Conference Presentation, Panel
The Future of Higher Education in America
Milken InstituteWilliam Bennett, Steven Knapp, Daphne Koller, Patricia McWade, Anthony Miller, John Nelson, Bill Bennett, Tony Miller, Megan Smith, John Graff
- Public perception of higher education's value is projected to decline significantly, with the percentage of the public viewing college as a good idea falling from 82% twenty years ago to approximately 57% currently, potentially driving a trend where parents offer housing rather than employment to recent graduates.
- Legislation mandating the disclosure of graduation and employment rates is expected to be implemented to address concerns regarding 46% non-completion rates at four-year institutions and 50% underemployment or unemployment among the 2011 graduating class.
- The Department of Education anticipates the higher education system will need to evolve over the next 10 years, driven by necessary productivity improvements to lower costs per completed degree and regulatory mechanisms to ensure quality and return on investment.
- Future labor market demands are projected to include 14 million jobs by 2018 requiring skills between high school and a four-year degree, alongside an estimate that 11 million future jobs will require post-secondary skills short of a baccalaureate, prompting a focus on validating sub-segments of traditional degrees.
- Online technology is expected to be disruptive within the next five years, potentially causing hundreds of colleges to close in the next decade while replacing traditional lecture halls with collaborative community spaces and enabling the differentiation of students based on support needs.
- Federal student aid is predicted to have driven up tuition prices by 300% since 1990, exceeding inflation, which may lead to a bubble scenario for the $1 trillion in student debt and force a shift away from the high-price, high-aid model currently used by private universities.
- Public institutions face a risk of massive government defunding, which could force them to increase tuition, replace domestic students with higher-paying international and out-of-state students, and potentially trigger public unrest.
- George Washington University plans to maintain fixed tuition and guaranteed aid for up to five years while projecting to limit cost increases to 3% or below for six years, though it anticipates launching five to ten MOOCs and partnering with Virginia community colleges for online nursing degrees.
- Technological adoption is expected to pressure faculty to improve teaching quality, address remedial education needs for approximately 400,000 students waiting in California community colleges, and transform campuses into environments supporting entrepreneurial and real-world learning activities.
- A growing disparity in graduation rates is noted, with 80% of students from the top income quartile graduating by age 24 compared to only 11% of those in the lowest quartile, a gap the broken social compact between states and public higher education is expected to exacerbate.
- Chinese students are predicted to stop migrating to the United States as China builds its own universities, while the availability of federal aid and rising overall tuition may drive more students toward alternatives to the traditional four-year baccalaureate as employers begin to value other credentials.
- The higher education sector is expected to undergo transformation where institutions failing to engage with technology or offer value beyond content face existential risks, whereas those leveraging digital tools to improve completion rates and reduce costs will drive reform.