Dive Brief:
- Continued budget cuts, adjusting to changes in the demographics of student populations, promoting high quality education and maintaining institutional autonomy are the top challenges facing the public higher ed sector in the near future, according to The Evolllution.
- In regions with fewer than expected college applicants, there are a number of campuses that are merging or consolidating due to the higher number of empty seats. In these regions, schools will need to become more entrepreneurial to compete for applicants when there is more supply than demand.
- Though it is difficult to know all the challenges public higher ed institutions will face in the coming years, there will be pressure on schools to maintain access to the education they offer by keeping it affordable, increasing the success rate for students, and ensuring communities and states feel their needs are met.
Dive Insight:
Maintaining institutional autonomy is all the more difficult in an industry (and country) facing sharply increased politicization coupled with the disarming speed of social media. College presidents recently reported that their job was made particularly difficult because they were often not the first to know about a campus crisis or controversy, noting crises on campus often spread on social media before administrators had a chance to respond or even gather all the facts. As presidents face pressure from student bodies due to this speedy flow of information, it leads the public and lawmakers to seek immediate responses and results as well.
Presidents are also increasingly under pressure from boards of trustees and external stakeholders to enact policies guaranteeing free speech but also protections for underrepreseted groups — all while guaranteeing graduate outcomes. But this could make it difficult to institute long-term planning for institutions, and also to avoid more precipitous budget cuts in the future, particularly if enrollment, tuition and state funding continues to decline for schools. With the constant availability of information, administrators must also understand it will invite more scrutiny from critics, as well as increased pressure from lawmakers representing those critics.