At the New York Times Higher Ed Leadership forum last week, U.S. Secretary of Education Dr. John King sat down with the Times' Charles Duhigg to lay out his vision for higher education. King talked about the impact of his upbringing — orphaned at 12 and kicked out of high school after the anger over losing both parents led to behavioral challenges — on his education philosophy.
Because of his rocky high school career, which could have seen him become another negative statistic on black and brown boys in this country, "the notion of second chances is an important one for me," King said during the interview. "I believe that people make mistakes in life, but then they need an opportunity to get things back on track."
King mentioned the criminal justice reform efforts of the mid-90s, during which "we were really tough on crime and really [expanded] the prison system," and the Pell grant extensions to prisoners hoping to gain skills necessary for successful reentry was eliminated.
Three days later, the department he heads announced a massive rollout of a $30 million initiative to provide Pell grants for prisoners.
Access to higher education, broadly, is an "area of disconnect that we've got to bridge," King said. And one of the biggest barriers to access is affordability. "In public higher ed, states have really retreated from their responsibility to invest in higher education," he said. "That's really driving costs up."
But whether it is addressing the return on investment to ensure institutions are providing "meaningful" degrees, increasing transparency around outcomes for students and alumni of institutions or "support students around how to articulate their ideas" — which King said "is a part of good education," institutions must do more to increase the value of the educational experience, while keeping costs down.
"What I would hope institutions of higher education would do is to prioritize in their spending on finishing, and aid that is needs-based, [as well as] innovation that will help make institutions more affordable in the long run," he said, noting that innovation is the hardest area to grow in the budget-constrained environment, but which has the most potential to yield the best results for the future of America.
And this means adapting to the changing needs of industry and the American workforce.
"For a very large share of the higher education student population, school may not be one phase of your life, but actually some place where you go back over time," he said. "So those opportunities for folks to get stackable credentials are very important."
Most important, however, is a focus on the students who are consumers of this higher education system and ensuring their experience is welcoming and fulfilling and valuable.
This means recognizing how certain words, traditions and even building names might affect "those who have been marginalized in society." It also means "having good, clear adjudication processes and procedures for investigating" all foul play on campus, whether it is racial aggression or sexual assault. It is how campuses “deal with issues around substance abuse, particularly alcohol,” King said.
"How do we as leaders reflect those values around community in our institutions?
We want safe space for all of our students, what does that look like, how do we make our space safer? … How do we create environments where people feel their human dignity respected," he asked. "As leaders, we are always getting better at that, hopefully, getting better at ensuring that institutions reflect that kind of” commitment to universal respect for students on campus.
But it's also doing some of the hand-holding and mentoring of students — particularly first-generation students — whose families may not be able to offer the same supports other families can and making sure they "understand how their studies are connected to their long-term plan."
"Affluent students may have their mom and dad's help with that … but what I hope is that institutions will take responsibility for students who don't have that, who don't have those parents who will sit with them and go through those topics," he said.
No online tool will supplant the need for quality human interaction and counseling, he said. In order to serve the needs of today's student population, institutions will need to increase collaboration with the K-12 sector and with industry. Not only that, but in an increasingly expensive and competitive environment, schools must clearly articulate their value propositions to students if they are to remain viable.