In recent years the higher education community has focused more on the role institutions’ play in student success. For a long time the blame for failure has been laid squarely at the feet of students. If a student dropped out of college it was assumed that they were unmotivated, under-prepared, or lacked the aptitude required to be a college graduate. The fact that dropouts were admitted meant that they somehow fell through an admissions crack undetected.

Two weeks ago the Southern Education Foundation convened 120 Minority-Serving Institution (MSI) presidents and trustees with a focus on innovation and organizational change. The intent was to enhance their role in the national degree completion agenda. For a long time the higher education community has debated the role of trustees, how they should participate in academic governance, and whether trusteeship even matters. There is a good deal of consensus about the latter — yes, trusteeship matters and I argue that it matters more at MSIs.

There has been lots of speculation about the future of HBCUs. While some of this has played out in the media, there is also an on-going conversation within this sector about what needs to happen to ensure a viable and productive future. Both conversations are sensitive in nature, saturated with nuance and divergent views concerning which directions are best. There are, however, a few clear environmental signs that demand the attention of everyone concerning the future of HBCUs regardless of one’s current position.

This week I will attend my 14th annual meeting of the Association for the Study of Higher Education (ASHE) in Charlotte, NC. Each year I learn about which research topics are of interest to this community of scholars and try to gain a sense of which issues have the most potential to change the way we conceive problems or the way higher education professionals practice. I am always more interested in systemic changes that have the potential to alleviate serious problems that confront the enterprise of higher education rather than those that only involve a sub-unit of an institution or special sub-sets of students.

The U.S. Department of Education recently announced its plan to develop and release a “College Score Card” intended to assist families compare college costs and net tuitions prices. If you’re wondering whether information on college tuition is already available, the answer is yes. This College Scorecard, however, is partly intended to help families determine “value.” That is, balancing the cost of attendance at particular institutions against measures like graduation rates, loan repayments percentages, and the likelihood of getting a job after graduation. The idea is that families would make better choices about where to attend college based on the “best value” thereby improving their chances of completion — not to mention more efficiently using federal financial aid dollars.

The University System of Georgia which governs 35 public colleges and universities recently announced its plan to consolidate eight institutions into four in order to better serve students. Many stakeholders were disappointed by the clandestine nature and pace with which these decisions were made and are concerned about the possible consequences, many of which are yet unknown. Still, no one should be surprised when a group of smart lawyers and business leaders conclude that the best way to improve public systems of higher education is by consolidation.  Of the seventeen members that constitute the system board, two are attorneys and fifteen represent a mix of Presidents, CEOs or Vice Presidents from private industries ranging from banking to railroads who might be more inclined to prescribe a business treatment to solve educational issues. 

Because the nation is rightly fixed on improving degree completion rates, the discussion about America’s higher education agenda is at risk of becoming so pedestrian that terms like access and success lose their meaning.  In similar fashion, once everyone and everything became “green” it was less clear to me what was meant by a “green economy,” “green jobs” or “green politics.” 

If I were feeling a bit more obtuse I might have titled this entry Trying to Assess Student Learning in College.” Now more than ever higher education leaders, the legislative community, and the public are obsessed with having better data about what students actually know and are able to do upon graduation. Earlier this year the blockbuster book Academically Adrift effectively shook the higher education community by showing that students themselves reported being asked to do very little in college and in some cases lost ground educationally. The book landed in the middle of a national conversation about increased accountability in higher education and associating public funding with evidence of institutional effectiveness. This discourse, affirmed by accreditation agencies, upped the ante on evidence of student learning outcomes at college and universities across the nation.