Dive Brief:
- In an Inside Higher Ed op-ed, Dartmouth's Joshua Kim responds to a Rolling Stone article published last week that lamented the “dismantling” of the US higher education system.
- According to Kim, who serves as director of digital learning initiatives at the Dartmouth Center for the Advancement of Learning, there is hope because of increasing demand for higher education in our information-based economy, as well as improving quality of instruction thanks to learning research.
- He also argues that the higher education system is much more resilient than people give it credit for when they focus on declining enrollment or program discontinuations in certain locations and ignore growth at other institutions.
Dive Insight:
Doomsday scenarios about the state of higher education have been prevalent this year, especially due to budget proposals by conservative governors in Louisiana, Wisconsin, and Kansas. Louisiana, however, backed off its proposed cuts, which were originally the worst in the nation. It has since left that title to Wisconsin as the Midwestern state considers eliminating $250 million in funding from the state’s public colleges and universities over the next two years. Most other states, however, have attempted to reinvest in public higher education and build back up funding that dropped during the last recession. It will be years before many states return to pre-recession funding levels, but incremental growth is also cause for optimism.