Dangerous Band-Aids, Part I:

The Legerdemain of Modern “Enrollment Management”

 

Q: “When can apparently good news be bad?”  

A: “When it provides a false sense of security.”

 

A growing number of college presidents are acknowledging the higher education operating model has to change (though if TIME magazine’s reporting is to be believed, a startling number are not of that opinion, in direct contrast with their customer base).

One hopes these presidents are listening to their in-house market experts, the admissions and financial aid staff whose work bridges the gap between important on- and off-campus constituents.

Modern admissions marketing communication wizardry, global-reach recruiting campaigns, and sophisticated cost leveraging schemes continue to salve fears that change needs to come soon.  Recruiting and financial aid packing tactics at many colleges seem to be masking an “it’s later than we think” reality, making practitioners in those fields increasingly concerned.

I hosted or was part of three standing-room-only sessions at NACAC and at the New York State financial aid association meeting the following week.  In every setting I sensed an odd mixture of pride-of-accomplishment, guilt, and concern about the future.  The pride comes from making an increasingly difficult (juggling mutually-exclusive imperatives) job look too easy.  The guilt and concern come from making a tough job look too easy, thus blunting effectiveness of delivering messages many on campus don’t want to hear.

Reporting from The College Board Forum, The Chronicle’s Eric Hoover cites Pomona’s Seth Allen’s concern:  “It’s a prevalent notion in academe that recruiting more students from faraway shores can fix a college’s revenue problems. Foreign students, Mr. Allen said, are the latest incarnation of the ‘next great thing’ that promises to solve enrollment challenges. He warned his audience, however, that such thinking could distract college officials from frank discussions about their rising costs.

“’When are we actually going to have this conversation?’ Mr. Allen asked. ‘Because I don’t think the next great thing is around the corner for us.’”

Seth’s is one of a growing number of voices from the admissions and financial aid world whose embedded “market readings” urge intelligent action, sooner rather than later, as they see their tactics’n’tricks diminishing.

Across the country from Pomona, Pennsylvania’s Albright College is doing away with one such tactic, the practice of financial aid gapping.

Kevin Kiley of Inside Highered shined a bright light on the all-too-often overlooked flip side of college cost, financial aid gapping in a story this summer and recently followed-up with a report on Albright College’s eyes-wide-open, pragmatic approach to weaning itself away from gapping.  Albright’s Greg Eichhorn has succeeded in helping his college take a longer view: by “managing down” the gap, Eichhorn figures, Albright will be able to grow headcount (through improved admissions yield and subsequent retention) and increase the lifetime value of a customer, with financial and student satisfaction benefits that will more than offset the anticipated increase in discount rate (arguably one of the most dangerously misused metrics in higher education).

Professionals in the enrollment field – admissions and financial aid staff – are in an increasingly difficult position.  Trained to serve both their college and their families, many are finding what was once a normal complimentary practice is becoming untenable.  As committed, intelligent highered stakeholders, one hopes campus leaders recognize their credibility and seek their insights, soon.

ELEPHANTS CAN DANCE

In the "lessons from other worlds" department, we have seen the near-bankrupt Dayton ballet, opera, and orchestra do the unthinkable and merge and survive. With more foresight, an Albany, NY healthcare "behemoth" decided not to wait til the 11th hour and three separate (and disparate) entities are successfully merging.

An acquaintance who works in the premium spirits (that's expensive alcoholic beverages) business tantalized me with a thumbnail of part of his job: because it takes 20+ years for Scotch to mature-to-market, he tries to envision the market -- economy and demand, pricing and quantity -- twenty five years in the future, today, so production can begin.

As they famously learned at IBM, ELEPHANTS CAN DANCE. And Professor Sternberg’s excellent article will reremind us, and urge us on. He tells us waiting to see does not work, and reminds us that highered must look outward rather than exclusively inward: though we are experts, value is "in the eye of the beholder." 

Highered, the music has already begun!

Dan Lundquist

 

Lessons From Swiss Watch-Makers  by Robert J. Sternberg

Today, nonprofit higher education is under threat like never before. Costs for higher education are rising at a rate that simply may not be sustainable over the long term. For-profit universities have provided platforms that enable individuals, especially those in the work force, to obtain degrees with an ease and convenience formerly not possible. Silicon Valley entrepreneurs are looking for ways to provide quality online education at a fraction of the current cost. Some of them even question the value of a college education: One entrepreneur (Peter Thiel) is actually paying students not to go to college and to start businesses instead.

As costs to colleges and universities rise, state legislatures have been cutting allocations in the public sector in a way never seen before, while at the same time constraining the rate at which tuition may rise; low interest rates reduce returns on endowments; newly limited funding of grant proposals reduces income through indirect costs; and philanthropy is constrained in many cases by flat or even falling personal incomes. What’s to be done?

We in the higher-education sector can learn a lot from the Swiss watch-making industry. In the 1980s, the Swiss watch industry was in serious trouble. The Swiss watch-makers — who had dominated the industry for decades and, in some cases, for centuries — were being routed by Japanese watch-makers who were producing watches that could do much more than the Swiss ones, and at a fraction of the cost. Why pay hundreds or even thousands of dollars for a Swiss watch that told the time and possibly the date when you could get the time, day, and date from a Japanese product, not to mention additional features such as stopwatch, alarm, and multiple-time-zone features, and sometimes more? Even worse, the Japanese quartz (battery-operated) watches often were more accurate in telling the time than were the Swiss hand-wound or self-winding models.

The Swiss watch-making industry might have gone bust — in much the way some of us fear for the newspaper or magazine industries today — except for their creative redefinition of what it means to own a Swiss watch. Recognizing that the Japanese were out to capture their market, the Swiss watch-makers set out to redefine what it meant to own a Swiss watch. The Swiss watch was to become what a classical stringed instrument had become — the symbol of quality. Research suggests that it is difficult if not impossible to distinguish the sound of a Stradivarius from that of a well-made modern instrument, but musicians are willing to pay a huge premium for the perception of quality in the classical instrument. Swiss watch-makers similarly capitalized on their brand equity, knowing that they had only a limited amount of time effectively to do so before becoming irrelevant. They needed users of their products personally to identify with their products — to see their Swiss watches as extensions of themselves.

Different watch-makers emphasized different images. For example, Rolex Oyster watches present a bold image of luxury and privilege. Patek Philippe watches, generally even more expensive than Rolexes, tend to present an image of the highest quality accompanied by understated elegance and durability of a single watch over generations. Blancpain watches typically are even more understated, with an emphasis on each being handmade by a single maker. Tag Heuer has become a symbol of the young achiever on the way up. Longines offers quality at a more modest price, while Swatch watches are funky and relatively inexpensive.

What are the lessons in brand equity to be learned for higher education?

1. Waiting to see what happens does not work. The Swiss watch-makers could not tarry or their market would have been gone for good. Neither can higher education today wait around and hope for the best. Some newspaper and magazine publishers waited; you can see how well it worked out for them! There are too many threats to nonprofit higher education to adopt a stance of wait and see. You can’t wait to change while your market share steadily evaporates.

2. Quality institutions will survive only if they effectively market their brand. The Swiss watch brands had (and still have) a worldwide reputation for superiority. The watch-makers, however, needed to persuade their customers that quality matters. This was no easy task. Many products today, such as personal computers, have become largely mass-marketed products of generic quality. Some manufacturers, such as IBM, left the business, recognizing that relatively few PC customers would pay a premium for quality. With a cheap watch, you can buy hundreds of them before you reach the cost of a good Swiss watch. Moreover, all the watches tell time. The Swiss watch-makers, therefore, needed to persuade customers that their product was a statement about the wearer — much like a piece of jewelry. (Indeed, some non-Swiss brands, such as Cartier and Bulgari, are known primarily for their association with jewelry.)

You may be thinking that you would never seek to purchase a premium watch. But how about some other product that is more luxurious than you really need — a premium car, bicycle, house, home appliance, television, cell phone, garment, or even branded rather than generic food or drugs? Most of us seek a premium product for something because for, whatever that thing is, we want better quality, or at least, our perception of it. With higher education, students often feel their choices are limited, relative to their resources, when it comes to price.

When students pay the high and, in some institutions, astronomical costs of a college education today, they understandably feel like they are paying a premium price, whether they want to or not, and they expect to get their money’s worth. You might think that the premium branding strategy applies only to elite institutions. But today, because students perceive almost all of higher education as commanding premium prices, they want a product that delivers. Having a strong value proposition applies to all institutions, not just elite ones. Thus, institutions of higher education need to market their brand to bring pride of ownership and belonging to their students. They need to develop personal identification with the brand. Generic institutions without a clear and differentiated value proposition are the ones most likely to be hurt.

3. Quality is, in part, in the eye of the beholder. How does one actually know that, say, a Rolex or a Patek Philippe is a superior watch? For the large majority of buyers, that knowledge is gotten through the superior functioning and durability of the watch and through the watch-maker’s reputation. It is not enough to be good: The customer must be persuaded, as Detroit automakers are learning today after many lean years in which they saw their brand equity decimated. You not only need to excel, you have to be recognized for your excellence. Good marketing and good public relations are necessary but generally not sufficient to persuade stakeholders of quality. Thus colleges and universities need transparent systems of accountability that will persuade stakeholders of the quality the institutions claim.

 4. Institutions will succeed to the extent that they identify, pursue, and market their unique niche. Institutions at the top of the reputational heap — the Yales and the Stanfords, say — have marked out their niche, trying to be the best possible in a wide variety of disciplines. Most institutions of higher learning, however, have neither the financial resources nor even the will to become the best across the board. Instead, they need to do what the Swiss watch-makers did — find a niche in which they excel and then sell themselves as powerfully as they can to those who identify with what they have to offer.

At Oklahoma State University, for example, our brand derives from our land-grant mission — that we seek to educate ethical citizens and leaders who will make a positive, meaningful, and enduring difference to the world. As part of our value proposition, we have a Center for Ethical Leadership, leadership-related courses and student activities in all colleges, a popular leadership minor, and an ethos of developing servant leaders. We are in the early stages of planning to start an "ethical leadership track," to be administered jointly by academic and student affairs, to be readily and freely available to all students — undergraduate and graduate. It will combine the study of ethical leadership in the academic sphere with activities developed by student affairs that immediately apply what one learns in the classroom to one’s activities on campus.

In this way, we hope better to integrate the academic and student-affairs sides of our university, a task that is not always easily accomplished. In particular, certain courses will be identified as participating in the track, and will include within them principles and case studies in ethical leadership as applied to the particular discipline being studied. Thus, students will not have to take additional courses, but rather will elect courses and course sections relevant to the track. They will see directly how ethical leadership cross-cuts academic disciplines. And through their student-affairs activities, such as community service, student government, athletics, journalism, or whatever, they will apply what they learn. They then will be accountable in the academic work for showing how they applied what they learned on the academic side to the student-affairs side.

Other institutions might brand themselves differently. What is important is that the brand identification accurately and excitingly reflects both the mission of the institution and the graduates it produces.

5. You need consistency in quality and in messaging. For the best watch-makers, every watch is of superb quality. There are few or no duds, and if there is a dud, it is quickly replaced, no questions asked. Moreover, the watch-makers deliver on quality: There is an active market for quality Swiss watches dating back to the early 1900s. If the old watches are serviced, they still work and keep accurate time. And they bring high prices, even a century later. Similarly, colleges and universities need to produce graduates who show to employers and other stakeholders in the higher education system that they have the skills and work ethic they need to cope effectively with the work demands of the present and the future.

Similarly, messaging has to be strong and consistent. In earlier times, it was relatively simple to make different pitches to different audiences — to try to be everything to everybody. But with the advent of the Internet, information spreads around the globe literally at the speed of light. As some political candidates have discovered, whatever you say anywhere to anybody is fair game. You can’t afford to be indecisive about what you stand for. Some institutions cannot decide who or what they are: They have too many messages, too many logos, too many moving parts working at cross-purposes to each other. The Swiss watch-makers that have succeeded have been consistent in producing high-quality products and have carried a distinctive and unified brand message, sometimes offering diverse options (models) within the context of that overall message.

To some readers, it may seem offensive to think of a college or university in terms of a construct of brand equity. But in an age of rapid advances and intense competition, institutions of higher learning can no longer afford to be quixotic or otherwise naïve. Enhancement and effective communication of brand equity is what saved Swiss watch companies. It is what will save quality institutions of higher education.

 

Bio: Robert J. Sternberg is provost, senior vice president, Regents Professor of Psychology and Education, and Kaiser Family Foundation Chair in Ethical Leadership at Oklahoma State University. He is on the board of the Association of American Colleges and Universities as treasurer and is president of the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences as well as past president of the American Psychological Association. The opinions in this article, however, are exclusively his own.

 

The March to the Elephants' Graveyeard?

"Fresh" from two professional conferences -- admissions in Colorado and financial aid in New York -- where I had many opportunities to be re-reminded that there is unanimous agreement that highered will change and, in fact that it IS changing (by drift and reaction rather than intentional leadership, now).

When queried about this presidents, provosts, and pundits cite cognitive dissonance, collegiality, and many of the other situational and "cultural culprits" Professor Kilbourne mentions in his excellent article (below, reader comments are very good too at http://chronicle.com/article/Moving-at-the-Speed-of-Academe/134890/).

We all know leading change is difficult and that failure to lead is a demurral of responsibility that will only put highered in a more constrained, reactionary position.

 
Dan Lundquist

Moving at the Speed of Academe

by John Kilbourne, professor of movement science at Grand Valley State University

Last year I met with a former student whom I had mentored during his early years in college. Today he is the founder and chief executive of one of the largest and most successful fitness-and-wellness programs for children in the world. As many children practice his programs as watch the popular television program SpongeBob SquarePants.

During our meeting he shared with me the speed at which his company acts and responds to ever-changing trends in technology, business markets, and health and fitness. He said, "John, if I have an idea on Friday, we implement it on Monday." Sadly, I shared my frustration at being, in higher education, on the opposite end of that continuum. I replied to him by saying, "If I have an idea on Friday, I consider myself lucky to have it approved by the first of what might be three separate committees during the first year."

The importance of my friend's comments came into clearer focus shortly afterward with the attention given to the death of the Apple co-founder, visionary, and entrepreneur, Steve Jobs. It seems that much of Mr. Jobs's success was a result of what co-workers at Apple called his "reality distortion field," or RDF.

The RDF was Jobs's intense enthusiasm for convincing others that the task at hand was doable, often within very short periods of time. What's more, much of the current literature on the best ways to prepare college students for careers shows that taking risks, thinking creatively, and moving swiftly are key, affirming Mr. Jobs's formula.

It is unfortunate that many colleges, which are charged with preparing the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators, embrace a culture of time-consuming, unhurried progress when it comes to curriculum, personnel, and governance. Nowhere is this more evident than in their committee structures.

For example, at my university, to make any changes to existing courses, propose new courses, or make program changes, faculty must navigate through three separate curriculum committees. Too often the members of such committees have zero connection to the subject area or content of the proposals under consideration, yet they are free to voice their concerns, objections, disapproval, or approval.

A few years ago, I proposed content changes in a course I teach that is required of all majors in my department, to reflect current trends and practices in the field. The changes I proposed were the result of my consulting with several department faculty members over an entire semester.

After my home department's curriculum committee approved the changes, and after I received the support of the department faculty, the proposal went to the college curriculum committee. It took nearly a year for that committee to approve it. It then moved to the university curriculum committee, where it was approved and sent on to the provost for final approval.

The entire process took nearly three years of time and effort¬—time I feel would have been much better spent on what I and others do best: teaching, providing meaningful service, and contributing to our fields of study. By the time the course received final approval and was ready to appear in the university catalog, I had to revise it again to keep up with recent changes in research and scholarship.

As a professor, I often feel that I live a divided life. On one side of the divide I am engaged with students in and out of class, sharing with them information from a rapidly changing world, hoping to keep them up to date and informed so that they might somehow use this information to follow and achieve their dreams. On the other side of the divide, I face a world consumed with sluggishness, personified by committees and committee structures at the department, college, and university levels.

At my university there have been several actions in my department—curriculum proposals, sabbatical applications, contract renewals, tenure and promotion decisions—that were unanimously approved by the department faculty only to be denied or rejected by a college committee. One rejection letter said, "While your current proposal has not been approved, we do encourage you to revise, strengthen, and resubmit a proposal for the following academic year."

The following year! One entire year gone, and the efforts of the department faculty wasted.

What's to be done? Colleges can bridge the divide and promote more efficient use of people and resources by putting greater trust in faculty at the department or unit level. After all, these are the people who know the subjects and content best. Let's work to remove the unreality distortion field of higher education. If faculty have an idea on Friday, let them put it into effect on Monday.

Right-Pricing Higher Education... for Everyone's Sake

In the late 1970s the sticker price of college education became detached from the indices it had generally tracked up until then.  The ‘80s were a go-go time that, in retrospect, somewhere between 99% and 100% of Americans would say resembled nothing so much as the beginning of a Ponzi Scheme.

Let’s toast to that!

Chivas Regal is a very good blended Scotch whiskey that has been around about as long as most of the American Ivy League colleges. The Seagram family took Chivas corporate and masterfully marketed – branded and priced – the spirit.  Chivas was viewed as special: exclusive, expensive, and prestigious.  Seagrams discovered that, along with image management, they could increase its price and increase sales.  During the 1980s over 1.2 million cases of their most popular 12-year-old bottles were sold in the United States annually.  What an era!  What a beverage!  (US sales stand at approximately 450,000 cases these days.)

Drawing on thirty-five years of experience as a college administrator, I recall the phrase “Chivas Regal Effect” entering the lexicon in the 1980s when I worked at the University of Pennsylvania.  Back before the Federal government busted the so-called Overlap Group (the Ivies and MIT) for collusion and price-fixing, we in the admissions office would compare prices and financial aid offers with our core overlap group (AKA “competitors”) in hopes that we could minimize the role the cost would play in college choice.  But there was another result; one that I honestly believe at the time was unintended.  Penn’s president Martin Meyerson said it best: "We were building up a kind of notion about colleges and universities that the higher the price, the better they were."  (Stanford’s finance vice president Bill Massy was blunter: "The theory was, basically, we will increase tuition as much as the market will bear.”)

We all know the rest of the story.  Up to now that is. 

Massy, meet Bennett

College rankings gained prominence, money was easy to come by, the Massy Theorem took hold, and with no end in sight many colleges invested in quality high-overhead infrastructure and programing… as the economy iced-down the Bennett Hypothesis (“increases in financial aid in recent years have enabled colleges and universities blithely to raise their tuitions, confident that Federal loan subsidies would help cushion the increase”) gained ascendency as the cocktail party gave way to the tea party, and even a portion of the State of the Union Address was a softball warning about cost that most of highered felt they, sadly and reluctantly, had to ignore.

College tuition has outpaced general inflation by ten times since the ‘80s and its trajectory has not even been blunted by the Great Recession:

 

Behind the scenes “doing less with less”

Barring the most resource-rich college brands (ironically), research has shown that family willingness and ability to pay is declining.  Families will try harder to meet the bill if their child is talented enough to be admitted to an Ivy League school but they are also looking at “financial aid safety” colleges in greater numbers.  More research indicates that the number of students turning down their top-choice pricey school in favor of a more affordable option is sharply on the rise.

Seeking a middle way, some highered advocates have begun looking at the dilemma differently.  Rather than focus on top line price – and the amount of financial aid “discount” that colleges “spend” – why not look at 1) what your families can pay, 2) what it costs to run your college, 3) revenue from all non-tuition sources, and 4) add #1 and #3 and subtract #2 and charge as close to THAT as possible.  Might, so goes the reasoning, a customer base committed to your product but stung by financial uncertainty, might these families be willing to pay less for less?  Let someone else pay for those electron microscopes!  First Edition Audubons, not on my dime!

A Radical Departure: the Concordia “Right Pricing” Experiment

This morning Concordia University in Minnesota announced a $10,000 price DROP: “In resetting our tuition to a price last seen a decade ago, we are responding to the concerns of students and families who feel our nation’s colleges have become unaffordable,” said Rev. Tom Ries, president of Concordia. “We hope that other private colleges and universities will soon be able to follow our lead.”

Operating from a position of relative strength and a keen sense of market sentiment, Concordia is branding the price cut as a “reset,” a disciplined, no smoke-and-mirrors anti-Chivas moment that has “the phone ringing off the hook” in their admissions office and has already garnered a mixture of “RIP, we hardly knew Ye,” to quixotic admiration in the highered community.

I think Concordia intends to be in the human capital business to stay, and I’m betting on their math.  For the sake of higher education and future generations of college students.

 

Can We Afford Our Values?

LIBERAL ARTS: SHRINKING, NOT "OBSOLETE"

In the Spring, 2012 edition of Liberal Education, Pomona President David Oxtoby raises the bar on the definition of "preaching to the choir" in his essay on the place for arts in a liberal arts education.

His words resonated with me (at age 60) but made me pause and wonder how much that had to do with my exposure to the arts (good, bad, or indifferent) as an Amherst undergraduate decades ago or my experience since.

I am sure that – then as now – there are a few teenagers with sufficient sophistication and sensitivity to recognize and appreciate what he and others describe... and that there are others who, like me, will grow into appreciation. Most will do neither, alas.

Higher Education is in a period – the so-called New Normal – where the luxury of "purposeful inefficiency" [Sorum, Winter, 1999 Daedalus] is well past us. Pomona's Oxtoby and Princeton's President Shirley Tilghman (in commencement remarks on June 5th) are powerful advocates for an educational experience that many of us value but that many institutions can simply no longer afford to retain as they could in the past.

Unlike SUNY-Albany and the University of Northern Iowa – where huge budget gaps forced elimination of academic programs – Pomona, Princeton, and Amherst literally have the great good fortune to be able to afford their values: providing and very rich educational experience for their students and a bully pulpit for their leaders.

President Tilghman is right to “reject the notion that a liberal arts degree has suddenly become obsolete." In many ways a liberal arts education has never been more relevant and important but sadly – realistically – demanding and depressing economic times will simply reduce its availability. 

COMMENTS:

"Thanks, Dan.  And, not only will they shrink, but they will be reserved for the elite."

-- Catharine P. Hill, president, Vassar College

Smart Strategy or Delay Tactic?

Wanted to introduce an article from Inside Higher Ed.  Once again writer Kevin Kiley expertly zeros-in on poignant and telling symptoms that urge those who care about higher education to move more quickly past palliative tactics and come up with sustainable alternatives for the future... lead, or wait and see.

I believe it represents a case study of part of the "cross roads crisis" that highered is in (and in deeper than we may realize), especially relevant to private liberal arts colleges, in this case.

In some ways the bottom-line is "What do you do when you've run out of 'next tricks/tactics'?" Is using innovative recruiting a smart strategy to buy time or a cop-out to postpone looking hard at the toughest questions?

 
If "peak oil" has passed for liberal arts colleges, are you we ready with Plan B...?

------------------------------------------------

From "The Final Frontier"

"...liberal arts colleges may be getting to a point where marketing efforts -- such as targeting new geographic regions or adding new sports or academic programs that appeal to full-paying or high-achieving prospective students -- might not be enough to keep the colleges financially viable."

“'The reality is that the type of students that most colleges want to recruit doesn’t go that deep,' Hatch said....

"Right now such short-term moves [looking for new sources of students] are holding off a significant change in how liberal arts colleges operate....

"Over the next few years, Augustana is planning to undergo a significant strategic planning initiative that will confront some of the major challenges Bahls and others believe will affect colleges like theirs over the next few decades. Among them: how to incorporate technology into the curriculum, how to address declining interest in traditional liberal arts programs, and how to change the financial model to make it more sustainable.

"The goal of the recruitment expansion is to buy the time to get that process completed."

Read more: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2012/05/25/denver-and-phoenix-could-be-last-new-hotspots-college-recruiting-then-what#ixzz1vslpLBM4 

Mea Culpa Sparks Needed Dialogue

"I readily admit it," said E. Gordon Gee, the president of Ohio State University, who has also served as president of Vanderbilt and Brown, among others. "I didn't think a lot about costs. I do not think we have given significant thought to the impact of college costs on families." 5/13/12, NYT

From the “Turning Points” Archive comes this 2010 post…

Paraphrasing the Clinton White House: “Lower Your Overhead, Stupid!”

High education is on high alert but taking very few proactive steps to address its deepening crisis.  All of the warning signs are there.  Outcries over price, uncertain funding (from all sources), and faltering demographics add to the din: there are fewer affluent families able or willing to pay.

Growing skepticism over the value of most private colleges’ education (relative to what families think they will have to pay), is driving record numbers of students to public institutions at the same time those schools budgets are being gutted, lowering the number of students the public sector can accommodate and leaving those who are enrolled with a diminished educational experience, albeit with the perception of affordability.

Community colleges, proprietary institutions, and on-line programs seem to be in the best position if enrollment growth is any indicator – although class selection and parking availability plague many two-year colleges – and they all have a common attribute: low price and low operating expenses.

In the simplest terms, college leaders can look at income and expense.  In the past much “planning” in higher education began by looking at mission, current business procedures, and then adding the occasional exciting new initiative… and then looking at known and anticipated revenues… and then raising student fees to cover the inevitable gap.

A hot economy – families feeling flush, buoyed up with ready access to private and government credit – allowed that model to flourish.  And colleges flourished with rich curricular growth and stunning expansion of facilities. 

Now the high overhead of maintaining that which grew out of a different, departed world is threatening legacy employee benefit programs, trimming back athletics, shuttering eco-friendly vegan dining halls.  Even academic programs are disappearing (these days “we can’t call ourselves a college without a philosophy department!” is countered by “we won’t be a college if we keep it!”). 

As colleges are being challenged to assess whether they can afford their values, the planning paradigm of the past has to be flipped around and managed.  Colleges have to forecast revenue first and then make expenses fit, and no matter how painful they have to do this intentionally and collaboratively, and begin doing it as soon as possible. 

No other enterprise would protect “sacred cows,” be timid about exploring all options, or wait to let market or regulatory forces drive them.  Higher education is too important to run on cruise control any longer.