Crisis on Campus_ A Bold Plan for Reforming Our Colleges and Universities - Mark C. Taylor [61]
There are four ways to address the problem of declining resources for many areas of inquiry: first, colleges and universities can try to raise more money from private donors as well as the state and federal government; second, they can use revenues generated by profitable departments and schools to defray the cost of unprofitable arts and sciences courses; third, they can require unprofitable departments to augment their revenue streams by increasing their teaching loads; and fourth, they can reduce the size of departments or eliminate them altogether. In the current economic climate, it is unlikely that private or public funds can be increased enough to cover growing deficits. Moreover, the reallocation of resources will not be sufficient to provide the necessary relief for distressed departments. The most likely approach in the short term is to increase teaching loads as a way of generating more tuition revenue. But this policy has inherent limitations—it is impossible to enlarge enrollments significantly without incurring additional costs not only for dormitories and classrooms but also for staff, administrators, adjuncts and graduate-student teaching assistants for whom there would have to be additional high-cost courses. It seems likely, therefore, that in the near future, some departments and programs in the arts and humanities will be eliminated and others will be reduced through merger.
There is, however, another alternative, one that is controversial among many of the very academics who most need help. Colleges and universities can establish partnerships with for-profit businesses. Most people inside and outside universities are completely unaware of the explosion in the for-profit sector of higher education. Indeed, most faculty members don’t even realize the extent to which their own universities already have partnerships with businesses and corporations. In 2007, there were 2,819 such for-profit entities in the United States. This represents 41 percent of all institutions (16 percent of four-year degree-granting enterprises). All of these institutions are recognized by the Department of Education and are eligible for student loans from the federal government. The largest for-profit school is the University of Phoenix, which currently enrolls over four hundred thousand students. For-profit ventures range from traditional classrooms and combinations of real and virtual instruction to completely online programs. While the Washington Post Company’s highly profitable Kaplan University and the University of Phoenix have physical campuses, most for-profit companies offer courses online, and therefore do not have expenses related to maintaining a physical plant. In addition, they do not offer the student services that traditional colleges and universities do, and they do not provide support for faculty research and development. This enables them to cycle profits back into the business and thereby expand more quickly.
When informed of the growth in for-profit higher education, most faculty members respond that such companies do not pose a threat because the education they provide is of low quality and differs significantly from what traditional colleges and universities offer. These companies are, of course, different, but they do pose a threat to traditional higher education. The rapid growth and steady improvement of online courses are making them increasingly attractive to a broad range of students. Much commercial education is now