How to restore trust in American higher education

American higher education is in trouble. College enrollments last year were lower than they were 12 years earlier in 2011, the first sustained drop in American history — and low birth rates suggest the pool of future college students may fall rather than increase.

Polls show declining public support for universities — support necessary for their sustenance, since few universities are wholly dependent on their customers (students and research grantors) for financial sustainability. Given high tuition fees, many potential students today ask: Is college worth it?

Additionally, the news earlier this year was dominated by accounts of protest at elite universities interfering with academic activities, sometimes involving shocking derogatory smears of individuals based on religious preferences or nationality. University presidents at recent congressional hearings publicly favored policies highly objectionable to most Americans.

The turbulent campuses seem far removed from the desired “marketplace of ideas,” where diverse perspectives on contemporary issues are discussed with civility and respect. A “cancel culture” where speakers are shouted down or even kept off campus is the norm at some universities. Arguably even worse, the honesty and integrity of the academic research is increasingly questioned, with well-documented incidents involving faculty and administrators plagiarizing and deliberately falsifying research results. One respected publisher, Wiley, recently closed down a number of academic journals because of continuing evidence of downright fraudulent results.

Dozens of colleges are closing or on life support. Other evidence suggests college students on average are not working hard. Even the one collegiate area that the public usually enthusiastically supports, athletics, is increasingly seen as having embarrassingly little to do with higher learning and discovery.

To be sure, assessing universities is difficult: There is no universally accepted “bottom line” measure of success. We don’t even test graduating seniors nationally on things college-trained individuals should know.

What can be done to restore public trust, and who will do it? That answer lies in determining who “owns” or controls the universities. Usually, the legal response is some governing board. But typically many groups believe that they do or should control major policies impacting schools. What about the faculty? They are essential to creating learning and discovery, core university functions. The students? They are the raison d’etre of colleges — without students, there is no “university,” and usually they provide much of the school’s revenue. In state higher-ed systems, often the governor and legislature believe they have ultimate control. At some schools, wealthy alumni and other donors think they should have a big say in major decisions. Both the University of Oregon’s Phil Knight and Johns Hopkins’ Michael Bloomberg are multibillion-dollar donors — would those schools dare do something those donors vehemently opposed? Increasingly important: The administrative bureaucracy has grown enormously at most schools. Often, the president is viewed as the CEO who is the ultimate decision-maker aided by an army of subservient bureaucrats. At many schools, powerful DEI (“diversity, equity and inclusion”) apparatchiks appear to have the clout to alter decisions, such as by requiring mandatory statements from employees and students pledging fealty to a woke/progressive agenda. A school’s distinctive mission can determine who is in control.

The optimal leadership model for schools therefore varies, but generally ultimate control must almost always reside in the institution’s governing board. Many private schools have huge boards (often over 50 members) whose importance in decision-making is typically negligible. As one board member at a largish university told me, speaking of his board, “we are a bunch of potted plants.” On many campuses, the board needs to assert some adult supervision to negate campus foolishness that can truly harm the institution’s reputation and financial viability. Effective boards usually are between seven and 15 members in size, with varying terms of ideally between five and eight years. But no single model fits all schools. Below are five major issues all governing boards must address to restore public trust and assure their respective institutions’ future viability.

Picking a president

This universal board imperative is a daunting task as the average presidential tenure shrinks amid growing challenges of the job. Presidents may be current high-level university administrators, but sometimes are leaders in the business, government, foundation or military communities with some postgraduate educational training. Although there are exceptions, many campuses suffer from a lack of sufficient intellectual diversity, with a left-progressive domination often somewhat out of sync with a majority of the public served by the school. With some exceptions (i.e., conservative church-sponsored institutions) it is usually in the best institutional interest for the governing board to pick a leader who supports a pluralistic campus environment tolerant of alternative viewpoints on major issues, which often means a president somewhat more conservative than the prevailing campus mood. Universities with presidents who are cheerleaders for the campus “woke supremacy” have often not fared well in recent years. Other abilities and experience include: financial acumen and fundraising ability, verbal articulateness, innate intelligence, unquestioned integrity, approachability, fierce work ethic. In short, Superman or Superwoman.

Boards sometimes excessively rely on outside search firms in presidential selection. While use of these firms to identify a small pool of promising candidates is common, the board itself should spend a lot of time interviewing and researching the finalists, and, indeed, should not be shy in suggesting individuals (perhaps prominent alums) who might be a good fit. Presidents set the pace for future change, so this board task requires serious dedication.

Combatting inefficiency and rising costs

Universities are inherently inefficient and costly. Internal forces within schools are constantly pressuring the president for costly changes — higher salaries, more staff, nicer facilities. With the possible exception of medical care (which has had huge qualitative improvements), no other major form of consumer spending has increased prices as much as higher education in the four decades between 1980 and 2020. Expensive facilities (for example, classroom buildings with fancy atriums) often are constructed to meet a frenzied “edifice complex,” but heavily utilized typically only about eight months a year. Most faculty offices are used less than 20 hours weekly for fewer than 35 weeks a year. Students getting bachelor’s degrees are typically in classes about 33-36 months total, easily attainable in three calendar years but typically stretched out over four years or more. Moreover, partly a byproduct of grotesque grade inflation, time-use studies show most students actually “study” an average of under 30 hours weekly — less than middle school students. Many faculty members are occupied writing papers read by few and receiving little citation, sometimes neglecting students who ostensibly are the main reason for the university’s existence. Tenure is sometimes a very costly way to offer teachers protection of their right to free expression. The trustees need to take a skeptical eye to expensive increments to campus budgets — do we really need this? Will it raise costs and make us less competitive?

Evaluating vocational relevance

Most people believe the prime function of college is transitioning students from the adolescence of secondary school to adulthood centered around the world of work. College should help students get relatively skilled, remunerative and rewarding jobs. Yet, roughly 40 percent of those entering four-year schools fail to graduate even in six years, and some 40 percent of those receiving degrees face some period of what the New York Federal Reserve Bank calls “underemployment” — taking jobs traditionally filled by high school graduates. Boards should incentivize presidents and senior administrators by giving bonuses for reducing costly student attrition in legitimate ways (not illegitimate ones like lowering grading standards). Often large numbers of students major in subjects for which there is little vocational demand but which the campus establishment love — gender studies is a good example. Boards should oppose indoctrination in political dogma that has no value in promoting either student prosperity or national economic welfare.

That said, truly educated persons need a good general education, with some knowledge of our history, civic institutions, literature, mathematics, science and perhaps foreign languages. These requirements help students become better critical thinkers and more articulate communicators. The scuttling of these requirements in order to offer trendy sounding vocationally oriented majors is generally a mistake. Finding the right balance between general knowledge and vocational relevance is important.

Rethinking nonscholarly activities

Universities engage in many nonacademic activities that often can be done by others more efficiently. Often important is intercollegiate athletics, which at some schools has become big business; the notion that star players are amateurs whose primary mission is to earn a degree is clearly untrue in today’s environment. Should universities be running de facto professional sporting teams? Similarly, while medical study is a legitimate university function, should universities be running vast hospital systems? Should they be in the housing and food provision business, or running bus systems? Mitch Daniels as Purdue’s president froze tuition fees for a decade while reexamining the noncore activities of the school, a model worth emulating. Many trustees have business experience where cost reduction is critical to their success. They can be useful in assessing these nonacademic activities of universities.

Cultivating diverse perspectives

Universities ideally are academic marketplaces where widely ranging opinions are expressed and debated respectfully and civilly. As the faculty have increasingly demonstrated a pronounced left-of-center perspective, tolerance of alternative viewpoints has declined. Associated with that has been a decline in providing a strong general education, including analyzing the origins and fruits of our mostly Western-based civilization. College presidents sometimes accept a “cancel culture” where those holding legitimate but different perspectives on contemporary issues are disinvited from campus or shouted down. The dominant voices on campus sometimes suppress others with alternative views deserving discussion in a vibrant community of scholars. Trustees, as involved outsiders, need to fight this.

There are many issues beyond the purview of governing boards or institutions. The growing federal role into higher education threatens to enforce a bland uniformity over America’s distinctly different schools. The federal financial assistance programs, especially student loans, are the best example of the law of unintended consequences: Much research says these programs are a major cause of the tuition price inflation, especially hurting lower-income students. The inefficiency of graduate and professional education is another concern. For example, why does it take humanities doctoral students six or eight years to get a Ph.D., only to get a job typically not requiring that level of skills? And the most basic question of all: Should nearly everyone go to college? We have diluted college standards by admitting too many with limited cognitive abilities and lowered the quality of degrees via grade inflation.

Resolving the issues confronting universities will require outside assistance, with needed “creative destruction” in the form of increased college closures already leading to some enhanced realism of the many challenges facing campus leaders. Some things governing boards could insist on are cheap and easy to implement. Two examples: First, a “campus political neutrality” policy that says the university will not itself take positions on political issues even though individual campus community members are encouraged to civilly debate them. Second, governing boards can allocate modest sums to sponsor regular campus debates on contemporary issues featuring prominent national proponents of opposing viewpoints. Additionally, boards should favor outside efforts to rein in accreditors, often thwarting good ideas that reduce costs without diluting quality, such as by introducing three-year bachelor’s degree programs. Try to prevent accreditation bodies from trying to mandate destructive and costly DEI-oriented requirements.

Over time, the balance of collegiate power has shifted largely to an army of administrators typically far outnumbering those actually teaching students and conducting research. Rather than supporting the teaching/research mission, often these administrators detract from it, diluting the emphasis on learning and discovery. I once estimated that if we reduced the administrator-student ratio to what it was a generation ago, we could reduce tuition fees 20 percent and restore emphasis on job No. 1: educating students and expanding discovery and pursuit of truth. Or as John Keats said over two centuries ago, “Beauty is truth, truth beauty, — that is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.”

Richard Vedder is professor emeritus of economics at Ohio University and senior fellow at the Independent Institute. He is the author of “Restoring the Promise: Higher Education In America.”

This story appears in the September 2024 issue of Deseret Magazine . Learn more about how to subscribe .

Over time, the balance of collegiate power has shifted largely to an army of administrators typically far outnumbering those actually teaching students and conducting research.

The turbulent campuses seem far removed from the desired “marketplace of ideas,” where diverse perspectives on contemporary issues are discussed with civility and respect.

The optimal leadership model for schools varies, but generally ultimate control must almost always reside in the institution’s governing board.