“Whatever It Is, I’m Against It”

I've been involved in higher education for four decades, with half that time as a department chair, dean or president. I've watched as exogenous forces (Baumal's cost disease and rising income inequality, respectively) have driven college costs up and affordability down. I've watched colleges and universities embroil themselves in unproductive struggles to find somebody to blame, rather than focus their intellectual resources on finding ways to serve today's students better in the real world in which we and they now live. Anyone who wants to understand the challenges we face, should read Rosenberg's book. There is little here that won't already be familiar to those paying attention to higher ed, but he summarizes the situation clearly, concisely, and compellingly. I am more optimistic about the possibilities for transformational change in strong legacy institutions than is Rosenberg, but it will require hard sustained work over decades, not rapid disruptive innovation, that recognizes and builds on the real strengths of academic culture without succumbing to its reactionary resistance to change.