The Value of Higher Education?

The value of higher ed is in question, to say the least. Regardless of whether you are a public or private school, big or small, football team or not, there is much to consider about the value of going to college today, especially in the United States. Weird as it may sound, I have never thought much about the value of higher ed. I went to a small private college prep school from K-12 and college is just what you did after high school. I applied to 1 state college and went there with 5 of my best friends from high school. I majored in Marketing and returned for my MBA and PhD, without a single dollar of student debt.

The ROI of a college degree was never in question for me and the more I went to school, the more I could get paid. Even though I have worked at an expensive private institution for over a decade, it wasn’t until the past few years that I started to really understand the burden of college tuition, saw the inaccessibility of a college degree, and questioned the ethics of the underlying business model. Like it or not, that is indeed what college is – a business. And as a marketing professor, the dilution of the value of this industry is a huge problem.

My oldest daughter just turned 17 – she’s a junior in high school, about to start applying to colleges. I feel confident in my ability to convince her that the university I work at is the best fit for her, which is highly motivated by the tuition discount I get if she attends. I hear about all the experiences parents want for their kids and the many schools they are considering, and I think – at what cost? Is it really worth all that sacrifice for an “experience”?

IMHO - the value of higher education lies in the exploration, creation and dissemination of new ideas, the exposure to and consideration of different perspectives and the opportunity to discover who you are, what you can contribute to the world, and why it matters. This is different for everyone, but when the value of higher education is measured by the job you can get when you graduate and the salary you make to pay off the debt you or your parents accumulate, college becomes a very different proposition.

Somewhere over the past 20 years (I graduated college in 2002) the efficiencies of the economy have bled into higher education, turning it into both a commodity and a customer experience at the same time. Kids are picking colleges based on TikTok posts and faculty and staff are focused on the job students will get instead of the people they become.

I don’t have a great solution for fixing higher ed’s value proposition problem, and I’m sure some days my work contributes to making it worse. I agree that not everyone needs to have a 4-year college degree, but we are in dire need for the exploration, innovation, and dissemination of knowledge that is unique to higher education to elevate humanity, society and, yes, economies. I hope that the value of higher education begins to shine through as universities are forced to ponder and prioritize their purpose in this rapidly changing world.

*This was written by me in its entirety. The words, opinions, ideas, and mistakes (grammatical or otherwise) are my own. Take them or leave them.