College at Thanksgiving
College at Thanksgiving
Every Thanksgiving, college students take a break to celebrate with family. Around dining tables, between servings of mashed potatoes, Uncle Frank, Cousin Sue, or Nonna will eventually ask, “How’s it going?”
It may seem like innocent small talk. But Uncle Frank is good friends with a state representative who’s on the higher ed committee. Sue still has a landline and participates in public opinion polls. And Nonna votes.
Meaning, how confident are we that more than most of our students will say, “It’s great! I’m learning so much! I really see the value!”
Elite institutions are likely just fine. Their carefully selected students are buying a brand that, by definition (if circularly), must be great because of the brand. But others have reason to worry:
- Two out of three new community college students are likely to say, “Ya’ know, I’m not sure college is for me.” Odds are they will drop out or enter a broken transfer system or take more than three years to earn a degree.
- One out of three new BA students in bachelor’s programs will have similar feelings and drop out or take more than six years to graduate.
Now let’s do the math: with 14 million undergraduates in BA programs and 4.6 million at community colleges, that’s 7.7 million Thanksgiving conversations—among tens of millions of Americans—doubting what we do.
‘I’ve always got a job down for you at the shop,” offers Uncle Frank, despite the $1 million more a degree holder earns, on average, over a lifetime. “I’m not surprised,” adds Sue, who just told a pollster she has “no confidence” in higher ed; she’s among a third of Americans, with another third only reporting “some” confidence. Then Nonna quips, “Were you in one of those encampments?”
When it comes to street-level politics, higher ed’s value isn’t earned by yet another report about how much we add to the nation’s GDP or contribute to national security. It’s at dining room tables, in family conversations, among those paying the bills and taking classes.
The trouble is, higher education is not convincing ordinary Americans that it values what they value—a good education. And this needs to change.
A rash of recent articles in USA Today, The Washington Post, Washington Monthly, Forbes Magazine, Deseret Magazine, the Chronicle of Higher Education, and elsewhere is bringing increased public attention to two facts: 1. The college rankings game prioritizes research, and 2. professors are largely not taught how to teach.
Combined, this means that our sector is not designed to deliver what families want and expect—good teaching and learning that motivates students to finish their degrees, delivered by well-supported professors who are as expert in their teaching as they are in their scholarship. To make matters worse, today half of all professors—750,000—work part-time. These “contingent” employees aren’t expected to do any research but aren’t supported to teach well, either.
Growing public awareness (of problems that higher ed has long known) will further erode confidence in what we do. It will send more high school students into non-degree certificate programs that are increasingly popular among policymakers and ed reformers. Left unattended, it will do little to win back the 37 million Americans with some college but no degree, many carrying debt and unable to get jobs that expect a college education.
But it’s not too late.
Groups like the National Association of Higher Education Systems (NASH) recently partnered with the Association of College and University Educators (ACUE) to prepare and certify professors in effective teaching. Today, 42,000 college instructors hold an ACUE credential, and interest is growing. Nationally recognized scholars, including American University’s Corbin Campbell and Florida Atlantic University’s Bryan Dewsbury, are publishing guides and toolkits for faculty and administrators to strengthen teaching on campus equitably for all students. Major commissions, including the Boyer 2030 Commission of the Association of Undergraduate Education at Research Universities (UREU) and the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, are centering effective teaching in higher ed’s “student success” agenda.
Every college and university should support these efforts. But, of course, there’s always a chance that institutions wait for US News and World Report, among others, to include teaching metrics in their rankings or keep pursuing a vaunted “Research” designation through the Carnegie Classification system. Meaning, they will wait to be told what to do—in law, by regulation, or through market pressures.
But the risks are too high, as measured by public confidence, much-needed enrollment, and a new administration in Washington eager to dismantle the status quo.
It’s time for higher ed to author its future, not Uncle Frank.
About the Authors
Jonathan Gyurko, PhD is President & Co-Founder of ACUE and an adjunct assistant professor at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Kevin P. Reilly, PhD is President Emeritus and Regent Professor of the University of Wisconsin System and a former ACUE advisor.
