Higher Education Needs A Clearer Message: How Institutions Can Adapt

Dr. Mitchell is a former president of Bucknell University and Washington & Jefferson College and founding principal of Academic Innovators.

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.

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