The Key with Inside Higher Ed

Ep 89: How Federal and State Policies Judge Colleges ‘Value’

As recently as a decade ago, the concept of “value” rarely found its way into discussions about federal and state policymaking about higher education. Now it’s unusual to hear a meaningful conversation that doesn’t raise the issue.

This week’s episode of The Key, the second in a three-part series on the value of higher education, examines how politicians and policy makers are responding to growing public doubt about the value of colleges and credentials by defining and trying to measure whether individual institutions and academic programs are benefiting consumers. 

Guests include Clare McCann, who until last month was a key member of the Biden administration’s higher education policy team, and is now higher education fellow at Arnold Ventures; Will Doyle, a professor of higher education at Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College, who studies the government’s role in higher education; and Ernest Ezeugo, a federal policy strategy officer at Lumina Foundation who previously worked at Young Invincibles and the State Higher Education Executive Officers association.

They discuss how the concept of value is factoring into state and federal policy, what’s driving that trend, and whether an overdependence on economic outcomes can lead to unintended consequences.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman
Episode sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Ep.88: The Public’s Growing Concerns About Higher Ed’s ‘Value’

For decades, colleges and universities enjoyed almost unquestioned public support as some of America’s most important institutions. Like most institutions, they’ve been knocked off that pedestal in recent years, amid growing questions not about whether higher education remains important but whether it’s available, affordable and valuable enough.

This week’s episode of The Key is the first in a three-part series on the concept of “value” in higher education, made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The topic has gotten increasing attention as college prices and student debt continue to rise and policy makers develop data showing the return on investment for specific academic programs.

Today’s episode looks at several recent surveys of public attitudes about higher education. Participants include Sophie Nguyen, senior policy analyst with New America’s Education Program, which publishes Varying Degrees and numerous other surveys about higher education; David Schleifer, vice president and director of research at Public Agenda, a national research organization; and Natasha Quadlin, an associate professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and co-author of Who Should Pay? Higher Education, Responsibility, and the Public, published this year by the Russell Sage Foundation.  

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman
Episode sponsored by Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

Ep.87: Colleges’ Financial Situations and Institutional Transformation

Most business officers are upbeat about their colleges’ financial future. Why is that so, and are they right to be so optimistic?

This week's episode of The Key features a discussion about Inside Higher Ed’s 2022 Survey of College and University Business Officers, which generally found college chief financial officers feeling pretty good about how their institutions are faring and how they’re positioned for the future.

The episode explores the survey’s results, but also digs into whether financial and other leaders in higher education think their institutions need to make meaningful changes in how they operate to be financially sustainable and stable down the road – and whether their pretty rosy view might make them less inclined to see the need for significant changes on their campuses.

The conversation features three business officers: Diane Snyder, vice chancellor of finance and administration at the Alamo Colleges District in Texas; Cynthia Vizcaino Villa, senior vice president for administration and finance at California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and Mark Volpatti, vice president for finance and chief financial officer at Indiana’s Valparaiso University.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. Sponsored by EY-Parthenon.

Ep.86: Reprise: Mergers and Major Cross-College Collaborations

Many people in higher education recoil at the idea of merging institutions, and it’s little wonder: in most such arrangements, one institution swallows the other, which virtually disappears. But that doesn’t mean the alternative is for every college to remain an island unto itself.

Recent events – last month’s merger between Saint Joseph’s University and University of the Sciences in Philadelphia, and last week’s news that Antioch University and Otterbein University are teaming up to create a new national system of nonprofit colleges and universities – make this an opportune time to revisit an April 2021 discussion about transformative cross-college collaborations at a time of constrained resources.

The conversation includes John MacIntosh of SeaChange Capital Partners, a driving force behind the Transformational Partnerships Fund; Art Dunning, former president of Albany State University, who oversaw that institution’s merger with Darton State College; and Sister Margaret Carney, president emerita of St. Bonaventure University, who offers a cautionary tale about a merger that didn’t happen – and what went awry.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.

Ep.85: Reading the Tea Leaves on the College Enrollment Drop

College and university enrollments – particularly at community colleges – continue to plummet. Have they bottomed out? Will they recover if the economy cools off as expected? Has enrollment dropped to a new lower plateau that’s likely to be the baseline going forward?

This week’s episode of The Key explores the 7.5 percent decline that college enrollments have suffered since the pandemic, with a focus on community colleges that enroll working learners and first-generation students, which have been especially hard hit.

Digging into the reasons behind the enrollment declines and offering some insights into what’s ahead are Joe Garcia, chancellor of the Colorado Community College System, and Nate Johnson, a researcher and policy analyst whose firm, Postsecondary Analytics, advises states, foundations and businesses on education and workforce policy.

They surmise that some of the enrollment losses of the last two years may represent a new lower baseline going forward, and discuss the implications for institutions and students.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. Sponsored by Anthology.

Ep 84: Defining the Role of Digital Learning on Campus

How are colleges and universities going about rethinking their teaching and learning strategies in the wake of widescale experimentation with digital instruction?

This week’s episode is the last of a three-part series on digital teaching and learning, supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The first two episodes explored how the COVID-19 pandemic reshaped what researchers and practitioners know about the role of technology in learning, and how well the hundreds of ed-tech companies that work with colleges, professors and students meet the needs of the institutions and their people and what they can do better.

In this week’s episode, we look more closely at how individual colleges and universities are rethinking the role of digital learning. Dhanfu E. Elston, chief of staff and senior vice president for strategy at Complete College America, discusses an effort involving six historically black colleges and universities.

Then we hear administrators from Arizona State, DeVry and Yale Universities describe the work they’re doing to evolve their strategies for using digital tools and approaches in instruction.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.  This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ep 83: What Colleges and Instructors Need From Ed-Tech Companies

The last two years disrupted many aspects of higher education, and the educational technology market -- and the relationship between colleges and companies – are no exception.

This week’s episode of The Key explores how well the many hundreds of ed-tech companies that work with colleges, professors and students actually meet the needs of the institutions and their people, where they fall short, and how they can do better.

The discussion includes two guests who’ve sat at the intersection of where technology meets teaching and learning. Kara Monroe is the founder of Monarch Strategies, a consulting firm she founded early this year after 25 years as an academic administrator at Ivy Tech Community College in Indiana. Kelvin Bentley is a senior consultant at WGU Labs, where he works with companies that want to help colleges and universities educate students at scale. Over 25 years, he has worked with a range of public two-year and four-year colleges and multiple ed-tech companies.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed  Editor Doug Lederman.  This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ep 82: What Have We Learned About Digital Learning?

This week’s episode of The Key explores whether and how the landscape of digital teaching and learning has been changed by the last two years of global pandemic, recession, upheaval over racial justice, and more.

Participants in the conversation are Shanna Smith Jaggars, assistant vice provost of research and program assessment in Ohio State University’s Office of Student Academic Success, and Jessica Rowland Williams, director of Every Learner Everywhere, which pursues equitable outcomes in higher education through advances in digital learning.

In our discussion, they explore such topics as whether student expectations have changed about when, where and how they learn, if most faculty members are likelier to incorporate technology into their pedagogy than they were before, and what institutional leaders need to do to ensure that whatever role digital learning plays in their future strategies, they do it well.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. This episode was made possible by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Ep 81: The Top Federal Higher Ed Policy Maker Speaks

Student loan debt forgiveness. Free community college. Pell Grants for short-term programs. Those are just some of the higher education issues occupying the federal policy landscape in Washington.

This week’s episode of The Key features a conversation with Under Secretary James Kvaal, the Education Department’s senior official on higher education. He discusses the administration’s current thinking about those and other issues, including the challenges of operating in a highly partisan era.

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman.

Ep 80: The Evolving Conversation About Quality in Online Learning

Has higher education’s forced experimentation with remote learning changed how students, professors, colleges and the public view online education? And will it make them more or less likely to participate in it? 

This week's episode of The Key explores Inside Higher Ed’s recent report, The Evolving Conversation About Quality in Online Learning.” The report examines a wide range of issues around the current and future state of technology-enabled learning to try to help administrators and faculty members prepare to deliver high-quality virtual instruction, however it fits into their institutional missions. 

Lori Williams, president and CEO of the National Council for State Authorization Reciprocity Agreements (NC-SARA), joins The Key this week to discuss the report and its implications for colleges, professors and policy makers. NC-SARA. Williams discusses how the pandemic has changed perceptions and practices around online education and how to judge quality in virtual learning, among other topics. 

Hosted by Inside Higher Ed Editor Doug Lederman. ​This episode is sponsored by NC-SARA.