Forbes: Higher Education Needs A Clearer Message: How Institutions Can Adapt

Managing Principal and President, Brian Mitchell, recently published an article in Forbes detailing how institutions of higher education can clarify their message. The article includes guidance on factors to consider in message development including implications of the broader macroeconomic environment. The full article can be found below and on the Forbes website.

The early development of higher education placed scholars at the center of learning, attracting students through their knowledge and personal reputations. As higher education continued to develop, facilities and programs burnished scholarly reputations as modern universities emerged in cities like Paris and Bologna.

Today, the American higher education system is a complex, amorphous mix of colleges and universities linking people, programs and facilities in a decentralized system of nonprofit, for-profit, online, private and public institutions at two-year, four-year, graduate and professional levels offering degrees, certificates and other options.

In 2021, more than 20 million people participated in higher education in the U.S., whose system is regulated by local, state and federal governments that help pay its bills and by accreditors who regulate and legitimize the institution’s offerings. For many students and their families, however, it’s a confusing mix of academic options driven increasingly by these families’ calculations of their return on a potential college investment. At some institutions, the sticker price is approaching almost $100,000. And therein lies a challenge that American higher education must meet.

Challenges Facing Higher Education

Higher education is at a point of inflection. Colleges are internally governed by trustees, faculty and staff, who can be at odds with one another over priorities. In my experience, higher education often operates more as a group of competing interests than as corporate enterprises shaped by their roles in their marketplace. Institutions have different missions. With the best intentions, however, campus constituencies can sometimes slow-walk strategic initiatives in seeking the perfect over the good. Much of their guidance evolves from consensus building, shifting revenue sources, even within their tuition base, and “best practices” and business models that change frequently over time. This can limit a rapid response to the challenges faced on campus.

And that’s part of the problem. Higher education institutions are not corporations and should not behave as though they were. That said, I believe many institutions have failed to link their strategic direction to consumer and marketplace demands in a way that’s explainable and understandable to students; families; consumers; local, state and federal elected officials and accreditors.

Specifically, I’ve found they often fail to integrate and finance their development of people, programs and facilities to meet defined needs that offer them a market advantage. What separates them, for instance, from their peers and aspirant institutions? It’s often difficult to tell. While categories of competing institutions—private colleges, public regional universities, community colleges and research universities, for example—offer choice by their mission, the specific programmatic advantages are often unclear at many institutions.

How To Clarify Higher Education’s Message

Messaging challenges may happen in part because many colleges have historically fallen back on their historic underpinnings as liberal arts institutions. Some perceive “liberal arts” as a political term, but “liberal” in this sense does not refer to a political ideology, nor are colleges exclusively about the “arts.”

Higher education needs to sharpen its public image with a clearer message. One possibility is to promote a broader view of the liberal arts. This argument is simple and appealing. The liberal arts teach students to articulate, write, apply quantitative methods, use technology and work in a collaborative setting. Arguably, these are learned experiences that can make students successful professionally in a competitive job market. From my perspective, the liberal arts, redefined more pragmatically, should continue to form the historical foundation upon which the justification for higher education programs is built. But the liberal arts must be more explainable to Americans.

At the same time, colleges and universities should build out the case for higher education further. There are at least three immediate steps to take.

1. Recognize the difference between a mission statement and a strategic plan.

A mission statement is an explanation of the founding principles upon which an institution is built, while a strategic plan is a statement of where it intends to head. A college’s strategic plan needs to find its cultural home in the mission statement but not be constrained by it. The plan must acknowledge the institution’s founding principles that explain why it exists and the value it provides; it must also reflect the broader changes in the evolution of American society and the role that a vibrant, dynamic institution plays in shaping that society and meeting its needs.

Once this groundwork is established, however, two additional steps must occur.

2. Look carefully at academic and student life programming.

Even the largest research universities cannot be all things to all students. At residential liberal arts colleges, for example, institutions should offer balanced, robust academic programming that is well-supported financially and surrounded by a comprehensive residential student experience. This will require internal adjustments to mindset, programs, facilities and staffing.

There should also be academic program standouts across the field of academic offerings upon which the branding of the institution will depend. This helps differentiate institutions.

3. Consider the economic role the institution plays.

Finally, I’ve found higher education institutions often diminish their important role as economic engines by focusing almost exclusively on their academic stewardship. Whatever the outreach to the public, colleges and universities are not isolated cities upon a hill. They serve their region and, more specifically, its economic development and workforce preparation.

For institutions to be relevant, they should link their academic programs to meet the needs of their environment, which also shapes them. Students are more likely to attend when they see that a degree will translate into employment in the world they’ll enter after graduation. This last prerequisite might encourage colleges and universities to reclaim their relevance among families, students and consumers. It answers their question: What’s in it for me?

Consumers seek clarity of purpose and proof of excellence. This is a reasonable request and a fair expectation. But college marketing efforts must not preach to a world that many on a campus wish existed. Colleges and universities have an extraordinary story to tell, but they need to adjust the focus, think about their audience and sharpen and reshape their message before outside groups do it for them.

Managing Principal and President, Brian Mitchell, recently published an article in Forbes which explores the issues associated with the recent rollout of the simplified FAFSA form. The article offers guidance to higher education leadership on navigating the challenges that developed subsequent to the form’s turbulent rollout. You can read the full article on Forbes.

“We first suspected a FASFA issue after a three-month delay in its release. Concerns increased when additional glitches caused further delays. College enrollment officials needed a “bug-free” form to build their financial aid packages.

Recognizing the problem, the federal government stepped in with an additional $50 million to encourage more applications. It remains unlikely that institutions will achieve these completed application goals. In the meantime, financial aid directors are feeling the pressure. For example, Christine Taylor of Bellevue College said, ‘Just when you think you see a light at the end of the tunnel, there’s something else.’ From my perspective, the effect on a college’s bottom line could be dramatic as tuition-dependent colleges scramble to pay their bills.”

A recent article in The Columbus Dispatch cited Leadership Matters, the lastest book authored by Academic Innovator’s Managing Principals, Brian Mitchell and Joseph King. The article,
“Professors’ lazy thinking not the answer for problems plaguing Ohio universities,” calls out the shortcomings of a recent guest column by three retired professors. The piece’s author, Denison University professor Jeff Kurtz, asserts the guest column was “devoid of the context, nuance and imagination arguments about higher education in Ohio deserve.” Kurtz references Leadership Matters in a section discussing what is required to make shared governance successful.

What does SB 83 do? Ohio Senate passes SB 83, controversial higher education bill. What would it do?

This work will not be easy. It will take time. And it cannot be legislated.

Campus stakeholders must invest time and energy to understand financial processes, market forces and the cultural weight bearing down on our fundamental mission.

As two college presidents, W. Joseph King and Brian C. Mitchell remarked, “While [no one on a college campus] relishes more meetings, the reality is that shared governance depends on the willingness of the governors to devote time and energy to the process [of meaningful change].”

You can find the full article here on The Columbus Dispatch.

Managing Principal and President, Brian Mitchell, recently published an article in RealClear Education which describes the difficult set of circumstances many institutions of higher education currently face. “Many institutions are tuition-dependent, lack endowment drawdowns of any scale, and offer financial aid discounts that now average 56%,” says Mitchell.

While some institutions plan to weather the storm by cutting programs and potentially closing or merging their operations, others are encouraged by these macro trends and have created or modified programs and majors to attract prospective students and meet local and regional employment needs. You can read the full article on RealClear Education. 

“This tsunami of confusing and potentially catastrophic trends affecting American higher education presents a dilemma for colleges and universities, whether public or private. On the one hand, many of these institutions seek to weather the storm by cutting programs and potentially closing or merging their operations. On the other, these same trends encourage colleges to create or modify programs and majors to attract prospective students and meet local and regional employment needs. While Fitch Ratings concludes that further college closings and consolidations seem ‘inevitable,’ institutions must think strategically over the longer term to create new programs, approaches and initiatives that meet their organizational and strategic goals. What is the logical path for faculty, staff and trustees to follow?”

Managing Principal and President, Brian Mitchell, recently published an article in Forbes which describes the challenges higher education will face this year including impacts of the upcoming election, the looming financial crisis, the role of athletics and more. You can read the full article on Forbes. 

“Higher education does not operate in isolation. Many of the ongoing challenges faced by American society are also sweeping over the higher education community.

Some will have a dramatic effect on how higher education does business. Many are long-term issues and include but are not limited to immigration, geopolitical instability and climate change. But there are also a good number of short-term challenges, many of them unique to higher education, that will likely emerge more starkly in 2024.

Now is the time to make the first critical decisions on how to handle them. After discussion with colleagues at all levels across higher education and the media, here are some areas that are likely to become front-burner concerns for leaders in higher education.”

A recent article in Inside Higher Ed quoted Academic Innovators President and Managing Principal, Brian Mitchell. The article covers Claudine Gay’s Harvard presidency which lasted only six months and discusses the aftermath of her exit and the questions that remain about how the Harvard Corporation handled matters.

Former Bucknell University president Brian Mitchell, who co-wrote a book about higher education leadership and currently serves as president of the consulting group Academic Innovators, considers Gay guilty of “academic sloppiness”—not plagiarism. But he suggested that any breakdown in her vetting likely first happened at Stanford University, where she earned tenure in 2005 with limited scholarship; at that time, she had published only five articles, according to her résumé. And last month she corrected one of them: “The Effect of Black Congressional Representation on Political Participation,” published in 2001.

You can find the full article here on Inside Higher Ed.

Academic Innovators President and Managing Principal Brian Mitchell was recently featured as a guest on Acadeum’s “Partnerships for Progress: Fueling Innovation in Higher Ed” podcast.

In this episode titled, “Adapting to Today’s Challenges Facing Higher Education Leaders,” Mitchell discusses the existential crisis facing American higher education, the need for changes and alignment across institutional leadership, and how key partnerships can help in facing these challenges.

You can listen to the full episode here.

Managing Principal and President, Brian Mitchell, recently published an article in Forbes about steps institutions of higher education can take to better prepare themselves for challenging and uncertain times. You can read the full article on Forbes. 

“To me, the conclusion is painful but obvious: American higher education faces an existential crisis. Boards, administrators and faculty must wake up to the new realities that they face. For trustees, it may be too late to use an incremental band-aid. If the wounds are too deep, boards have a fiduciary obligation to plot a new strategy in an era of rising deficits to modify what the college offers, locate new revenue, seek new partnerships and affiliations, and merge or close. The goal must not be to postpone planning until the institution’s value is reduced to a real estate sale.”

Managing Principal and President, Brian Mitchell published an article in Forbes on better governance in higher education. You can also view the article on Forbes here.

Higher education is the repository of America’s intellectual capital, an engine for its workforce development and a big business. In 2023, it employed over 2.9 million people., according to IBISWorld. 19.4 million students attended colleges and universities in 2020, down about 10% from its peak of 21.6 million in fall 2010. How its leadership handles the scale and size of higher education could have an enormous impact on the American economy and the ability of the American economy to adapt strategically to the demands of the second quarter of the 21st century.

Higher Education’s Governance Model
Governance is critical in higher education because few understand how it works. Colleges and universities are not corporations when measured by how they govern. Among numerous stakeholders, there are three time-honored participants—the board of trustees, the faculty and the senior administration. There is a natural tension among these groups that is meant to ensure a kind of checks-and-balances system to produce thoughtful outcomes. If an imbalance occurs, the institution suffers, especially during times when critical inflection points determine their direction—both locally and across higher education. I believe America has arrived at one of these inflection points, fueled by the Great Recession, Covid-19, persistent inflation and an upcoming demographic cliff as enrollments decline.

In our book, How to Run a College, Dr. Joseph King and I argue that in a system of shared governance, the board has three basic obligations. The first is to steward the policy of the college. The second is to pass a budget. And the third is to hire, support, nurture, retain and when necessary, fire and replace the president. Fairness and due process must always override naked political will. The board is often the most inclined among the three groups to overreach, mistakenly confusing its overarching stewardship responsibility for day-to-day management across the campus. The weakest boards often nominate committees that either try to fill new board seats by duplicating themselves or by overbalancing membership based on a set of shifting priorities. They are often also too large and cumbersome to be effective. The result can be debilitating, with the most deleterious effect on the role that they have to approve long-term strategy and direction.

The faculty contribute as “keepers of the flame” and, ideally, focus on the academic program and related issues, including occasionally offering their perspective on student life. There is always a pull-and-push going on with the administration and trustees who want them under the academic tent but typically not moving beyond their historic responsibilities and duties. Faculty often do not trust board members whom they consider too business-oriented and male-dominated or deeply rooted in past affiliations like athletics and Greek life. Further, faculty are keenly aware that trustees approve salaries and benefits.

The administration manages the campus, serves as the liaison between other stakeholders and the board, and maintains the public face and outreach beyond the campus gates. As Dr. King and I note in our most recent book, Leadership Matters, there are three types of presidents: presiders, change agents and strategic visionaries. Any of them can fit the “moment” when selected depending upon the needs of the institution. In my opinion, successful administrations work well only if the search produces candidates with good management skills who represent what the college needs rather than aspiring to what the campus community might want. Once selected, the administration must establish a basis of consensus, heightened levels of transparency, and arms-length distance from faculty, trustees and key stakeholders. Presidents share two risks. The first is to assume that they are cardinals among bishops, becoming more authoritarian over time. The second is to survive politically by allowing either trustees or faculty to overwhelm them.

Reviewing And Improving Governance Practices
The end game in good governance is strategy. If the trustees, faculty and administration can find common ground, a good strategic plan can provide a blueprint for growth and sustainability in a market now as competitive as any industry. With the looming crises facing higher education, governance practices are often unprepared and unexamined centers of cultural inertia.

Good governance is the foundation upon which a lasting strategic blueprint should rest. Colleges and universities are both academic centers and economic engines. Each institution should balance both features to find a solution to what they face. Yet American higher education has a long distinguished history to guide it upon which college leadership can draw. To do so, they should begin with a review of whether their governance practices serve them well.

To begin, those involved in shared governance must commit to a reasonably and regularly reviewed assessment plan, transparency and tactics tailored to build momentum for the institution’s strategic plan. l It is fundamental to ask both the right and the hard questions with a commitment to act on outcomes, however surprising or disheartening some aspects of these findings might be. Good institutions adopt best practices they develop from a working knowledge of their peers. Any commitment should start based on direction from the board chair, with the support of faculty leadership and the president. Institutional leadership should recognize at the outset that this is not a rationing exercise or an expense audit but an effort to become more responsive, creative and efficient.

In my experience, the only way to determine if an institution’s governance practices are effective is to challenge their rationale, the size and scope of governing bodies and the premise upon which they were built. In the end, it’s about whether the process that shapes decision-making works, and there is wide variation among institutions. Effective governance in a highly competitive higher education environment is one of the best ways to compete and be true to tradition, mission and strategy. Absent good governance practices that are regularly reviewed and driven down across all levels of the campus, colleges and universities may simmer in a kind of cultural inertia that can dramatically diminish their ability to compete. This could have negative effects on America and its intellectual capital.

Academic Innovators Principal and President, Brian Mitchell participated in a conversation with two other noted University of Rochester alumni – Dean Gloria Culver ’94M (PhD) and University of Rochester life trustee Gail Lione ’71. The group reflected on nine years in the life of the Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and society more broadly. University of Rochester life trustee Gail Lione ’71; Arts, Sciences & Engineering National Council member Brian Mitchell ’81 (PhD); and School of Arts and Sciences Dean’s Advisory Network member Pedro Vallejo Ramirez ’16 provided questions for Dean Culver as well as commentary.

You can watch the full discussion here.