Broad Addresses Changing Trends in Higher Education

A former president of the University of North Carolina spoke Friday morning about the changing trends that have challenged American higher education as part of the annual Louise McBee lecture series.

Molly Corbett Broad, the current and first woman president of the American Council on Education, named the global economy, investment in higher education, and the cost and revenue structure of higher education as some of the biggest issues and tied together the current state of the global economy and access to higher education, calling it the “great differentiator” when it comes to wages and the hollowing out of the middle class.

“The new currency of the global economy is going to be and already is knowledge,” Broad said, speaking in front of a capacity crowd of educators and doctoral students. Broad was referring to a statistic that showed that over 14,000 jobs were outsourced last year because there was not enough of a workforce with higher levels of education.

            Broad identified the significant issues here to be the changing trends in state budgets for public institutions of higher education and the fact that a person is more likely to go to college if they come from a high income family, calling it, “something that must be addressed.”

            Broad referenced how the significant increase in expenditures per student at private universities has caused them to have little motivation to expand enrollment because they are spending almost twice as much as new students are bringing in for tuition. This, according to Broad, inhibits more people from obtaining higher education and shows the catch-22-like issue between spending in our current poor economy and making higher education accessible to more people.

            Still, Broad urged people to go out and do what they have to do to obtain higher education, calling it the, “most important thing you can do for yourself and for the nation.”

            Broad supported this by also pointing out the greatly reduced likelihood of employment and incarceration for those people who hold a college degree.

            Broad noted that in many cases these institutions of higher learning are the “economic and cultural bedrock” in their communities and actually do a lot when it comes to determining the quality of life in their respective areas.

Because of this, Broad said, the challenge for leaders is to, “remain adaptable and resourceful while not losing the values on which their institutions were founded.”

Broad’s lecture was held at the University Chapel and was sponsored by the Institute of Higher Education and the Louise McBee Lecture, which is held annually in honor of Dr. M. Louise McBee, vice president for academic affairs emerita of The University of Georgia. The McBee Lecture is characterized by distinctiveness, and it is one of only a few annual lecture series in the United States that focuses solely on higher education.