Higher Education Under Pressure: What Will the Future Hold?

40 Pages Posted: 5 May 2017

Date Written: May 27, 2016

Abstract

As part of a symposium on Rick Matasar's body of work, this article uses his The Canary in the Coal Mine: What the University Can Learn from Legal Education as its starting point. It argues that legal education may not be the canary described as undergraduate institutions have long been experiencing similar pressures.

The article focuses on the cost-value proposition in both public and private higher education, with a detailed discussion of the background of escalating tuition costs and the role of federal student funding. It also addresses cost control and new revenues. Ultimately universities will have to focus ever more on values-based outcomes in the form of learning and employment results.

Frequently technology is being hailed as the tool that will change all of higher education. The article explores the different ways in which technology has impacted teaching and learning in recent years. While technological changes will allow for the ongoing development of individualized learning tools and improve learning, they will not solve the larger woes of higher education. Instead they present a crucial element in the creation of new structures. Those are likely to further stratify higher education and the labor markets universities serve.

In this process transformative energy is unlikely to emanate from law schools. They have largely been sheltered by their universities and continue to operate in relative insularity on their campuses and within higher education, focused on each other and the profession. In the end, universities should not rely on law schools to develop models they could emulate.

Keywords: Cost of Higher Education, Employment Outcomes in Higher Education, Higher Education, Hybrids, Innovation in Higher Education, Learning Outcomes in Higher Education, Legal Education, MOOCS, Online Teaching, Outcome Measures in Higher Education, Technology in Higher Education

JEL Classification: I20, I22, I26

Suggested Citation

Demleitner, Nora V., Higher Education Under Pressure: What Will the Future Hold? (May 27, 2016). Syracuse Law Review, Vol. 66, p. 649, 2016, Washington & Lee Legal Studies Paper No. 2016-11, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2808542

Nora V. Demleitner (Contact Author)

Washington and Lee University ( email )

204 W Washington St
Lexington, VA 24450
United States

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