In 2005 a team of Chronicle reporters and editors undertook a reporting experiment to predict the state of higher education 10 years in the future. We based that series of articles, “Higher Education 2015: How Will the Future Shake Out?,” on seemingly durable trends, available data, and some educated guessing by dozens of experts. To reflect the range of possibilities, we offered up predictions based on both best-case and worst-case scenarios for such topics as the state of tenure, for-profit colleges, and the pace of internationalization.
How did we (and those experts) do? Well, let’s just say that going back to the future is a lot easier in the movies.
We’ve reproduced the entire series of articles as they appeared in print in 2005 in this document. For several of the pieces, Chronicle staff members have added annotations where the predictions were spot on or way off. Click through the highlighted portions of the document below to read more. Or click here to read a larger version of our annotations.
Actually, a lot of what was predicted came true. But the forecasts hit the mark for the worst-case scenarios more often than for the best-case ones.
On the future of student aid, for instance, the worst-case scenario was on the money: “More students, particularly low-income students with average academic records, must borrow more to finance their college education,” we wrote, adding that many small residential colleges that rely on students from their region or state would have started losing them to less-expensive public universities “with lower price tags.”
Pessimistic expectations that donations to colleges would flatline have been belied by increased levels of giving to colleges. But a sizable chunk of that largess is concentrated among a relatively few, select institutions.
The record number of overseas students who were predicted to flood American campuses a decade ago actually did, in a 65-percent increase in international enrollment. But the growth came in the absence of a national strategy, which we’d figured would have been developed.
Yet another prediction, in the section “Research Inc.,” probably went a bit too far. It postulated that research universities would become so financially intertwined with pharmaceutical companies and other private-industry interests that Congress would be compelled to hold hearings on whether the universities could keep their nonprofit status. (Alas, the package did not offer any predictions on the state of big-time athletics, which has drawn some criticism for its tax-exempt status.) The worst-case scenario — predicting that for-profit colleges would earn a “sullied reputation” after aggressively recruiting ill-prepared students who would later drop out with big loans to pay back — has largely panned out.
Unknown Unknowns
Writing in 2005, almost nobody anticipated the financial crash that would overtake the economy in 2008, from which many colleges are just now beginning to recover.
Looking at the decade-old predictions in hindsight also reveals missed opportunities, bad choices, and, in some cases, higher education’s glacial pace of change.
Would colleges be facing as many challenges raising money from millennial alumni if they had stayed better engaged with those tech-savvy young graduates from the start?
Had colleges begun measuring and publicizing student outcomes faster and more enthusiastically, would the benefits of an intensive liberal-arts education be such a hard sell today?
If the government had acted on immigration reform, would the United States be seen today as an even more attractive destination for overseas students?
Would tenure be stronger today if professors had been able to build stronger alliances with administrators?
And might the enrollment declines now afflicting many colleges in the Northeast and Midwest have been tempered if they had fostered a greater sense of urgency about getting more locals to embrace college?
Second-guessing, of course, comes easily. Still, there are lessons to be learned from looking back at the roads that were followed and the paths not taken. Or at least, we hope, some amusement.
Goldie Blumenstyk writes about the intersection of business and higher education. Check out www.goldieblumenstyk.com for information on her new book about the higher-education crisis; follow her on Twitter @GoldieStandard; or email her at goldie@chronicle.com.
