Challenges of US Higher Education

1. The huge increase in the costs of universities. The huge increase in the costs of universities is
starting to seriously turn off potential customers and alienate the public, whose support of colleges is waning.
For the past five years, aggregate college enrollments have fallen. Rising college costs and stagnant or
declining pecuniary benefits have led more persons to ask: “is college worth it?” or, “do I get a good return on
my college investment?”. While many college administrators and professors decry it, most Americans go to
college primarily to enhance the probability of vocational success. As enrollments have grown faster than the
number of good high paying jobs, more students are “underemployed”, suggesting we are overinvested in
higher education. % of household earning more than $ 100.000 per year is shrinking, % of household earning
less than $ 35.000 per year is growing. Average rate of tuition to % of earnings: 2001 – 23,2%; 2012 – 42,4%.
The state reduced tax support for public institutions. The highest increases have been at public colleges and
universities where 75% of students are enrolled. Students and their families make increasingly greater
financial sacrifices in order to complete a postsecondary education. Forbes reports that the rising cost is
amplified by a diminishing field of well-paying job opportunities. The result? Many recent graduates are
underemployed and face massive student loan debt. Though success in the workforce usually requires a
college education, the ability to pay for college has become difficult for many.
2. Cheaper alternatives. Much cheaper approaches to certifying vocational competence are on
the horizon that offer an existential threat to the lower end of the higher education market. Already, more and
more students are taking courses and sometimes whole degrees on-line (e.g. MOOCs), bypassing the
expensive non-academic expenses that most universities impose on their students: high room and board
charges, fees to support intercollegiate athletics and other extraneous things. New forms of certifying
competence such as a national college exit examination could ultimately disrupt the market.
3. The US federal aid system. The vast increase in federal student financial aid, and also
intrusive federal regulation, has caused much of the tuition price inflation and has reduced a distinctive
advantage of American universities: their diversity, competitiveness, and freedom from central direction. The
evidence is clear that much of federal student aid ends up supporting higher tuition fees, benefiting
universities and their staffs more than students. Regulations like the 2011 “dear colleague” so-called
“guidance” with respect to treatment of sexual assault cases prevent individual schools the freedom to set their
own standards, forge a distinctive identity, all the while trampling due process and basic American concepts
of fair play. Besides, being needlessly complex, the US federal aid system is a significant barrier to students
from the households with the lowest income. Many middle-class families don’t qualify for aid that means
universities play a hand in systematically squeezing the middle class and knocking them down one or two
notches in socioeconomic standing over time.
4. “Underprepared graduates”. Lots of graduates with bachelor’s degrees carry heavy debt
burden, and many of these students aren't even done with schooling. Because of the current economy, many
students go to graduate school because:
 Their career choices require graduate level education (lawyers, doctors, more and more engineers).
Today's bachelor’s degree is starting to have the same value as yesterday's high school diploma: a bachelor's
degree is becoming the bare minimum for many employers. This may cause them to take membership as one
of about 7 Million Americans Haven’t Paid Federal Student Loans in at Least a Year.
 They can't find a job in their major, and instead of having gaps in their resumes, they go back to
school for a masters degree or doctorate degree so they don't appear idle.
 They stay "professional students" to defer student loan payments. Some students accumulate loans to
the point where they can take advantage of loan forgiveness (Grad-School Loan Binge Fans Debt Worries). So
the more you borrow, the less likely you are able to pay back, the more attractive ("smart") loan default
appears as an option
5. “The drop-out rate”. With increasing costs for college, it shouldn't come as a surprise that
there's also a rise in the number of students who don't complete their degrees. Less than fifty percent of
students complete their degree within six years. Although many of these students transfer and complete their
education at another university, a large number never finish. This includes both two-year and four-years
institutions. As many as one in three students drop out entirely and never finish their degrees. Even as there is
an overall rise in enrollment, completion rates have not kept pace. A college education is considered the
primary mark of a well-educated workforce. The low completion rates is an indicator that the United States
lags behind other countries with higher rates of completion. The rate of completion better known as “the drop-
out rate” is 50% for 4-year institutions and 80% for 2-year institutions.
6. The value of a college degree. The value of a college degree as a device to signal knowledge,
intelligence, discipline, ambition, and integrity is fraying, jeopardizing the economic advantages of a
university education. The earnings advantage of college graduates relative to high school diploma holders is
not rising as previously, as employers find that too many college graduates lack the positive distinctive
qualities they want in new employees. Too many students of meager academic performance attend college;
grade inflation allows nearly everyone to graduate who persists. The prestige elite schools are increasing
viewed as altogether superior institutions to less selective colleges and universities.
7. “A new majority” in student bodies. Today a typical student is no longer an 18-24-year-old
one who studies full-time on a campus. Only 20% of all students are typical students, the rest are “post
traditional” (older, working part-time, commuting etc). it’s necessary to make new programs for this new
majority.
8. Growing Privatization of Public Colleges and Universities. State funding for colleges and
universities has steadily decreased since the beginning of the 21st Century. For example, the University of
California state system dropped 37% from 1990 to 2004. This trend is nation-wide and is expected to
continue. As funding for higher learning institutions decrease, universities must seek funding from private
sources. Some universities have even made some of their high-profit programs, like business schools and law
schools, fund themselves through a combination of student tuition, businesses and other private sources. This
creates a pattern of privatization of the public college and university system. The source of funding is no
longer the institutions of higher learning but private business interests. These programs, and therefore a
substantial part of the university system itself, are essentially privately owned at this point. The result? They're
no longer subject to the same systems of regulation, admission and even academic requirements as rest of the
public state system. The growing privatization of the public higher education system is a growing concern for
scholars and administrators. The main concern is that as private interests take over a public university, their
business interests may not serve the public good.
9. New Methods and Curricula. The changes in teaching methods and curricula brings
challenges. By and large, teaching methods are moving away from the old-fashioned model of lectures aimed
at passive audiences.Students are now much more interested in interactive and self-guided approaches. With
so much information online and available for free, universities and colleges are restructuring curricula to stay
current and equip students to work with emerging technologies. Universities also recognize that uniform
methods of learning and evaluation are becoming outmoded. More student-centered forms of criteria are being
used to evaluate learning and success. Things like individual response systems in the form of clickers are
being used to allow students to participate directly and immediately.Team teaching and peer-led teaching
models are also emerging as alternatives to the old professor/student dynamic. For tenured, long-established
professors, new curricula and methodologies can be difficult to incorporate into their long established teaching
practices. They can find themselves frustrated by having to use teaching methods they don't like and not
knowing how to most effectively implement the new curricula.
10. Losing prestige. At dozens of large campuses, intercollegiate athletics is costly financially and
often scandalously immoral and exploitive. Growing evidence of long term health problems from football add
to the problems from the exploitation of students (by paying them less than their work contribution would
warrant in a competitive labor market) by extremely wealthy adults. Sex scandals and academic cheating
revelations hurt the prestige of higher education and the perception that it is a noble and uplifting enterprise of
any progressive society.
11. The Role of the University, Free Speech and Campus Civility. The university has
historically been an oasis of freedom of speech and freedom of expression for students and faculty alike. As
centers of learning and research, the university has always been a place where new and potentially threatening
ideas often emerge. It's been the mission of higher education in the United States to ensure that these freedoms
are treasured in institutions of higher learning. However, recent events have challenged these ideals. The
current political climate and the potentially violent threats which have emerged not only on university
campuses but also in cities across the country have put university administrators in a difficult place. They
must strike a balance between free speech and maintaining a secure and safe environment on university and
college campuses. The core fundamental feature of colleges – their role as an oasis where widely divergent
ideas are discussed and peacefully argued – is increasingly under attack. Universities presidents kowtow to
protesters who try to impose their often warped set of values upon others.
 12. Cybersecurity. Higher education must offer programs on the growing threat of cyberattacks
and provide the expertise needed to counter them.
13. Reduction of work and student visas. Recent efforts to restrict immigration and reduce the
availability of work and student visas pose a grave risk to Stanford’s rich educational experience and its
longstanding culture of entrepreneurship. More than half of American startups today are launched by
immigrants and that 10 percent of Stanford students are international. Helping and supporting international
students who want to stay in the United States after graduation through the H-1B visa program is an important
concern for Harvard and has a direct effect on whether the University can sustain exc ellence in the decades to
come. Because the University’s endowments support about a third of Harvard’s annual o perating budget, and
taxing them would undermine the ability of Harvard and other private institutions like Stanford to ensure that
students can afford to attend regardless of their financial circumstances.
14. Disruption of the way US universities work. Universities and even graduate schools teach
"subjects" versus competencies or skills that may fill new careers not yet invented. This may work for depth
of study in a subject, and may lead to inventions and innovation in some cases (because "academic freedom"),
but does little to serve the majority of students who siphon through the higher educational system hoping to
improve their employ-ability at the end. Most people entering higher education do so as a means to
employment, not as an end to become an academic. They are paying the same tuition rates as those desiring to
enter the academic employment system, but they do not get the type of training required to have successful
odds in the general employment market. Higher education institutions are even less prepared to teach students
ways to plan their careers and futures when technological disruptions may change the face of their own chosen
career paths, or create new careers in the distant future for which they may be a great fit
US higher education is challenged to reduce the cost of its education and create a workforce with the
skills to drive economic growth and lift up these many Americans struggling for upward mobility.