by Scott Samuelson
Though universities have traditionally been associated with educating students, I don’t think that it makes sense anymore. There’s too much at stake.
Education requires wonder, discipline, personal attention, liberal learning, standards, mentorship, transformation, reading. Let’s face it. These things don’t scale well, especially when it comes to generating the revenue universities need for their survival or economic growth. The jobs of not just professors, chairs, administrative assistants, provosts, and presidents are on the line—also deans, student life directors, recruitment officers, assessment coordinators, and usually associate and assistant versions of all those positions, among many others.
Maybe it was feasible for universities to aim for education when they received more public funding. But those days are over. Few people care about being an educated person, let alone about educating the populace at large. Plus, most people—even many in the university itself—don’t distinguish between being educated and being trained for a job.
But universities shouldn’t just focus on research and jettison teaching and learning altogether. The revenue stream of students is too vital.
Universities should attract students with what they really want: concerts, sporting events, gaming stations, food courts, swanky dorms, fewer requirements, and so on. (At the same time, it’s savvy to put fees on some of these goods to generate more revenue for the university.) But the university shouldn’t just be an expensive four-year resort experience. There needs to be a value-add that justifies public support and the increasing cost of tuition and room and board. The ostensible value of the university needs to involve credentialing students for successful entrance into the economy.
The beauty of a credential is twofold. First, money. Universities should drive home that a credential is a ticket to a well-paying job. Second, status. If disciplines like the arts and humanities have any value, it’s to equip students with moral and political vocabularies that socially elevate them above the uncredentialed. That way, even if by chance a plumber without a college diploma makes more money than a university graduate, the credentialed will have the consolation of looking down on the plumber.
Obviously, an institution of higher education should offer a wide array of credentials—electrical engineering, landscape design, hotel management, and so on. Slightly less obvious is that colleges, departments, and even professors within the institution should compete against each other for students and funds. Because it’s good for businesses to compete against one another, it follows that everyone inside a given business should also compete against one another. In this way, the university can gauge which colleges, departments, and professors are successful and which disciplines struggle or even fail to fulfill the university’s mission.
Though departments should act like competing startups, they should also be committed to staying the same size they’ve been since their peak enrollment. Even when they fail to attract enough customers to their classes, universities should take every measure not to lay off their faculty or administrators until it’s absolutely necessary to lay off their faculty. The reason is simple. It’s good for morale when everyone feels supported all the way up to the point of termination or forced retirement.
A big problem that universities face is that it’s hard to know which credential is going to be a golden ticket to a well-paying job. Even something as esoteric as mastering a foreign language or learning the history of ideas might prove useful. A likely solution is smaller credentials that need to be regularly updated—microcredentials and nanodegrees, especially in using the latest software.
A related problem that universities face is artificial intelligence. In general, I’m in favor of using it in schools, because new technologies are equally good for all ages, especially the technological platforms of mega-corporations and the Chinese government. But my worry is that if students use chatbots all the time, it will devalue their credentials. My strong recommendation is a badge of microcredentials in the use of AI.
In general, universities must act like private businesses to generate revenue and engage in rigorous impact-quantifying assessment efforts to remain in the good graces of a government that decreasingly funds them.
Don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that no learning will take place! A set of learning objectives relative to a major will ideally be met by the student in the credentialing process. Just as important is the numerical documentation of how these learning objectives have been met, both for marketing purposes and accreditation.
Who knows? A few professors will probably continue to inspire students to think for themselves by bringing them into conversation with a broad range of powerful ideas, stories, and images. The university shouldn’t stand in the way of anyone accidentally getting an education—provided it doesn’t interfere with the current policies of the federal or state government, any HR guidelines, the faculty handbook, the student handbook, the athletic schedule, Title IX, the Clery Act, FERPA, HEOA, the ADA, funded research projects, or the Position Responsibility Statements of the assistant, associate, or full professors.
In conclusion, the university’s time and resources should be spent on recruitment, retention, technological innovation, revenue generation, and research funded by grants or corporations. There’s little point anymore in devoting the university’s energies to holding students to high standards, encouraging them to learn broadly, and demanding that they read books and learn to write on their own. Maybe such things could be supported in the good old days, but they’re often counterproductive to the fundamental mission of the university: credentialing students to succeed in the economy and securing funding for the research demanded by the interests of the economy.
There’s just too much at stake.
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