Are traditional state research universities the next Titanic?

Now that the last Titanic survivor has passed away (see here), we're linked to Titanic's history only by comparison to other monumental and cumulative miscalculations.  I've started to wonder whether traditional state research universities fall into the Titanic-sized blunder category.

Here's why:  we all know that rising costs and declining budgets are putting a squeeze on our activities.  At some point, no increase in tuition and fees will support our needs, because there's a point at which students will simply choose to go elsewhere, or to abandon higher education altogether.  I've seen very few universities decide to winnow their programs such that they're only doing what it is that they are excellent at doing, preferring instead to have a few top-notch programs and several mediocre (or worse) ones.  The whole point of a university, it seems to me, is to do the type of research and teaching that comes with graduate education.  (If universities don't do that, why aren't they called "colleges"?)

And yet, we see a failure to cooperate, for example, with community colleges, who could certainly provide the catch-up education that some students need in order to transition successfully from high school to college. 

As our tuition and fees go up, our freshmen and sophomores may rightly choose to spend their first two years at community colleges, saving their money while getting remedial or required courses out of the way.  It seems to me that noticing this trend--and working with it, rather than against it--could be a win-win:  no more remedial courses at universities, better prepared students, more investment in upper-level and graduate courses. 

So why don't we partner more cohesively with community colleges, jettison losing programs at our own institutions, and focus more on what a university's job actually is?  Well, as one of my favorite movies, The Right Stuff, explains, it's all about funding.  No bucks, no Buck Rogers.  Universities aren't rewarded for making strategic choices.  They're rewarded for head counts. 

But the next generations of students aren't going to settle for a hide-bound, non-creative educational atmosphere.  There are too many other opportunities for the best students.  I think it's time to rethink all of the individual miscalculations that go into a university's decision not to make bold changes. 

Iceberg, right ahead.

(Posted by Nancy Rapoport)

Comments

[Tim Zinnecker]

Query whether universities do a better job of abandoning money-losers in the athletic department than in academic departments. I've heard of schools cutting swimming programs or lacrosse programs. I have not heard of a school cutting its French studies program or its biology department. Hmmmm. All very interesting.

[k]

I wonder how much cutting of teams gets done in athletic departments outside of Title ix pressures, where it was thought that you actually had to kill off men's teams in order to show gender equity in provision of services. It is certainly true that small academic departments are hard to kill, but that can be done also and letting them shrink in size over time is very common. I see that there is some discussion underway at Harvard of merging some one-faculty-member departments into others, but such moves are complicated by endowment restrictions as well as politics.