Page 109 - Crisis in Higher Education

Understanding the Root Causes • 81

technology to provide access to knowledge as well as to build interactive,
individualized learning platforms. Much more effort is needed.
Tenured faculty, who should have substantial research commitments,
must have tools to leverage their time, and these tools vary depending
on their discipline. Typically, business faculty needs fast and easy online
access to books and journals, resources to collect data, and computer tech-
nology and software to prepare charts, graphs, and manuscripts. They also
need travel funds and online meeting software to discuss ideas with fac-
ulty colleagues. Scientists and engineers need these things as well, plus
they need sophisticated laboratories and equipment, which are expensive
so these investments should be carefully considered. The service com-
mitment is much smaller than the research and teaching commitments.
Tenured faculty members need Internet access, computer technology,
travel funds, and online meeting tools. Universities are much closer to
meeting faculty’s needs for research and service than they are with teach-
ing, so teaching should be the point of emphasis.
The following bullet points examine the impact of root cause 4, “Limited
Productivity Improvements for Universities,” on the underlying problems
listed in Table 4.3.

• Problem 1. Cost increases: The productivity of administration is very
poor, which increases the cost of higher education dramatically. This
is often caused by trying to solve problems with people. If there is
a retention problem, universities create a vice president or vice pro-
vost for retention management. If they want more diversity, they
create a diversity taskforce. When students complain about teaching
effectiveness, administration responds with an office for teaching
excellence. All of these solutions lead to a new administrative unit
with more administrators. In addition, all faculty members have
a responsibility to improve their productivity; otherwise, costs will
continue to increase as faculty wages increase.
• Problem 2. Quality decreases: With more and more pressure driving
costs higher, efforts to improve instructional quality are more difficult
and there are fewer resources for innovative new programs, investing
in new learning devices, and rewarding outstanding performance.
• Problem 3. Access decreases: As productivity declines and cost
increases, access declines.
• Problem 4. Graduation rate decreases: As productivity declines and cost
increases, graduation rates decrease.