Page 322 - Crisis in Higher Education

292 • Crisis in Higher Education

environment, faculty members are likely to resist. To begin, there must
be a dialogue with and among faculty to discuss how higher education
can improve the quality of instruction and lower costs. Both issues must
be on the table; otherwise, faculty members will seek smaller class sizes
and lower teaching loads so they have more time for developing high-
quality teaching tools, and administrators will seek larger class sizes
and greater teaching loads to lower cost. University leadership should
do the following:

1. Reduce administrative cost to demonstrate that it is serious about
cost reductions
2. Provide faculty with more input and governance in university plan-
ning and budgeting processes
3. Commit to an upfront investment for creating and implementing
high-tech learning materials. These investments should be rolled out
over multiple years
4. Consider ways for faculty to share in the benefits from being more
productive.

13.7 IMPACT OF CREATING HIGH-
TECHNOLOGY LEARNING MATERIALS
ON HIGHER EDUCATION OUTCOMES
Creating high-tech learning materials is essential to improve the quality
and lower the cost of higher education. Universities can negotiate price
more effectively with publishers and other entities, and they should make
better choices about what tools are needed. Plus students will no longer
have to agonize about finding the money to buy books. The following list
examines how this element of the solution impacts the root causes, which
are discussed in Chapter 4:

1. Limited productivity improvements for universities (root cause 4):
Having effectively design learning materials should make faculty
more productive and make students better learners.
2. Rapidly growing costs for books and supplies (root cause 5): High-tech
learning materials and the university’s ability to negotiate with pub-
lishers should reduce the cost of “textbooks” substantially.