BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s recently released their updated outlooks for American higher education. The news is not good. Moody’s revised its 2018 outlook for higher education from stable to negative “as aggregate operating revenue moderates while expense growth increases.” Moody’s vice president, Susan E. Shaffer, elaborated: “the annual change in…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL I’ve been thinking a great deal lately about how disruption will play out in American higher education. My hopes – and concerns – reflect a bedrock belief that America’s colleges and universities operate on an unsustainable finance model that must adapt to new realities. It is impossible to predict how many…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Last month, Rick Seltzer reported in Inside Higher Education about a brewing controversy at Oberlin College, which is facing a significant financial shortfall. The College, including its prestigious Conservatory, faces a multi-million dollar deficit caused largely by lower-than-expected enrollment. A group of trustees charged with looking into Oberlin’s shortfall found that…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL There are a number of reasons why higher education no longer enjoys the level of status and prestige that it once did in American society. Public perceptions that confuse sticker price and the cost of attendance, the unwillingness or inability of many American families to share the financial burden incurred by…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL America’s colleges and universities are in the early stages of dramatic change. For many, the concentration has been on the development of new academic programs, designed to differentiate academic offerings among institutions and create new revenue streams. For others, efforts to find efficiencies internally or through participation in consortia have improved…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL One of the more interesting and at times alarming changes in American higher education is the redistricting of public college systems in various states. The most active discussions – some of which produced radical change – have been in states like Vermont, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Maine, New Jersey, and Wisconsin. In Vermont,…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL As reported last week by Ashley A. Smith in Inside Higher Education, one of the most interesting developments in higher education is how the growing concern over high tuition sticker prices is playing out in state and national politics. Much of the discussion is a good-hearted effort to make college more…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Scott Jaschik recently interpreted the findings from the 2017 Survey of Admission Directors, sponsored by Inside Higher Education and Gallup and drawn from a sample of 453 admission directors. While the full discussion of these findings is too complex for this space, the general conclusions, especially those specific to enrollment patterns,…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL The first indications are in on how the academic year is likely to go. In the pomp and ceremony that surrounds the opening of the school year, deep concerns emerge behind-the-scenes in all but the best endowed institutions as the numbers come in. There are no alternative facts to hide what…
BY BRIAN C. MITCHELL Brandon Busteed, the executive director for education and workforce development at Gallup, wrote a stimulating and thought provoking op ed earlier this month. The article’s title captured Busteed’s summary opinion: It’s Time for Elite Universities to Lead in Non-Elite Ways. Mr. Busteed argued that America’s colleges and universities have traditionally followed…