It is old news that students go to college primarily to get a job. The data are clear that this is the overwhelming reason why applicants and their parents are willing to pay escalating undergraduate tuition, even at small liberal arts colleges. Both students and their parents want higher education to serve as an individual enabler — to enable a graduate to get a job, to earn money, and, as a result, to have a happy life.
The overwhelming majority of undergraduates select a major because they believe that it will provide the quickest and safest route to high-paid employment, which has made business the number one major in the country. General education courses are seen as hurdles to get over on the way to preparing for that career.
Increasingly, colleges and universities are responding with curricular arrangements designed to meet these market pressures. Fractionating forces in higher education are pressing them to cater to career needs with all the individualized attention of a boutique and all the mass delivery capability of an ATM machine.
Higher education is obviously not alone in promoting rampant individualism; it mirrors contemporary American culture. The consequences of that consumer culture have been decried by many as promoting a growing sense that Americans are not responsible or accountable to each other, and a decline in civility, in mutual respect, and in tolerance. In short, it leads to the preeminence of self-interest and individual preference over concern for the common good. It is all about me and mine, not about us and ours.
Higher education too often these days is also just about me. It concentrates on preparing workers suited to American commerce and giving students knowledge and skills to compete economically, so that they can lead comfortable, affluent lives. Individual students are consumers who invest time and money to receive future individual economic benefits. Students who look at the institutional behaviors of their colleges and universities regularly see models of this balance-sheet behavior. The competitive, commercial pressures to view students as customers and to respond to their vocational demands have led institutions to promote their functions as enablers of individual advancement rather than conveners for the common good. Perhaps most troubling, students too rarely see their colleges and universities acting as responsible citizens of their communities.
Did higher education once better serve a convening function, helping our society understand and strengthen common bonds? Did it formerly have an animating sense of mission to enhance the common good? Nostalgia for the good old days is always dangerous; those days were never quite as good as we may remember. But I do think there has been a corrosion of a sense among institutions of higher education that they have a common mission to improve society as a whole.
The causes of this corrosion of public purpose are not hard to identify. Many are constraints that affect virtually every institution in society, not just colleges and universities. There are centrifugal pressures on organizations of every type. The pressures on higher education may seem more obvious now, but only because they have been relatively submerged until recently. The same forces that have made colleges and universities more responsive to market pressures have brought with them the value assumptions, the language, the administrative policies of the business world, including marketing and market research, corporate management strategies, and aggressive public relations. These are not the only fractionating forces at work in higher education.
The dominant template of pre-World War II higher education now holds true for just a small minority of American undergraduate education. A near majority of undergraduates today do not come to college or university directly from high school. They are older than their predecessors, they work part-time and are part-time students, many are married, and many are parents. Most do not view themselves as members of a “community of learners,” but rather as consumers who seek to get what they want as rapidly, as easily and as cheaply as possible. This may mean attending two or three different institutions in the course of an undergraduate career, over a six- or eight-year period.
At the same time, nearly 40 percent of undergraduate credit hours are taught by adjunct faculty who usually find it difficult to develop relationships with their students or to influence them outside the classroom. Even full-time faculty members, particularly those at prestigious research universities, often view themselves as entrepreneurial individual contractors, with little obligation to an institution, let alone an educational calling. Bidding wars are common for the talents of prominent faculty, who view their tenure as in the marketplace.
All these pressures, and more, are tough obstacles in the search for higher education’s public purposes — purposes beyond vocational preparation. Higher education has come to operate on what has been termed a default program of instrumental individualism.
Though the task of establishing and committing to common purposes is hard, it is arguably the most important challenge facing colleges and universities today. This paper focuses on civic responsibility as a common purpose of fundamental priority for American democracy. It is not the only common purpose. But it is among the most important.
Civic responsibility involves two interrelated strands for institutions of higher education. The first is obviously closest to the primary educational mission of a college or university, though neither can successfully occur without the other. This paper considers each strand in turn.
The need for civic learning
The percentage of college freshman who report frequently discussing politics dropped and similar decreases were seen in percentages of college freshman who believe it is important to keep up to date with political affairs or who have worked on a political campaign.
What might make one think that enhancing civic responsibility, particularly political engagement, is an essential common purpose of higher education? Past history and current mission statements are two reasons.
A far more compelling reason for viewing civic responsibility as a necessary goal for higher education is the danger to our democracy if the increasing public disdain for civic engagement continues. That disdain is a serious problem among all groups, but it is particularly troubling in those who will be future leaders in our society. By an overwhelming margin, those leaders will be college and university graduates.
What can institutions of higher education do to help ameliorate this problem? A first step is to identify the dimensions of the problem and to discuss how to encourage a collective commitment to view civic learning as a common purpose of higher education.
That step would be premised on the belief that institutions of higher education have both opportunities and obligations to cultivate in their graduates an appreciation for the responsibilities and rewards of civic engagement, as well as to foster the capacities necessary for thoughtful participation in public discourse and effective involvement in social enterprises. For colleges and universities to enhance the civic responsibility of their students means much more than telling them to be good citizens.
Political engagement is a particular subset of civic responsibility that is required for sustaining American democracy. Colleges and universities should not be expected to promote a single type of civic or political engagement, but the argument here is that they should help prepare their graduates for becoming engaged citizens who provide the time, attention, understanding and action to collective civic goals. Those citizens recognize themselves as members of a larger social fabric, and therefore consider social problems to be at least partly their own.
Our work to date convinces us that higher education has the potential to be a powerful influence in reinvigorating the democratic spirit in America. Our inquiries also have shown us that some American colleges and universities do take very seriously references in their mission statements to the civic education of their students. For a few of these institutions, this commitment shapes many or most aspects of the undergraduate educational experience and constitutes an intentional and holistic approach to civic as well as academic education. For other institutions, strong programs designed with civic development in mind exist within an overall campus environment that does not have a comprehensive emphasis on these goals.
Our work persuades us that promoting civic learning involves mutually interdependent sets of knowledge, virtues and skills. We focus on those sets of knowledge, virtues and skills that we believe are central to civic development and integral to a sound undergraduate education. We do not mean, however, that these sets are necessary or sufficient for all situations or circumstances. We also do not mean that one can become a civically responsible person only by attending college. Rather, we are convinced that a college education can and should enhance these attributes and capacities.
Colleges and universities as good citizens
The second dimension of civic responsibility as a goal for higher education is the role of a college or university as an engaged citizen of its community. This dimension is closely related to the education of civically responsible citizens because students cannot be expected to take seriously the challenge of personal involvement if they do not see their own campus working to improve its community. “Town-gown” relations mean different things in different communities across the country, but serious commitments by campuses to community involvement are rare.
Some campuses, by design, have little community contact — they are simply sanctuaries surrounded by “No Parking” signs. Campuses should have interactions with their communities, but the interactions should be shaped solely by the academic needs of a college or university or, at most, by the judgments of those on the campus about what they can do to help the surrounding society. There is now substantial evidence, however, that if campuses want to succeed as good citizens, they must discard the simplistic idea that to do so means learning how to disseminate expertise to the needy community in convenient doses. Engaging communities in campuses, as well as campuses in their communities, provides opportunities for enhancing traditional scholarship and contributing to both sets of stakeholders in meaningful ways.
What does a real partnership between a campus and its surrounding community look like? Fortunately, numerous exemplars now exist. Despite a broad range of powerful illustrations, however, the leaders of many colleges and universities are adept at suggesting reasons why those examples do not fit their campuses. One common rationale is that the leader views the nation or even the globe as the institution’s primary community.
Civic engagement can be fruitful in relation to communities much larger than the immediate surroundings of a campus — state, regional, national or worldwide. But involvement in those larger settings should not be viewed as a substitute for civic participation in improving the environs of a campus. Another common claim is that any efforts to assist the surrounding community would take resources from the academic enterprise. Over and over, however, campus investments in the civic life of the surrounding community have been shown also to be sound investments in the academic strength of the campus. In short, these and other arguments can be persuasively answered, but too often the dialogue needed even to raise them is never begun.
It should be no surprise that in most circumstances the two strands of civic responsibility preparing students for active citizenship and institutional civic engagement go together. In general, the first is much more difficult to develop than the second because the first requires the active involvement of a significant share of the faculty and staff, as well as students, while the second is more directly dependent on the administration. But both strands are important, and promoting one is usually a key step in enhancing the other.
Colleges and Universities have enjoyed several near monopolies that have protected their almost exclusive share of the market of certain students who seek higher education. With the advent of technology, however, many colleges and universities may find that their monopolies no longer function as effectively in bringing prospective students to their doorsteps. Whether or not all institutions of higher education support the changes that technology offers, they need to prepare for its challenges if they plan to remain competitive in attracting students during the 21st century.
Monopoly #1: Offer a degree = offer the instruction to get it
Higher education has generally assumed that the institution that awards a certificate or degree has a near monopoly in providing the instruction that will lead to the degree. We have assumed, in short, that receiving a degree is inextricably linked to earning credit, and that credit for the most part is earned through courses.
Even though this monopoly has been modified by providing transfer credit, that credit also is based on instruction provided in courses at a campus-based institution.
But technology, along with new emphases on validating learning derived from technically mediated instruction, has spurred us to give more attention to assessment in general.
In traditional classrooms we were content to consider grades, seat time and contact hours as the valid measures of progress toward a degree. Since these are difficult if not impossible to apply to distance education, there is growing demand to improve techniques that validate what has been learned – in other words, assessment of learning outcomes.
If learning can be successfully validated by assessment techniques, then controlling the processes of instruction loses its primary quality assurance role. This in turn leads to the possible de-coupling of instruction and assessment.
Some would argue that this has long been the case at Oxford and Cambridge. But neither Oxford nor Cambridge would allow a person to write the final if they had not been enrolled in the college and participated in many, if not all, of its educational activities.
Many American colleges offer some credit by examination: through challenge exams, the College Level Examination Program (CLEP), portfolio assessment for learning gained through experience, or similar programs. But these usually take place in an institution that is providing some of the instruction and awarding the degree. De-coupling assessment and instruction within an institutional setting has far different consequences than de-coupling outside the institution.
If degrees based on assessment of learning – rather than on credits earned through classroom-based instruction – become more available and popular, the market for instruction could change dramatically.
Monopoly #2: Location = convenience
For many colleges and universities, offering students a convenient campus location has always been assumed to be a crucial factor in maintaining or increasing student enrollments. In many states, this is particularly true of small independent institutions and community colleges, most of which rely heavily on local or regional student enrollments.
As the average age of college students continues to rise in the United States, it could be argued that convenience is becoming even more important.
Many of these older students prefer to remain where they are currently located, whether because of jobs, families or other responsibilities.
Through the educational opportunities offered through distance learning, however, students can enroll in a course of study, complete their course work and receive a degree right at home. Since distance learning requires access to computers rather than traditional classrooms or campuses, it threatens to erode the location monopoly that many colleges and universities currently enjoy.
It could be argued, of course, that correspondence courses have always threatened the location monopoly. These courses, while popular for some students, have not seriously reduced the numbers of students at local colleges. Distance learning, so the argument goes, offers no additional threat to local college enrollments.
This reasoning, however, fails to account for the interactive possibilities of new technologies as compared to the “snail mail” slowness of correspondence courses. Whereas correspondence courses place all of the burden of motivation on the student, recent technological advances offer students wider, quicker and more interactive access to their teachers, to other students and to campus services, however removed they are physically. Learning through computers also can be a lot more fun.
Like correspondence classes, distance learning will most likely attract certain kinds of students (such as those who can work on their own). But they offer a world of different possibilities for more engaged learning. If this form of instruction grows more popular, those institutions that rely primarily on local or regional enrollments will need to understand the implications of distance learning for their own student body.
Monopoly #3: Offer a program = offer the college courses
In the past, when a college added a program of study, the college assumed that it would hire the faculty members who would provide all of the instruction for that program.
Now it is becoming more feasible to “outsource” courses; through technology, colleges and universities can provide classes on campus without local instructors.
These courses can be offered entirely through a computer lab, in conjunction with lectures provided through a large-screen format in a traditional classroom, or in conjunction with a video of lectures that the student can view at home. As a result of these possibilities, offering a program of study to meet the changing needs of students might no longer require such a substantial investment; the college might cover only a portion of the required courses with its own faculty and import the remainder of the classes through technological means.
This shift would, of course, create a very different “feel” for the institution. Much more so than today, each college would need to determine its strengths and weaknesses.
For instance, to what extent – and in what fields – should a college become a producer or an importer of instruction? If a college could not financially support an entire program of locally produced classes, it could import key courses and offer others locally, so that students could still benefit from that program of study.
Each college also would have the opportunity to market its strengths, exporting its best classes elsewhere. In such an institution, the role of the faculty in quality control of imported instruction could become as crucial as maintaining the quality of classes produced locally.
The erosion of the first two monopolies listed above – in which the institution providing the degree also provides the instruction, and in which the convenience of instruction is based on the location of a campus – could shift the competitive edge away from campus-based institutions.
This is particularly true for those colleges and universities whose students are most likely to take advantage of the opportunities provided by assessment-based degrees or distance learning.
But the erosion of the third monopoly – in which a college offering a program also provides almost all instruction for that program – could enhance the competitive edge of those campus-based institutions that understand how to maintain an appropriate balance between imported and home-grown instruction.
There has been much discussion about a projected increase in demand for higher education during the next decade. At the same time that the demand is expected to increase, however, the market is changing. Those colleges and universities that fail to understand the market’s effects on student demand – that is, those institutions that do not stay in touch with the preferences of their students in relation to the new opportunities that the market offers – do so at their own peril.
The need for dialogue
One need not accept the arguments for viewing civic responsibility as a key public purpose of higher education to conclude that it is long past time to promote public dialogue on the issue. That dialogue must not be limited to those in higher education. A language is needed to describe what is meant by the public purposes of higher education. A set of strategies also is required to encourage serious, extended debate about those purposes and how best to further them.
Megan Wilson is a teacher, life strategist, successful entrepreneur, inspirational keynote speaker and founder of https://Ebookscheaper.com. Megan champions a radical rethink of our school systems; she calls on educators to teach both intuition and logic to cultivate creativity and create bold thinkers.
