Right-sizing and right-fitting Idaho higher education

The recent announcement that Concordia University in Portland is shutting its classroom doors may be one of the canaries in the coal mine for America’s colleges and universities in the decades ahead. Concordia is not the first liberal arts college to close, as the expense of running a college or university outpaces enrollment and the ability of the institution to benefit from a scale large enough to pay the bills. Nor is this just about small private colleges. Public universities and colleges are also threatened.

Just two years ago, Forbes magazine asked the question whether half of America’s colleges and universities would close in 10 years, picking up on the same prediction by the late Harvard professor Clayton Christensen. He pointed to a broken business model and the coming decline in college-age students.

The culprit is the Great Recession of 2008 and its impact on childbearing in those years. Many families struggling to make ends meet made the decision to pass on childbearing, thereby creating what has been termed the “birth dearth.” As a result, experts predict a significant dip in the number of college-age students in the coming years.

One of the researchers who has produced the most detailed analysis of the coming dearth of students is Nathan Grawe, the author of “Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education.” The economist Grawe claims that most institutions will not be able to recruit their way out of this demographic change, leaving only a few options — closing its doors, downsizing or consolidating with other institutions.

All three options are in play as the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center reported last year that college enrollment in the U.S. decreased for the eighth consecutive year. If there is any good news for Idaho, it’s that the impact of declining high school graduations through 2026 may not hit the Intermountain states as hard as states to the east, although with two of Idaho’s universities suffering undergraduate enrollment losses, it appears as though the future has arrived.

For years, there has been talk of a more system-like Idaho public higher education sector, but that was usually thwarted by appointments to the State Board of Education based more on regionalism and campus favoritism rather than any overarching interest in a system of higher education in Idaho. In those days, when the rising tide of increased tuition and state appropriations was floating all boats, the idea of creating a system and overriding the gravitational pull of regional politics on the State Board and in the Legislature was discarded regularly by all parties.

With a staff too small and inexperienced in the overall coordination and enforcement of system-like decision-making and a State Board unable or uninterested in empowering a larger and more expert staff to make tough system-driven decisions, board policy was too often made on the margin for each school, without proper consideration of the consequences for a system of higher education in Idaho.

This year, the budget plan for higher education is to freeze tuition across the board and to cut funding to higher education, hardly a system-like approach. This seems like an opportune time for the State Board of Education and the Legislature to take a step back and ask questions that a system of higher education would ask about the future of higher education in Idaho.

What are the workforce needs of Idaho’s employer community? How has Idaho higher education responded to those needs and where does Idaho have to adjust its programming and the mission and roles of its schools to deal with enrollment losses on some campuses and enrollment wins on others? What can Idaho expect from the drop in high school graduates heading our way? How can a system justify costly advertising by one campus that simply attracts students to one Idaho campus at the expense of another? Are new initiatives for enrollment growth at our state universities in sync with each school’s mission and role, finally approved by the State Board of Education?

Gov. Brad Little agrees that it is time for the State Board to devote more time and energy to Idaho higher education given the poor performance of some campuses and the predictions that things may get worse. In a recent visit to the Idaho Statesman editorial board, he agreed that the State Board of Education can spend more of its time “right-sizing” and “right-fitting” Idaho’s higher education establishment in an effort to meet Idaho’s current workforce shortages in key areas such as STEM-related jobs.

The governor suggested the possibility of “bifurcating” the State Board to give some of its members more responsibility and focus on our universities and colleges as opposed to its K-12 duties and myriad other board responsibilities that can detract from the time available for oversight and support of higher education in Idaho. In addition, board members will require a staff with experience working in states that have achieved a degree of success in enforcing the missions and roles of the system’s universities.

The Legislature can play an important role here as partner to a governor who understands the need to right-size and right-fit Idaho’s higher education establishment. Idaho can learn from the wave of downsizing and consolidation underway in American higher education. It will require legislators to remove the regional blinders that over the years have militated against funding following students to the campuses they choose. They will have to discard old notions of tradition from a bygone era and design an appropriations process for Idaho’s growing economy and workforce that meets the needs of today and tomorrow, not those from yesteryear.

There’s work for all parties, but Gov. Little is pointing Idaho in the right direction with his recent comments on the State Board’s role in governing and coordinating public higher education in Idaho. Now let’s see who follows!