Can the best system of higher education in the world be done “on the cheap”? And can the United States adequately invest in new leadership by bringing a coldly calculating cost model to its chief intellectual and cultural asset?
To preserve the best within the American model—while making it accessible to as many of our citizens as possible—we feel compelled to emphasize that cost-cutting must be done without losing sight of higher goals that are unique to the mission of higher education. America’s colleges and universities are not revenue centers. They are investment centers, reflecting a broadly shared covenant to prepare future generations to lead successful lives and create healthy societies.
One often hears of “opportunity costs” related to education—cold calculations of, say, whether a B.A. or M.B.A. will yield a dollar return in excess of the tuition tendered and time spent. This factorylike accounting does not serve our students, our colleges, or our country.
We believe that one encounters something singular and distinctive at America’s leading universities—an electric interaction of intellectuals from various disciplines in the pursuit of new knowledge, which drives American innovation, compensates for the weaknesses of our elementary and secondary educational system, and keeps the United States poised as a pacesetter.
When a reporter suggested to the great hitter Ted Williams that he could raise his batting average even higher if he swung at more pitches, Williams was circumspect: “You gotta draw the line somewhere.” Similarly, we at universities will have to draw the line in cost-cutting with great tact.
American higher education has less fat than some realize; as such, wise administrators and trustees should cut surgically with a scalpel rather than aggressively with an ax. Competition among state-subsidized public universities and private universities has already maximized efficiencies as much as possible without sacrificing our distinctive edge—unrivaled academic quality.
Let us also take seriously solutions beyond cost-cutting. We recommend that our societal investment in leadership be shared more broadly, by the very American for-profit industries and sectors that require such leadership.
Such organizations should be granted special federal tax incentives for that investment. And those organizations should proudly trumpet their investment to the American public as an essential element of their own brands.
A grand, covenantal approach can expand access to higher education while preserving academic quality and the greater ideals that fuel our society.
As the recent economic meltdown has shown, some treasures can be erased instantly. They existed only on paper. The treasures of the mind, however, cannot be lost. As we seek greater efficiency, let us be mindful above all of the need to protect the unrivaled treasures found at America’s colleges and universities.
