As we move past the shortest day of the year, my thoughts turn to the eventual return of languid summer days. This column about how universities could make better use of their facilities and faculty during the summer months first…
Increasing costs, lavish loans, low performance standards, the absence of merit, and a lost sense of mission contribute to the diminishment of the effectiveness of public higher education. But most loathsome and detrimental is an organization hell-bent on deflecting every…
Universities must change if we are to continue serving our students. Evermore frequently, universities will be called to meet the specific needs of each student in a unique fashion. If it is properly integrated into the curriculum, distance education gives…
Museums bridge the gap between study and reality and, as in universities, the relationship between communities and the meaning of the things they have produced can both be confused and confusing at times. James Clerk Maxwell, the 19th century Scottish…
There is a shameful trend in higher education and other quarters of society that treats success as something to be considered with suspicion. Some accuse The Occupy Wall Street crowd of holding this position, but achievement and greed are not…
Seventh and final in a series on state funding for higher education Value in higher education will make more thoughtful and careful students out of those in attendance. People will be asking why ever more frequently. Leadership better have good…
Sixth in a series on state funding for higher education If we measure the value of an educational institution solely by the number students enrolled, the number of degrees produced, the research dollars garnered, the books written, the paintings or…
Fifth in a series on state funding for higher education Chester Dunning, an acquaintance of mine, understands the value of faculty work in a free society. He is quoted in a WSJ piece, Putting a Price on Professors: Mr. Dunning…
Fourth in a series on state funding for higher education The human drive to create profit, the Internet and other technologies, are endeavoring to transform higher education. And in part, they have. But digital interaction alone will never be a…
Third in a series on state funding for higher education Addressing how the Monetary Assistance Program (MAP) is affecting the students of Illinois, the IBHE Task Force observed: The first issue is the increasing demand for financial aid. More students…
Second in a series on state funding for higher education Historically, while state contributions to the total operating budgets of universities have increased as a percentage of all spending, tuition has remained a roughly stable percentage of all operating costs. …
First in a series on state funding for higher education A fear held by many is that decreasing state support will lead effectively to privatizing state universities. And while a few million dollars is a pittance to a large research…
The only result of whining is to push people with purpose from addressing real problems. The tendency to whining and complaining may be taken as the surest sign symptom of little souls and inferior intellects. Lord Jeffrey ___________________________________________________________________ Recently the…
Universities need to change over time. Change comes from leadership, as organizations resist it by nature. Interim Chancellor Robert Easter, who oversees the Urbana-Champaign campus, praised the program’s “long and prestigious history as a leader in aviation education” but said…
Concerns that college costs are spiraling out of control are well placed. However, painting institutions capable of garnering support for their mission as greedy, risks killing the incentive to improve is misguided. Private wealth of a philanthropic sort is also…
The quality of the educational experience and the earning power of degrees attained are the purview and responsibility of each student and family who enter the educational marketplace. It is a marketplace where ideas of value (hopefully) are exchanged for…
The words of the popular early twentieth century song I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles may reflect the spirit of the challenges in the housing and education sectors of the U.S. economy better than most twenty-first century economists – I’m dreaming dreams,…
Universities must change. The culture of college needs to evolve, particularly with regard to “perverse institutional incentives” that reward colleges for enrolling and retaining students rather than for educating them. “It’s a problem when higher education is driven by a…
Who cares about students as higher education becomes big business? The Justice Department plans to intervene in a whistle-blower lawsuit charging that one of the nation’s largest for-profit college companies, the Education Management Corporation, defrauded the government by illegally paying…
Costs are always relative and secondary to value. Governments cannot make universities by enactments of laws: Nor corporations by erections of edifices: The church cannot create them under the authority of heaven: The flattering eulogies of orators cannot adorn them…
University leaders who politicize intention and talk about public benefit and public purpose as primary mission show a complete lack of understanding of institutions and learning in a free market. We exist to tirelessly serve students. Here is an inconvenient…
