The issues higher education must face

Any number of people could propose a top concerns list for higher education today. Steve Mintz, who writes for Inside Higher Education, offers three that he asserts as essential to confront:

1. Political polarization - and he says that expanding access and improving success is central because of the economic stratification which accompanies polarization and hostility about the growing diversity of the U.S.A.
2. Career preparation is now more important than ever in the face of lost jobs and shifting employment markets after the pandemic.
3. Confront and rectify the institutional racism that has been at the core of many colleges and universities.

There could be more but perhaps the key is identifying a focused smaller number so that progress can actually be achieved. These issues, as well as others, represent the opportunity of not returning to the old normal. Wil Del Pilar of Education Trust says higher education should open up better by serving student populations that are underserved, advancing equity, and designing for greater flexibility in all that higher education does. Opening up better would likely take a different approach from portraying diversification as an education resource but, instead, adopt an ethical view - it's the right thing to do.

Before institutions can even begin to be better, they must face how elite private education connects with higher education to perpetuate the privilege of those who attend these schools. A recent study of South Korean higher education mirrored the differential impact of elite education based on wealth inequality found in the U.S.A. The bottom line is that, as Flanagan wrote, the system of elite education "screws the poor, hollows out the middle class, and turns rich kids into exhausted, anxious and maximally stressed-out adolescents who believe their future depends on getting into one of a very small group of colleges."

One of the most difficult implications of facing these issues is the backlash that is primarily manifest among white men. One of the most concrete examples of the challenges educators and the broader society face is who participated in the January 6, 2021, insurrection that former President Trump invited. Professor Robert Pape of the University of Chicago determined that the majority were there out of a fear of being replaced through social changes that are occurring today. Most frightening of all, Professor Paper indicates that the current backlash has roots far back into American history and that those presently involved have already decided that they are ready to fight.