CHAPEL HILL (Nov. 15, 2019) – The leaders of Higher Ed Works and the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal got together with a group of future professors this week to discuss the biggest challenges facing higher education.

And what was striking wasn’t their differences – it was how much they agreed.

Paul Fulton, Co-Chair of Higher Ed Works, told students in a graduate seminar at UNC-Chapel Hill called “The American Professoriate” that North Carolina’s public colleges and universities are the state’s greatest assets, fueling enormous economic and social benefits.

Yet access and affordability remain a major challenge to educating a 21^st-century workforce, he said.

Fulton cited North Carolina’s unique constitutional mandate for low tuition,¹ yet he noted that state support per student still hasn’t returned to their levels before the Great Recession. As a result, tuition has risen.

He noted that by next year, two-thirds of the state’s jobs are projected to require education beyond high school. Online education and community colleges could well be part of answering that demand, Fulton said.

Jenna Robinson, President of the Martin Center, said that every student should be assured an ample return on their education investment.

She noted that the cost of higher education has climbed faster than the Consumer Price Index and wages, and student aid hasn’t kept up, contributing not only to higher levels of student debt, but a larger percentage of students who borrow.

Especially for students who leave school without a degree, she said, “Their return on investment is nil.”

Robinson and Fulton both noted an approaching demographic cliff – a projected shrinkage in the number of high-school graduates in 5-10 years because birth rates declined during the Great Recession.

Fulton said enrolling non-traditional students and re-enrolling “part-way home” students – those who leave school before they earn a degree – could be key to sustaining college enrollment.

Robinson said some school closures are inevitable, especially among small liberal-arts colleges. But a student who currently can’t get into UNC-Chapel Hill might be able to gain admission with less competition 15 years from now, she said.

Too many colleges try to be all things to all people, Robinson said, rather than distinguishing themselves as unique with, say, a Great Books curriculum.

With athletics and additional course offerings to match those at other institutions, “They’re all chasing each other instead of differentiating,” she said. “Colleges will have to sell themselves in order to attract students.”

The future curriculum – and what technology is used to create the “classroom” – are also major challenges, Fulton said. Traditional schools face competition not only from major online players like Liberty and Arizona State, but increasingly from major corporations like Amazon that may opt to train their own employees.

Fulton noted that in a book written with former UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp, course instructor Buck Goldstein noted the reluctance of many university faculty to accept and adapt to change.²

Fulton quoted Gordon Gee, who has led Colorado, Brown, Vanderbilt, Ohio State and West Virginia universities:  “The notion that universities can do business the very same way has to stop.”

Students are increasingly career-minded, Fulton said, and the curriculum should be geared toward careers, with more emphasis on science and technology.

But there’s a balance, he said.

“Don’t get me wrong – this is not intended in any way to diminish the role of liberal arts. Kids will always need to learn to do research, problem-solve, think strategically, and they will always need to learn about the world around them, plus its history.”The question, he said, is: “Are we nimble enough, are we innovative enough, to adapt to the future needs of students?”

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¹https://www.ncleg.gov/EnactedLegislation/Constitution/NCConstitution.html, Article IX, Section 9. The only other states with similar constitutional provisions are Wyoming and Arizona.

²Holden Thorp and Buck Goldstein, Our Higher Calling: Rebuilding the Partnership Between America and its Colleges & Universities, The University of North Carolina Press, 2018. Pp. 26, 126-127.