The Middle Way

Anyone interested in the evolution of higher education in this country should read “Served, Yes, But Well Served?” by Doug Lederman in today’s (October 8, 2009) Inside Higher Education. Lots of good analysis and comments about the role of community colleges, traditional public and private four-year colleges, and for-profit providers of higher education.

Two quotes to whet your appetite:

My Kaplan colleague Peter Smith notes:

“In each case [in prior roles as a community college president and as the founding president of CSU at Monterey Bay], I had to make the argument that what we were doing was sufficiently good, sufficiently qualitative, that it would change people’s lives…. Look at the battles that community colleges won; they used to have to fight, now they’ve come of age. I think there is a process of acceptance that you go through, and that’s what [for-profit colleges] are going through now.”

Peter Stokes at Eduventures observes that we are are not going to meet our national education attainment goals, and the underlying knowledge and skills that college degrees represent, without the hard work and creativity of all institutions, including for-profits. These institutions, including Kaplan University where I am proud to work, need to be taken seriously and accepted as part of the solution to our higher education crisis.  He says:

“The way I look at it is, are there ways we can improve upon what’s being done at [for-profit] institutions, and are there ways that the public and private nonprofit institutions can learn from [them] to increase their scale…? It just seems like we might be able to combine the best of both worlds.”

Yes, Peter. For-profits can (and are) improving the quality of their programs and the traditional world can (and should) learn from them. The flip side is also true. The for-profit world also needs to be open to learning from and applying the best of what goes on in the traditional higher education sector. As someone who has labored in both vineyards, I believe that combining the best of both, call it the Middle Way, holds the greatest promise of reforms and innovations that will be good for students and for our society. We need to get past the finger-pointing and chest-pounding on both sides, collaborate more often and better, and look for this Middle Way.