Page 115 - Crisis in Higher Education

Understanding the Root Causes • 87

school graduates in the United States. Between 1998 and 2010, the number
23
increased by 27%, but a decline of 2% is expected by 2023, so universities
seeking enrollment growth face a difficult market. Their response to state
pressure to increase student success and a smaller pool of high school gradu-
ates has been to focus on keeping the students they have by creating Offices
of Retention Management or Offices for Student Success. These entities study
why students leave the university before graduation, and they develop support
systems to help students cope with their problems, stay in school, and gradu-
ate. Universities benefit from these efforts in two ways: (1) more state subsidy
because they meet the state mandates for student success and (2) students
stay in school, take more SCH, and generate more revenue for the university.
These ideas are well intended and are designed to help students, but there
are two important and potentially serious problems. First, the financial best
interest of the university is served by identifying students who are having
problems and “advising” them toward fields of study that are, to put it bluntly,
easier and require less work. This is not radically different from the approach
universities are accused of using for some of their top athletes. To assume
that all programs are equally challenging is unrealistic, and to deny that less
challenging programs exist is like the ostrich with its head in the sand. This
certainly does not mean that counseling students to take advantage of their
strengths and pursue a field of study that meets their interest is a bad thing
as long as the path leads to a job that pays enough so the graduate can have a
financially and intellectually satisfying life. Pushing students into programs
that are already overcrowded depresses wages and limits access to good jobs.
While this is happening, there are many jobs in the United States with very
good starting salaries and career paths that go unfilled.
Second, with part-time jobs, studies, and social activities, students are
busy, and many are looking for ways to reduce their academic workload.
This manifests itself in a number of ways, including requests to instructors
to push back the due date for term papers, smaller reading assignments,
fewer topics in the course and on tests, and more in-class review time,
which take time away from covering new topics. When this push for less
work is combined with subtle and sometimes not so subtle pressure from
university administration to meet retention goals, faculty members feel
compelled to reduce their coverage and standards. When standards and
coverage are reduced and enrollment increases, faculty, departments, and
programs are rewarded because higher enrollment leads to more resources.
There is another important factor that exacerbates the tendency to cover
fewer topics and require less work in a course: the change in the mix