Lower Expectations for Higher Education?

Accordingly, we should expect continued government reluctance to increase funding at both the state and federal levels, and more and larger fees for the beneficiaries of university services. This means not only students, but also neighboring communities, which have so far enjoyed many services -- from assistance to businesses and local governments and schools to informational and research services -- essentially free of charge.

The consequences for public higher education are significant. If the federal and state governments continue to shift university financing to the universities, then access and/or quality will drop across the board. Those few universities that try to maintain high quality will have to keep increasing tuition, along with their fundraising, and will have to engage in a never-ending quest for greater efficiency by reducing programs and services. A student's ability to pay will become an ever larger factor in gaining access to a quality education.

My guess, though, is that the large majority of universities will opt to maintain access at lower tuition rates and that, as a consequence, quality will decline. In the access-vs.-quality equation, access will eventually win the day, because policymakers can understand it and measure it, whereas quality remains an abstract idea that can be ignored until it is too late to save it. This leads to what I call the "graceful decline model," and we find ourselves at the beginning of it today.

Can we stop this decline in quality higher education?

If we accept that the answer is "no," then we can simply let the market take its course. But if we insist that the answer must be "yes," then much needs to be done -- and fast -- to turn public opinion in support of higher education.

Above all, we must make what is at stake crystal clear. The leading beneficiaries of higher education, from students and industrial leaders to the guardians of security and community leaders, need to rally to this issue. The media and public policy institutions must engage in discussing and combating this sobering crisis.

On the campus, each university needs to reassess its mission and find a balance between program quality and access. We have to step away from the fantasy that both can be maintained at current levels as support declines. Hope is not a strategy when there is so much at risk. Each university must consider charging fees for programs and services often provided at little or no cost.

Most of all, universities have to recognize that public funding for public higher education, as the dominant source of support, has come to the end of its cycle. As we move forward, public universities will have to look to fundraising, entrepreneurial ventures, partnership agreements and tuition fees to find the money for their operating costs.

We are entering a new era in American higher education, one that gives me great concern. I don't like what it portends for the citizens of our country, nor indeed for the future of our country. But I accept the challenge that faces us now -- to continue to fulfill higher education's responsibilities even as we work to draw attention to the potential consequences of its decline.

Author's e-mail:president@umd.edu

C. D. Mote is president of the University of Maryland.