AS COSTS RISE, PUBLIC, ACADEMIA MUST RETHINK HIGHER EDUCATION'S GOALS.

Byline: Jon C. Strauss

This month marks the end of another graduation season - some 2,200 four-year institutions across the country awarding almost 1.2 million undergraduate degrees at a total cost just under $180 billion.

With the average four-year cost exceeding $150,000 per student, it was the most expensive class to educate in real dollars in America's history.

And with yearly increases averaging twice the rate of inflation during the past 20 years, a college education is swiftly moving beyond the reach of the middle class. Justifiably, society is balking.

The fact is that today's system of higher education is no longer serving students and society. It's too expensive, and, in truth, it's not adequately preparing graduates to think and act in the real world.

Some sectors of the higher-education community argue that their role is what it's always been: teaching, research and service. So why worry, and most particularly, why change?

Changing goals

But the public sees something very different. Scandals in athletics and research funding, accusations of price fixing and research fraud, drug and alcohol abuse on campuses and debates over diversity and affirmative action all are fueling public outrage over escalating prices, declining standards, private inurement and resistance to change.

Society's message is very clear: What educators have done in the past is no longer sufficient; it's too expensive and it's not working.

Ample data confirms some of the pricing, cost and behavior excesses in higher education:

From 1975 to 1993, national undergraduate enrollment grew by 28 percent, faculty increased by 22 percent, but nonteaching administration grew by 83 percent.

Fewer than 100 of the nation's 3,688 colleges and universities may be considered research universities and more than half of higher education R&D expenditures are concentrated in 40 institutions. Yet, 441 institutions offer Ph.D. degrees, and faculty increasingly define their work as research and research support.

With soaring costs, bloated administrations, and an increasing number of faculty members self-identifying as ``researchers'' rather than educators, is it any wonder that national polls indicate that public confidence in higher education dropped from 61 percent in 1966 to 25 percent in 1994?

Hurdles to reform

Reform in higher education is difficult for a number of reasons.

First, a low student-faculty ratio, the traditional measure of quality, is the inverse of the accepted financial measure of teaching productivity, a high student-faculty ratio. Yet research, some of it 40 years old, demonstrates that teaching effectiveness is far more dependent on methodology than student-faculty ratio.

New computer-based teaching methods and peer-assisted learning programs suggest that learning quality can even improve with increased student-faculty ratios.

Second, the almost total revamping of teaching methods that is mandated is no simple task. Teaching the same old way is no longer capturing the attention of today's media-saturated, computer-literate young people. And, much of the most important subject matter is changing rapidly.

We must meet these young minds on their own ground and imbue them with a dedication to learning and ability to learn. This will take a comprehensive review and refocusing of teaching methods, and major investments in technology.

Third, the roots of ``pure research'' as an integral component to academe run deep, although as currently practiced, research frequently has little relevance to the teaching endeavor and is often self-serving, obscure and expensive - particularly at institutions with teaching-focused missions.

In fact, a recent national education round table concluded that the nation needs less of a good thing - fewer faculty and departments that define their futures in terms of quantity of research and the size of their Ph.D. programs. Research needs to be reoriented toward societal needs and scholarship that is more compatible with the learning objective of most college and university missions.

Similar messages of discontent from the public to other service providers have produced sweeping changes. The health care industry is one example.

Why not in higher education?

Market forces that are less direct are one reason; what the public wants from higher education appears more difficult to articulate than in the case of health care where the straightforward demand for ``more effective, less expensive'' services has been made and progress quantified.

Reform in higher education has also been hampered by a near absence of strategic management at colleges and universities, as well as by institutional traditions such as tenure that actually act as disincentives to institutional productivity. And so, the process of meaningful reform in the ivory tower grinds along at a snail's pace.

Will higher education pay a price for resisting society's demands? Yes, though to varying degrees. Highly selective colleges and research universities probably can afford to ignore society's reform call for some time.

Competition for students

But most enrollment-dependent institutions face major revenue shortfalls and increased competition from proprietary institutions like the University of Phoenix and Walden University. These proprietary schools have adopted new learning technologies, have responded to customer needs, are concentrating on their teaching missions and are emphasizing faculty productivity unencumbered by tenure.

They bask in growing enrollments, satisfied customers and significant profits while other institutions suffer economic reversals.

Some institutions may be able to compensate with extraordinary growth in enrollment or philanthropic revenue. But, the only realistic answer is growth in learning and teaching productivity, which will bring down costs and produce better-prepared students, responding thereby to society's call.

Higher education needs to foster in students a desire to learn, while employing the latest methods and technologies to improve teaching effectiveness and reduce costs.

Behavioral changes by both institutions and individuals are mandated; to be effective, no part of the organization can be exempt from the reform process.

In his second annual message to Congress, Abraham Lincoln challenged his colleagues: ``The dogmas of the quiet past, are inadequate to the stormy present. . . . As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew.''