Attitudes about controlling higher education costs
An Inside Higher Ed article reports on the results of the work of Carol Twigg and the National Center for Academic Transformations after ten years of working with schools to both improve learning and reduce costs. The point of the article is that Ms. Twigg had two purposes for her important and widely renowned work. That is to not only improve learning but to reduce costs while making the improvements. In a nutshell, learning has been improved but, despite initial cost reductions, there has been a failure to continue to pay attention to cost reductions.
The fact that learning has been improved is wonderful. That alone makes this effort worthwhile. But there is no denying that Ms. Twigg is disappointed. She makes that abundantly clear when she says “you’re dealing with a culture that does not care about reducing costs.”
The article cites several schools that just stopped tracking costs. Twigg is quoted again, “if administrators do not continue to be involved and simply let it devolve to a faculty project, most faculty don’t care about costs.” The problem is stated as one where there are disincentives for saving money because the provost merely takes it away.
This is truly scary. There are faculty quoted as saying they think higher education should receive more funding and therefore they are not invested in trying to reduce costs. But, those outside of higher education are fed up and much of their anger is about the constantly increasing price of attending college. This is no small disconnect. The academic culture appears to be one of supposed entitlement because the work of higher education is assumed to be so important. But there are limits and we are either dangerously close to hitting those limits or may even have surpassed them. Twigg is quoted as saying “people in higher education believe in what we’re doing, as long as they don’t have to do it.”
Any ideas on how to change this culture?
Mike
Share This5 Responses to “Attitudes about controlling higher education costs”
Robert Wainscott Says:
Mr. Browell arrives at a key concept shared across all disciplines; buy-in. In order to coach faculty into balancing the cost/quality problem, engendering buy-in must be central to the process. One wonders if the entitlement stems from never having participated in the “business” end of the academic process. I am out of my area here, but the analogy to military professional development and growth is applicable. For our professional development, we are typically assigned to a job position for a year and then rotated to another job within the unit. To be more specific, as an aviation squadron manager the assignment may be in operations, maintenance or finance. Until one actually sits in the “operations chair” or “maintenance chair” he or she cannot truly have an appreciation for the constraints of that position. The Operations Department believes that aircraft ready to fly is an entitlement regardless of the current environmental constraints being felt by the Maintenance Department. Likewise, the Maintenance Department feels that aircraft availability for maintenance time is also an entitlement as you cannot fly without proper maintenance. Only after working in both jobs can there truly be an appreciation for the fine balancing act necessary for both to succeed. Perhaps a professional progression program designed to rotate faculty into administrative /financial oversight roles as well as others will engender appreciation for that particular side of the coin.
Bob Roan Says:
Mike,
I’m not interested in changing this culture, but helping to replace it with a culture that’s responsive to all the needs you’ve been outlining. If the existing institutions want to change, great, otherwise they’ll be on the receiving end of Schumpeter’s creative destruction dynamic.
The entrepreneur’s responsibility isn’t to save the existing institutions, but to develop products that serve the market.
So how about trying to figure out how those of us who are interested can work together to create the next generation of learning environments?
Eric Brinkmann Says:
I agree with Mr. Wainscott’s point that there is a disconnect between the operations side and the teaching side of the equation. I think another part of the solution is transparency in total operational revenue and expenditures. But the problem that I see from my position within K-12 education is that a culture has developed that either does not see a purpose for even trying to grasp the complexities of financial operations (the “I’m glad I don’t have your job” crowd) or takes a sort of obtuse pride in refusing to acknowledge that business concepts have any part in education (the “education as a secular sacred calling” crowd). With recent economic upheaval, this disconnect becomes wider and more visible as the disparity between what we wish the financial picture was and what it really is grows wider. In the end, economic forces may be the deciding factor in changing this culture because many who refuse to acknowledge that there is a business component to education will nonetheless find themselves “out of business” as educators due to financial realities.
Phaedra Graham Says:
Without a doubt, fiscal responsibility is a major area of concern for today’s educational leaders. Thus, it appears that fiscal accountability has become the primary focus within educational organizations. Yet, how do we begin to balance the need to maintain fiscal accountability and devotion to high academic standards?
Mr. Roan’s question is on point in this discussion. Roan proposes “So how about trying to figure out how those of us who are interested can work together to create the next generation of learning environments?” In my view, the question serves as the basis to move forward in an ever-tightening of the financial reins in education. For me, I believe that many if not most of the academic methods of the old school mannerism still works for today’s learners. Yet, I do believe we cannot afford to become oblivious to the daily changes in the world of education. In order to survive, I believe traditional public and private schools have to re-evaluate how they provide education to their students. Due to universities such as Capella, many traditional educational institutions are dealing with decreased student enrollment and diminished budgets as a result of the student exodus. Perhaps, educational leaders who understand the concept of blending the old with the new shall be able to truly make the needed changes to expand educational opportunities for all.
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Dean Browell, PhD Says:
It’s hard to determine where the symptoms end and the real systemic problems begin in Twiggs assertions. Are the described attitudes a result of the island of academia not being treated as a working part of the institution? I wonder if because many faculty systems are pointed inward toward the student that there is often not a 30,000 ft view to be had of the impact of costs, etc.
Part of it may also stem from the very nature of the other stated goal. In order to create the “active” environment and perpetuate engagement it takes further time. In fact one could argue that thanks to Moore’s law, it takes more time than technology. And with “time” being the primary unit of measurement for faculty compensation (class loads, etc) this means that creating an academic ecosystem primarily dependent on that resource was relatively doomed to not be cost effective by that measurement. Of course they would shrug at costs in such a scenario – faculty have been pouring in more hours than they are perceived to be paid for for generations while many administrators frequently see doubling up courseloads and adjuncts as a potential solution in the modern institution. The argument of fiscal efficiency has been a bit of a forced concept atop a system with a lot of winks and nods about the real meaning of time commitment.
Perhaps the way to create a cost efficient AND transformative active environment of that sort and to truly evolve the entire framework, is to shift the problem at its root away from a time-model on the faculty end and make peace between desired institutional outcome and the actual time involved. Treat it much more from a project management angle rather than shoe-horning an ancient system around a modern learner framework. Certainly scowls about applying ROI to the classroom will appear, but perhaps it’s just that argument that will find faculty empowered and involved in making “effective” an apt word for learning, cost, delivery and engagement.
January 7th, 2010 at 2:34 pm