Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, March 21, 1994 TAG: 9403260001
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: GERALD L. BALILES
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
This is the central message of "Changing States: Higher Education and the Public Good," a report from the Southern Regional Education Board's Commission for Educational Quality. In an uncertain world, where international trade, rapid communications and advancing technologies are changing all the rules, America's investment in higher education is our best guarantee of prosperity.
Americans are worried about the future. They are left confused and uneasy by the upheavals and aftershocks of an economy going through a fundamental transformation. Blue-chip companies falter. Almost daily, newspaper headlines announce job cutbacks in large corporations. Other jobs may be created in new, smaller businesses - but the public senses less job security.
America's structural metamorphosis is not limited to the economy. The information revolution is shaking our society and its basic values to the core. Many Americans remember a time when the media served as a powerful tool to communicate shared values and expectations - from Franklin Roosevelt's fireside chats to John Kennedy's dramatic description of America's destiny in a global New Frontier. Today, instead of three television networks, cable television offers 50 channels, and soon there may be 500.
All of this information and all of these choices mean that it can be even more difficult to have shared national experiences and to get important messages out to all of us. As information multiplies at a baffling, geometric rate, higher education can help us separate knowledge from information. Higher education can help us understand what is important.
America's system of public and independent colleges and universities is the best in the world - that we know. But two fundamental problems threaten higher education's ability to help our nation succeed in these challenging times.
First, state and national leaders do not sufficiently recognize the value of higher education in today's world. Their budget decisions are proof that higher education's priority is slipping. Second, colleges and universities do not sufficiently recognize the need to make changes that will keep higher education the No. 1 asset of this nation. In a changing nation and world, higher education is changing too slowly.
The flow of public money to our colleges and universities is diminishing at a time of unprecedented political, social, and economic change. Higher education institutions have replaced millions of state tax dollars with the fastest growing special-use tax in America - tuition - threatening one of our region's greatest higher education accomplishments - access.
State and local government spending in the 15 states served by the Southern Regional Education Board grew 50 percent from the mid-1980s to 1990; elementary and secondary education spending grew 55 percent; spending for social services increased 63 percent; and spending for government administration rose 58 percent. Higher education spending grew by only 38 percent. This means that higher education funding in the SREB states, adjusted for inflation, is about the same today as it was in 1984. Yet there are 600,000 more students - almost16 percent more - in our colleges.
As the higher education share of state budgets fell, the cost shifted to students and their families. Annual tuition for students at public colleges and universities more than doubled in 10 years, and the bill for students at independent colleges and universities nearly tripled.
The Commission for Educational Quality believes higher education must be moved back up on our states' priority lists. To make this happen, higher education's leaders must face more directly the kinds of skepticism and questions that trouble the public.
In conversations with citizens, we found skepticism about the priorities of colleges and universities: whether teaching receives the emphasis it should; whether research is sometimes overemphasized or under-focused; whether big-time athletics skews institutional perspectives; whether ambitious administrators, faculty and supporters want to expand institutional missions beyond states' real needs; and whether the people in charge of our colleges and universities really do all they can to hold down costs.
To earn top-priority budget status, higher-education leaders must convince state legislators that they have a well-thought-out plan for change. Specific changes will vary from college to college and from state to state. The nature of American higher education makes it all but impossible to issue blanket change-orders.
One change clearly is in order, however. Colleges and universities have to respond more directly to the concerns of their customers: students, industry and government. Time and again we heard complaints about higher education's unresponsiveness toward those who seek its services.
Giving attention to the concerns of customers is not the same thing as saying the customer is always right. College and university leaders are not being asked to give up control over their affairs; they are being urged to listen more closely, to respond more fully, to broaden their definition of "quality" to include customer needs. The public - much as it seeks and values higher education - cannot be taken for granted.
As higher-education leaders sharpen their focus on the customer, governors and legislators should adopt the approach of cutting-edge corporations - set clear goals and measures of accountability, then provide the resources and flexibility college and university leaders need to get a maximum return on investment.
We recognize what is right about higher education in America: its accessibility; its commitment to the democratic ideal of an informed citizenry; its crucial research contributions to agriculture, health care, commerce and industry, and other parts of our society. Our higher-education institutions are fundamentally strong and capable of constructive change. But all of us who are concerned about our nation's future prosperity must make certain that colleges and universities get the support - and make the changes - they need.
Gerald L. Baliles, former Virginia governor, is an attorney specializing in international law and chairman of the Southern Regional Education Board's Commission for Educational Quality.
by CNB