institution-centered perspective.  The survey findings indicate that nearly all adults think higher education is important, but that only a quarter think it is affordable, and more than a third report that family responsibilities are a barrier to re-enrollment.  She went on to say that the current model is based on a traditional idea of higher education that is generally resident-based with students ranging from 18 to 22 years old.  However, she said that when “we look at today's student body over 75 percent of the student body is nontraditional."

Jamie Merisotis, President and CEO of Lumina, voiced the sentiment of the panel in saying that collaboration across sectors, strong partnerships between campuses and industry, meaningful engagement from civic leaders, and better communication with policy makers for elementary and secondary schools all are necessary approaches in order to reconceptualize higher education in a way that will benefit students. For him, equity is an imperative for society.

All agreed that learning has been democratized by technology and that it is a driver of scale.  Yet, more work needs to be done to use technology to deliver higher quality learning to more people.  The panelists felt that other countries were concentrating on and having success in using technology to both broaden the reach of education as well as in improving its quality and that currently the U.S. is falling behind in this aspect.

EDUCAUSE will continue to monitor and report on this issue.