Students' False Choice

Last month, I shared my belief that in order to design a new education system that makes opportunity work for everyone, we need to first confront comparative and scarcity mindsets that fuel higher ed’s tendency to categorize, segment, and ultimately exclude individuals. I fervently believe that doing so could catalyze a societal shift that extends far beyond the world of education, and many of you felt similarly (responses edited for length):

• “I think this is a real opportunity to explore how we can create personalized learning for students. This is not only "transformational" for the student but connects to the promise of what an education can provide and the benefits from achieving it.” - S. Fry
• “The mindset that will further and truly better the societies in which we live is that of a Benefit Mindset. Meaning, that not only am I wanting to better myself, but I am looking to contribute to the wellbeing of others.” - S. Goers
• “I would love to see more growth mindsets across our industry. Opportunity is, indeed, abundant and we're all in this together—let's put on our maximizer hats as a collective instead of operating from an individualistic place of scarcity or comparison.” - N. Baldassarre

The good news is that some efforts are already underway to orient higher ed towards personal progress for America's diversity of learners. As a couple of you noted, competency-based education (CBE) enables students to progress through their coursework at their own pace, allowing institutions to effectively serve students with different starting points and circumstances. Western Governors University has been a leader in this space for more than 25 years, and more institutions appear to be catching on: California community colleges are currently piloting CBE, and beginning in 2026, all AACN-accredited nursing programs will employ competency-based education. (Shameless plug: WGU Labs can help institutions transition to CBE; learn more here).

Now here's what's on my mind this month: Students’ false choice

Recently there’s been a lot of discussion around a simple question: Is college worth it? That was the question posed by Michael Barbaro to Paul Tough in a recent episode of The New York Times podcast The Daily, and like many in higher ed, I have some thoughts.

As described in the conversation, the question of “whether college is worth it” isn’t simple to unpack.

• On average, college grads still make a lot more than high school grads. This is what economics refer to as the college wage premium, but it doesn’t factor in college costs or debt.
• A better metric for assessing the value of the degree is the college wealth premium, which measures how much wealth a grad accumulates minus debts over the course of their lifetime. What we find is that today, students are often paying so much for their degrees that their wealth benefit is much smaller, and for some even non-existent.
• For these and other reasons, Americans are increasingly questioning the value of a college degree. With more people opting out, one study estimates we may have a shortage of as many as 8.5 million bachelor’s degree holders by the end of the decade.

Now here’s where I get frustrated. Barbaro shares,

“...There’s a kind of damned if you do, damned if you don’t quality to this decision around whether to go to college. If you’re looking at college and thinking that’s just too much debt, then it doesn’t make sense to go. But without that college degree, you are permanently consigned to a low paying job. Those are two pretty rough options.”

While this dynamic is certainly at play in higher ed, framing college as a monolithic bucket presents a false choice. It’s true that broadly, higher ed has a massive spending problem that creates negative “headline” risks, while also diminishing the value of a college degree, especially as the rising costs are increasingly passed onto students. But bright spots exist of institutions that are innovating to deliver high-quality, affordable education at scale for students of all backgrounds. In our recent piece for Deseret News , Michael Horn and I shared a few examples:

• WGU pairs online, competency-based education with a financial model that charges students a flat rate per six-month term regardless of how many courses they take, saving students time and money, with the average cost for a bachelor’s degree less than $18,000.
• Rather than bundle research into its business model, Brigham Young University - Idaho keeps administrative overhead low by focusing exclusively on teaching. In so doing, it’s able to offer a more affordable experience than many of its peers.
• Southern New Hampshire University has both online and on-campus offerings and has worked to rethink the business model underlying higher education for years. To take just one example, its online team partners with third-party campuses around the country to offer an affordable hybrid college experience.

These aren’t the only accredited higher education institutions working to deliver a more valuable educational experience, of course: American College of Education offers master’s degrees for under $9,500. The Quantic School of Business and Technology offers an MBA for just $950 a month over 14 months. Georgia Tech offers an online master’s of computer science for less than $7,000. And the University of Illinois’ MBA program is less than $25,000 total.

At the end of the day, students don’t need to pay 100s of thousands, or even 10s of thousands of dollars, and incur massive amounts of debt in order to acquire education and earn credentials that will lead to opportunity, economic mobility, and a great return. WGU’s class of 2020, for example, is expected to see a “factored return” of 23X (how many times over their degree pays for itself over the span of a career). The challenge is helping students identify these bright spots when society places such a disproportionate focus on higher ed’s very expensive, highly selective institutions, and when so many colleges and universities aren’t sufficiently transparent about the return on investment they deliver to students. But that’s a topic for another day.

I want to hear from you. How are other institutions innovating to ensure their credentials are worth it? As always, I look forward to reading your responses.   

Until next time, 

Scott  

ICYMI: Here’s what caught my attention recently

• The College Backlash Is Going Too Far (David Deming, The Atlantic): An important perspective: “Negative public sentiment might dissuade some people from going to college when it is in their long-run interest to do so.”
• Fully Online Market Concentration (Glenda Morgan, On EdTech Newsletter): A look at the changing higher ed landscape as interest in online learning grows.
• Higher Ed’s Ruinous Resistance to Change (Brian Rosenberg, The Chronicle of Higher Ed): Most higher ed business models are simply not sustainable.
• Americans value good teaching. Do colleges? (Beth McMurtrie, The Chronicle of Higher Ed): An important reminder of what should already be obvious: good teaching matters, so why’s it often deprioritized?
• A Good Circle (Pushkin Industries, Revisionist History): One of my favorite podcasts. In this episode, Gladwell shares a fascinating story about a school called Hope College with a radical idea for a payment model.

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