Two Universities Team Up to Stay Alive, But Stop Short of Merging
Colleges don’t like to assume of themselves as companies, however a rising quantity today are going through the cruel actuality of falling enrollments and a battle to make their monetary numbers add up. That has forced several institutions to merge in current months.
But two personal universities are attempting an unusual partnership approach that stops brief of a merger whereas nonetheless aiming to restore monetary well being.
The universities—Otterbein University and Antioch University—will share prices and collectively handle graduate-level programs and profession certificates and badges for grownup learners, whereas hanging onto independence of their undergraduate choices.
The hope is to convey in additional income at much less price, with out compromising their undergraduate operations, college leaders say.
It’s a form of open relationship, one thing that they hope to scale by bringing in different establishments into what they’re calling a “unique” college system. The two universities say that different personal faculties have expressed preliminary curiosity.
Pockets of Innovation
Experts view the association for example of faculties considering extra collaboratively, as universities with out instantly-recognizable model names strive to discover a area of interest in a time of demographic modifications and rising competitors from on-line suppliers.
This fledgling community of faculties isn’t the one instance of new varieties of partnerships. Those within the house say there are pockets of innovation on the market, making an attempt to maintain establishments from flatlining.
“I think college presidents are realizing that the business model that has guided higher education for, gosh, almost 250 years now, is broken,” says Jeffrey Docking, president of Adrian College in Michigan. Innovating is not a need, however “a need for survival” because it’s change into too costly to maintain doing issues the previous approach, Docking says.
Docking’s school is affiliated with Rize Education and the Lower Cost Models Consortium, a system for sharing programs throughout establishments. Other consortiums embody TCS Education System, an built-in, nonprofit system based in 2009, that permits colleges to act collaboratively with shared providers organizations.
Many cooperative fashions have a tendency to give attention to monetary administration—chopping down prices by managing again workplaces collectively, for instance—or on a shared non secular or geographic id, just like the Virginia Tidewater Consortium for Higher Education, which describes what it does as “regional cooperation.”
The Antioch and Otterbein method, although, facilities on a shared philosophy.
One approach ahead for small faculties is to create a particular program mannequin. “What’s interesting about this” Mary Marcy, president of Dominican University of California, says, “is that rather than doing it independently, they’re actually partnering around a common set of values and mission around social justice and democracy.”
They’re reinventing in a partnership with out both shedding their core identities that stretch again into the abolitionist motion. And that’s probably new, Marcy says.
Anti-Prestige?
Colleges like Otterbein can’t fall again on status to seize college students. Its leaders say they wouldn’t need to.
“Otterbein has never really cared about prestige,” says John Comerford, president of Otterbein University. “One of our favorite phrases is: ‘Do the right thing before it’s popular.’ And Antioch has a similar vibe.”
The give attention to status displays an excessively aggressive method to larger ed, Comerford argues, which he says can be a type of “elitism.”
“The reality is that measures of prestige tend to measure exclusivity,” Comerford says, including, “We’d much rather be inclusive and bring more people to higher ed, even if U.S. News won’t reward us for it. We don’t care.”
Instead, Otterbein intends to faucet into underserved populations, he says, permitting establishments to work with grownup learners who can step into workforce and societal wants, eliminating the necessity for such excessive competitiveness between universities.
Refocusing on Adult Learning
Part of this shift will convey companies extra into the fold as the universities construct out stackable credentials—shorter certificates that college students can string collectively to earn extra conventional levels—as half of their grownup studying applications, alongside undergraduate applications and conventional graduate ones.
College presidents and admissions officers are realizing that one cause folks aren’t submitting into faculties anymore is as a result of of the provision of jobs for these with badges moderately than a conventional four-year diploma, Docking says.
To Antioch, it’s a refocus on grownup learners and a approach to continue to grow relationships with firms. There’s a rising willingness of employers to prepare current workers to transfer up inside their organizations moderately than bringing in new folks, says William Groves, chancellor of Antioch University. This presents a chance to work with college students to “tailor the programs to their needs” in a approach that’s fine-tuned, Groves says. It’s additionally handy for working adults, he argues.
Otterbein couldn’t actually pull off its new technique by itself as a result of it could actually’t scale to meet the wants of employers, Comerford says. “But we hope this system allows us to have those conversations.”
Some professors say they welcome the possibility to attain extra grownup and persevering with learners. “The main thing that we’re interested in is increasing opportunities for adult learners and graduate students,” says John Tansey, a chemistry professor and school trustee at Otterbein. The partnership, he provides, offers them flexibility in giving these college students a approach into good careers.
The new association additionally matches with the establishments’ social-justice mission, because it engages underserved studying populations, college leaders declare. In addition to programs that will have precise content material on these matters, increasing service to grownup learners will “act out social justice,” college leaders argue, by rising entry to profession alternatives.
This newest announcement will not be a “tectonic change,” Docking says, however it’s a sign to their communities that they’re going to use the web and hybrid studying to change.
The two unanswered questions on this initiative are whether or not there’s sufficient scholar curiosity to make it scalable and whether or not it would make sufficient monetary distinction to maintain the establishments afloat, Docking says.
