When considering cost in higher education, institutional ambitions matter. Colleges and universities, at least those that are even somewhat selective, are fixated on enhancing their prestige, believing it helps them attract resources. Accordingly, their willingness to spend money in the hopes of making money has never been more pronounced.
Despite significant diversity in audiences served and resources available, higher-education institutions across types tend to arrive, independently, at what amounts to a common aspiration. They are eerily similar in vision, in fact, seemingly obsessed with “moving to the next level,” seeking to become more like those directly above them on the prestige hierarchy, no matter where they begin on the ladder.
Institutions not only portray their ambitions using similar rhetoric, but also attempt to achieve them through a rather generic set of strategies. Those include efforts to attract more-accomplished students and noteworthy faculty members, as well as to start academic initiatives intended to appeal to each.
Strategies also involve investments in “collegiate” infrastructure—building or renovating student residences, dining facilities, fitness centers, and even commercial districts. (Some institutions are also enhancing athletics.) Constructing academic buildings with similar “curb appeal” is also popular.
Granted, the energy that the aggressive pursuit of prestige is bringing to campuses has some real value, making individual institutions more dynamic. Colleges are working harder and are more focused than ever—and perhaps even more disciplined. In competing to attract more-demanding students, campuses are challenging themselves to do everything better. Also, projects like fitness centers and student residences have revenue streams—as do star faculty members (although the revenue they generate is far less certain).
The psychology of moving forward is important—essential, really—in any organization. Is it even realistic for an institution or college president not to engage in positioning for prestige? Is it possible, in effect, for any institution to simply maintain its status, even if justified by the need to keep costs in line?
But whether institutions will actually realize the advantages they seek through those investments is uncertain. Even if they rise in reputation, will more resources necessarily follow? There are also legitimate concerns about whether the cost of such aspirations and strategies diminish access and equity. And mission inflation skews the balance and disrupts the efficiency of our overall system of higher education.
The obvious question is whether institutions, in response to the current economic crisis, will scale back their efforts to realize their ambitions, if not the rhetoric around those ambitions.
Institutions have frozen discretionary spending, reduced budgets across departments, and held off hiring permanent faculty members in favor of using adjuncts. But will institutions begin suspending building projects? Will they ease off on purchasing the most-desirable students and faculty members? Will different types of institutions begin to act differently? I suspect not. Organizations naturally tend toward replicating market leaders, and they gain legitimacy in doing so.
