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Higher education and the 21st century
By STANLEY IKENBERRY
A hundred years ago who could have imagined higher education
today? For the most part, Illinois was a rural state. The industrial economy
was still in its infancy. Although many of America's colleges and universities
were in operation, they hardly resembled what we know today. Over the years
the numbers and kinds of institutions grew to the more than 3,600 diverse
campuses we know today. Beyond that, two powerful institutional inventions
emerged: the land grant university and the community college.
So it was that the United States committed itself to mass
higher education in a way never before imagined. More than 15 million college
students were enrolled by century's end. Courses of study expanded
wildly from the classics, theology and philosophy to science, engineering
and agriculture – and far beyond. Institutions became larger and more
complex in the missions they embraced, moving beyond the education of undergraduate
students to graduate and professional education, major programs of research
on a scale never before imagined, and sustained efforts to move knowledge
from the campus to the "real world" where it could be applied
and put to productive use.
Such was the story of the 20th century. Still, looking back on the last 100 years, while many things changed, the basic building blocks of American higher education remained the same: campuses; courses; adolescent students; faculty carrying multiple responsibilities in teaching, scholarship and service; libraries; quads; pep rallies; and the rest.
As we think about this century, the 21st, it is almost certain these familiar building blocks will change. The unanswered but crucial questions are how, and how quickly?
The forces driving change in higher education are no different from those transforming virtually every other segment of society – business and corporate America, communications and the media, commerce, government, finance, etc. America is moving beyond the industrial age and is now well into the knowledge or conceptual age. Powerful technology is reaching beyond the normal limits (and protections) of time and space. Especially in the United States, we have become a more consumption-oriented, more market-driven society, and those same forces now operate around the globe. Central governments and planners have less control and global markets more. And here at home, we no longer live in local cities but in global villages. Each of these forces is exerting a significant impact on higher educati of time and space. Especially in the United States, we have become a more consumption-oriented, more market-driven society, and those same forces now operate around the globe. Central governments and planners have less control and global markets more. And here at home, we no longer live in local cities but in global villages. Each of these forces is exerting a significant impact on higher education.
The most obvious and fundamental change at the dawn of this century is the emergence of the conceptual economy. Related to that is a rapid escalation in the economic and social value of learning.
A year ago I invited Alan Greenspan to speak to the nation's higher education leaders in Washington. For academics to ask the chairman of the Federal Reserve Board to speak was unprecedented. For the chairman to accept was even more surprising. Chairman Greenspan talked about forces we all understood: the knowledge explosion, the technology revolution and global markets. He talked about the emergence of the conceptual economy, one in which the wealth and well-being of nations were defined less by natural resources and productive capacity and more by the intellectual strength, literacy, creativity and ingenuity of people. Surprisingly, he pointed out that as America's GNP had grown in recent years, the actual tonnage of the GNP – its weight – had declined!
The net result has been a sharp rise in the value and public demand for education. Recently I had an opportunity to sit behind a one-way mirror to listen to people talk about college. There was much they did not know, especially men and women who themselves had not gone to college. Nonetheless, in almost every instance, and from all income levels and backgrounds, parents were determined their children would go to college. Parents were able to articulate why college was crucial for their children, and the reasons ran far beyond lifetime earnings, although they clearly understood that, to include respect, mobility and opportunity in today's new world.
The force of the conceptual economy is even more evident in the public's preoccupation with the quality of elementary and secondary schools. As the economy has changed and the premium on education and innovation has grown, there is less room and less opportunity for the undereducated.
For higher education, the conceptual economy and the increased demand for learning it brings with it are largely – although not completely – good news. Intensified demand for learning is bringing with it more scrutiny, new providers and more competition. New ways of delivery, new forms of packaging knowledge, and even new aims and purposes of higher learning are emerging, and these threaten the older, more established order.
The conceptual economy is made possible in large part by the revolution in technology that allows knowledge to be created and used in new and more powerful ways. We can now store, share, manipulate, analyze, manage and disperse information at the speed of light. The force of the technology revolution is just beginning to hit campuses. While no one can foresee the course of events over the next 10 to 20 years, I sense the impact is likely to be dramatic and will arrive more rapidly than we now imagine.
Recently, The New York Times carried an article titled "Boola, Boola: E-Commerce Comes to the Quad." The author mused, "What if part-time students working toward a degree after work, Chinese executives interested in Western management techniques, European farmers studying advanced agronomy and American retirees with time to retake a favorite but forgotten Shakespeare course – paying customers all – were just a modem away from class?" That future is now.
The new technology is likely to exert a major impact on faculty and on institutions. For faculty, technology brings the prospect of vastly different roles and careers. For institutions, it brings a whole host of strategic challenges and choices. It offers the prospect of decoupling teaching, research and service; changing the mode of learning from faculty to "systems"; and altering the way we think about courses, curriculum, campuses and community.
Add to this the creation of more than 1,500 corporate universities over the last decade or two and the rapid emergence of for-profit providers of higher learning – each backed by large amounts of venture capital. The global reach of American higher education is now a reality, but so too is the reality of foreign competitors such as The United Kingdom's Open University, now operating in the United States. If we pause to look at the higher education landscape, the "building blocks" have changed greatly even in the last 10 years.
So, what will the next hundred years bring? What will higher education be like?
Most obvious reality is that the demand for and participation in higher learning are certain to grow. The economy will demand it, and technology will make it possible.
There will be more attention to the quality of higher education and to value received. New providers who offer learning opportunities in new ways will be asked to prove themselves, but so too will established providers following traditional lab-lecture-discussion modes be expected to document evidence of quality and value.
Distinctions between public and private, profit and not-for-profit providers of higher education will continue to diminish. Existing colleges and universities will create for-profit entities as a strategy of managing institutional change while at the same time venture capital will continue to fuel the creation of wholly new entities.
The definition of "the student" will continue to expand. Lifelong learning by adults of all ages, in addition to traditional "college age" students, will be the norm. More and more the public will come to expect access to "just in time" learning, and will receive it.
Increasingly, higher learning will take place in the home and workplace in addition to the campus. Convenience and cost will be given greater weight by "consumers" of higher learning. Certainly, if traditional campuses are to survive, faculty members, students and administrators will need to rediscover and recapture the "value of place" and exploit the unique strengths and opportunities for learning only a campus has to offer.
By nature, I am an optimist. So it should come as no surprise that I think the next 100 years will be even more exciting than the last. Still, this new century will bring with it more challenges and higher risks than ever before. It is one thing to conceptualize the new world in which we live and quite another to choose wisely and strategically among the options.
The most obvious implication for America is that quality education at all levels is crucial to our survival. Governors and business leaders began to sense this during the '90s, but all of America must join the chorus. We must begin with a conviction that ALL children can learn; that nearly everyone requires some form of education beyond high school; and that every person should expect to go on learning throughout life.
In the earlier agricultural and industrial economies, those who invested in advanced education were rewarded. Those who did not still led productive, satisfying, rewarding lives. Times have changed, however. The demand of the conceptual economy is that all must learn and continue to do so throughout life.
For colleges and universities, the stakes are immense. Institutions will need to craft a strategic response to the technology revolution and to the emergence of new competitors and providers. Almost every campus has made the choice to invest heavily in the new technology to change the way teaching and learning take place.
So far, however, most of the change has been at the margin. What lies ahead are strategic choices that could carry higher education far beyond the margin in the same powerful ways that have touched virtually every other sector of the society, from banking to communications to global manufacturing.
In the end, the most fundamental strategic question colleges and universities must confront is the age-old question of purpose. What do we mean by "higher education"? What is it that we promise? Is it the acquisition of information, or is it the development of considerably more complex intellectual skills? Is it preparation in a discipline and/or for a career? Or, is the purpose of higher education to create learning communities where scholars flourish and students grow as knowledgeable, creative, cultured, productive, caring human beings?
The fact is, colleges and universities are offering quite
different answers to these questions and making vastly different choices.
These crucial choices – be they conscious or by default – will
define the character and significance of American higher education in the
21st century.
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issues raised in this article. Please send your comments to: Editor, The
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