There are at least five major trends in higher education today:
1. The growing student demand for post-secondary education,
2. The need for lifelong learning,
3. The knowledge economy,
4. Technology and the Internet,
5. The use of private investment capital in higher education.
The first trend is driven by sheer demographics. The U.S. Department
of Education predicts that the number of graduating high school
seniors will increase by 20 percent during the coming decade.
This is explained in large part by what is called the Baby Boom
Echo, the offspring of the generation of Americans born between
1946 and 1964. At the same time, the percentage of those high
school graduates seeking post-secondary education also has been
increasing. Twenty years ago, 50 percent of high school seniors
went on to post-secondary education. Today, the figure is about
65 percent.
The primary motivator behind this increase is the growing wage
gap in our new economy between those who have a college education
and those who do not. That wage gap has widened from 50 percent
in 1980 to an estimated 111 percent today. This widening salary
gap relates to the second trend in higher education - lifelong
learning.
The traditional 18- to 24-year-old student is now the minority.
People over the age of 25 represent nearly 50 percent of all post-secondary
enrollments, up from 28 percent in 1970. Non-traditional students
are going back to school because they recognize that they will
be at a severe economic disadvantage without additional education.
The third trend is the increasing reliance of our economy on information
technologies. Eighty percent of all newly created jobs are in
information intensive sectors, such as network engineering, systems
analysis and telecommunications. The U.S. Labor Department projects
that the number of jobs for computer systems analysts and programmers
will nearly double in the ten-year-period ending in 2004.
In 1970, approximately five percent of corporate capital expenditures
were for computer and data processing equipment. By 1997, nearly
50 percent of capital expenditures by corporations were high-tech
related. While technology and the Internet are transforming our
economy, they also are changing the way in which education is
delivered. Indeed, the online delivery of higher education represents
the fourth of our trends.
Call it "distance learning," "distributed learning,"
"online education," or the "virtual university."
Whatever one calls it, it's big. And it shows how higher education
is moving in the direction of meeting the needs of students first,
rather than the needs of the institution. Whether the learning
is delivered through a computer or face-to-face in a classroom,
there are always the fundamental questions about its affordability
- both to students and to society as a whole.
The answer to these questions lies in part with the world of for-profit
education. The growing use and acceptance of private investment
capital is the fifth of the five major trends affecting higher
education. Even in the past three to four years, there has been
a shift in the attitude toward for-profit higher education. In
the past six years alone, education and training companies have
raised more than 3.4 billion dollars of equity capital through
38 initial public offerings and 30 follow-on offerings.
Merrill Lynch calls the for-profit education industry "the
final frontier in private participation in public programs."
And quite frankly, it's not just the access for-profit institutions
have to capital for the purchase of sophisticated technology or
build new facilities. For-profit institutions of higher learning
have been quicker to recognize what students and society need
from our higher education system.
Even the more traditional higher education institutions are starting
to explore the for-profit world. New York University recently
established a for-profit subsidiary called NYU Online, Inc. to
lead its distance learning division.
The transition to the university of the future is underway. The
change is being driven by the customers - students and the businesses
that need employees with highly developed skills to survive in
the knowledge economy.
While there will always be a need and a place for a liberal arts
education, and while research will always be a core function of
some universities, there is growing understanding that the concept
of a university also encompasses a practical mission, one that
serves a broad public need.
Michael Haverty Haverty is the Regional Manager for Keller Graduate School of Management in Kansas City. Phone: 816.941.0367 or e-mail mhaverty@keller.edu.