The looming crisis in higher education

I have often argued, here and elsewhere, that American higher education, as presently constituted, cannot long endure. A crisis is building and the institutions of higher learning will have to embrace radical reforms or cease to exist. Writing in the Chronicle of Higher Education, Joseph Marr Cronin and Howard E. Horton speculate that the education bubble is about to burst. The reason:

Consumers who have questioned whether it is worth spending $1,000 a square foot for a home are now asking whether it is worth spending $1,000 a week to send their kids to college. There is a growing sense among the public that higher education might be overpriced and under-delivering.

Might be? It certainly is! This is the nut of the problem, and it is not going to go away. If anything, public disillusionment will only increase.

The authors then go on to note some of the changes that are already beginning to emerge as administrators and educators slowly begin to realize the scope and the imminence of the perils that they face.

Read their analysis here.