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The Rise of the ROI and College Premium Mindset in Higher Education
136 Plays20 days ago
This conversation explores the return on investment (ROI) of higher education, comparing perspectives from the US and UK. It discusses the increasing scrutiny on colleges and universities regarding their value, particularly in light of rising student debt. The speakers delve into the implications of metrics used to evaluate educational programs and the potential consequences of these discussions on future educational policies and practices.
00:00Introduction to ROI in Higher Education
05:52The State of College ROI in the US
10:14UK Perspectives on Higher Education Value
17:29The Complexity of Measuring Educational Outcomes
19:25Understanding ROI in Higher Education
22:41The Role of Data Dashboards
27:15Political Influences on Higher Education
30:08Future Trends in Higher Education
35:11The Importance of Industry Alignment
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Transcript
Understanding ROI in Higher Education
00:00:09
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to Online Education Across the Atlantic. Today we're going to be talking about a trend that's getting very relevant in policy circles and funding circles around colleges and universities about the whole return on investment of a college degree. What's it worth?
00:00:29
Speaker
And I know that's happening, although in a slightly different context in the UK. So we're going to compare between the US and the UK and the various ways that it's known, you know, the college premium. And, you know, it's not always return on investment. But we're going to explore that subject because it's driving a lot of the policy moving forward.
00:00:50
Speaker
Before we get to that, I guess I wanted to give our listeners and viewers sort of a heads up.
Effective Podcast Distribution Strategies
00:00:56
Speaker
It turns out I've had the startling discovery that if you name episodes based on obscure lyrics or literary quotes, and then you askew any kind of thumbnail on the videos other than the just the logo, it's not optimal for distribution of a podcast. So it's only taken me, um, 18 months to discover this fact. I might actually write something about that.
00:01:23
Speaker
So what, uh, what you guys will notice is we're going to have a new, much more descriptive way of what we're talking about. But, uh, Hopefully you guys are going to not want to go too far in terms of making it overly promotional or or cheesy, but I might leave that up to you guys if you have some ideas on, I'm not sure which of you two is a marketing expert in this regard. It took a two-part marketing episode for you to have your Emmaus Rhodes kind of experience.
00:01:54
Speaker
I think i've destroyed I've destroyed any reputation I may have ever had about not being cheesy, so... Well, to be honest, ah the the research for the marketing episodes continues getp yeah did get me involved. and And then you'd notice something. It's like, I know that's true, but you start watching it.
00:02:13
Speaker
And I guess then I started having to accept, wait, every single step I'm taking in the production here goes against what works. So maybe I'm being a little bit too stubborn. Do you remember the time that we had a post on the on the on the newsletter that had porn and the word porn in the title?
00:02:30
Speaker
Yeah. Which your daughter, the marketing expert, pointed out was not a good idea afterwards. Not a good way to get that to be
Podcast Updates and Focus on Online Education
00:02:37
Speaker
promoted. So maybe we'll have an anti-marketing episode at some point and we'll share our secrets.
00:02:43
Speaker
with the world. So we're doing that. Some other production notes. So for the first time, um we're working on an interview podcast and we're not, you know, this podcast is not intended to be interview based, but ah um in this case, and particularly leading up with the conference in July, it really, we had an opportunity to talk to Roger Nayak, who first of all has introduced us. And so we joke that he's sort of the godfather of the podcast.
00:03:12
Speaker
But also he's worked in UK and US and other direct online education. And it gave an opportunity for me to hear his perspective. And then we're going to be talking about that. You two in particular.
00:03:25
Speaker
We'll be talking about that at the conference in July. So note those two things are coming up. And then after that episode, with the LMS and VLE conferences, users conferences coming up in July, there's Anthology Together that's going to be a doozy. And then the following week, you have D2L Fusion and InstructureCon, and then Moodle Moot Globals in September.
00:03:54
Speaker
But leading into these main conferences, we're going to have an extended episode. It's gonna be longer than our typical 45 minutes ah talking about the state of the LMS VLE market and what we're looking for at the conferences. Although Neil will be looking for it ah from afar. and Yeah, exactly. You'll be looking online.
00:04:18
Speaker
We'll term it, if you were gonna be there, what would you have been looking for? Maybe that'll work. Yep, thanks. That helps with the phone.
00:04:28
Speaker
and And actually, next week next week, I'm going to be at the THE conference. So if anybody's going to that,
US Student Debt Policies and Historical Context
00:04:35
Speaker
come find me. So when is that conference? it's I know it's changing.
00:04:39
Speaker
um ah It's the 10th, and 11th June. And that's ah no more changes on time and location you expect for that conference? I think i think i think we're i think we're set now. um And I'm going to be talking also about online learning as well. so ah and and And moderating a session on security and AI.
00:04:57
Speaker
and Well, we have an overlap because ah Kevin and I, mostly Kevin, is moderating a generative AI and governance ah summit that Educause is putting on in Minneapolis. um next week so a week and a day or sometime next week so while you're in minneapolis i'll be in and salt lake yeah yeah so neil do you have anything exciting that's happening with you no not really that's the short answer um okay well we'll go with that all right so let's jump into our main topic
00:05:31
Speaker
Here in the US, I mean, i I was trying to, I don't have time to do research and know when things started, but you might argue that the gainful employment um regulations that were promulgated back in the Obama administration, it was one of the first main items that was looking at program level measurements of what a student's earning and debt level was.
00:05:58
Speaker
and using that as an accountability metric on whether they could accept federal financial aid. In reality, it was really a mechanism to go after the for-profit, but it established this, ah what is the return on investment?
00:06:15
Speaker
Over time, there's been ah increasing talk about, and it's not just talk, students are aware of the cost of a college education, the debt they're taking on in a way that they weren't before the 2010s, say.
00:06:30
Speaker
And so that raises the question, is it a worthwhile investment? It's looking at return on investment. So if I'm a student and I want to make ah an investment in my college education, what should I expect to get out of it economically in terms of increased earnings?
00:06:47
Speaker
It's also called the college premium, and it's also very much tied up, at least in the U.S., with accountability, a mechanism to hold institutions accountable for whether or not graduates of programs actually get some sort of economic value out of this.
00:07:07
Speaker
So this is just happening all over the place, and it's driving a lot of our policy, but also a lot of student decision-making in a way that it didn't used to be ah doing before.
Public Discourse on College ROI
00:07:17
Speaker
So before we get into individual items, that's sort of the, I wouldn't call the origin story, but where it's the zeitgeist story around Roy in the U.S. Did I miss any major setup, Morgan, that you would say? I think that sums it up quite nicely, yeah.
00:07:36
Speaker
yeah Well, guess I will point out one other thing. This is something that's one of the rare moments of bipartisanship in the US where both the Democrats and the Republicans are calling for the same concept of institutional accountability ah and looking at earnings, debt, student wages after a program. It's all very similar concepts. So Neil, what is sort of why is this a topic of interest in the Yeah, it's a good question. I mean, I i think about all of the a range of kind of bigger picture things that have made scrutiny of higher education, particularly in that in that um form, a kind of thing. I think over here, look and some of the things that are happening around that kind of thing are related, I think, to the economy.
00:08:28
Speaker
There's a general political narrative that's kind of quite anti-university from particular ends of the political spectrum. um And I think over time there's been that sense in which, you know, we had when the Blair government came in this target for 50% of ah students to go to university.
00:08:50
Speaker
And so we're coming up out the other end of that being thinking actually, to have we got to a stage where degrees are required for jobs that aren't necessary and we're loading students with debt? So there's probably very similar there's probably very similar reasons um why there's that kind of level of scrutiny scrutiny, but it's been there for a while from the Conservative government in terms of scrutiny of higher education is value, and they introduced degree apprenticeships,
00:09:21
Speaker
in the mid-2010s as look this is another way of studying for a degree whilst you're in work you're not saddled with debt and you know some of the ministers behind that were really strong advocates of it so I think in a way there's a whole bunch there's a whole range of different reasons why there's a level of scrutiny here. But I think there's also, it also feels like there's a bit of a seesaw effect of like, you know, 20 odd years ago, it was about getting more people into higher education under different economic and global times.
00:09:59
Speaker
And now the seesaw has kind of gone the other way of like, oh, hang on a minute. We've got a lot of people going to university. and there's a lot of debt behind it but I think those are the general things that come to mind just off the bat I'm glad you brought up the debt because um that is one of the huge drivers in the U.S. s is the level of student debt, which is what, $1.7 trillion dollars in student debt right now.
00:10:26
Speaker
And there's sort of a view. i Some of this comes out as anti-higher education, but a lot of it comes out even pro-higher education. Who's...
00:10:37
Speaker
There is a lot of who's at fault, but there's also sort of the, well, who's incentivized to actually do a better job type of driver for what we're doing. Given this broad change, and Morgan, I want to start with you just overall, just give me your gut feel.
00:10:54
Speaker
Are you glad that this has become a public discussion in a way that it wasn't at all back in the 2000s? Is it a good thing?
Challenges in Measuring ROI by Major
00:11:03
Speaker
think it is because I think higher ed goofed up in not paying attention to it.
00:11:10
Speaker
you know you You hear stories about um leaders of higher ed saying, you know we're not preparing students for their first job, we're preparing them for their fifth. So we don't want to get involved in the messy stuff of what happens right away. And so I think it is ah it is a good thing because you know there convincing data that if students are underemployed in their first couple of jobs, it takes them a long time to recover.
00:11:35
Speaker
For the readers, Phil is has has a degree in in in engineering. I have a PhD in political science. and And Neil, I believe, has a degree in jazz music.
00:11:47
Speaker
So we probably have some slightly different perspectives than you. I do like how you pointed out the PhD aspect of it. Mine has got the lowly masters behind it as well.
00:11:58
Speaker
Well, you know, i'm I'm the youngest of five children. and ah most of them left in their... you know, 14, 15. So I felt I had to get a whole family's worth of higher education, you know, so I so i stayed. There was quota.
00:12:12
Speaker
Yes, yeah, you know, so I used to scare small children by telling them I was in the 27th grade. ah Friends of mine were very keen that I did a PhD in jazz on the basis that they could then call me doctor Jazz.
00:12:27
Speaker
So, um but you looked at the return on investment. Yeah, return on investment on a PhD in jazz is, yeah, probably probably fairly limited. Yeah.
00:12:38
Speaker
Well, being an engineer, um i look at problems first. I naturally think of, well, what needs to be fixed or improved? So I'm going to start out this way by looking at some of the negative sides of this.
00:12:50
Speaker
i Like you, I think it's a good thing that we're having this conversation now and that there's a public debate about it in a way that before it was this naive, everybody needs to go to college, we need to have more you know financing through federal student loans, but never saying, is this smart and is it make a good decision for students. So overall, I'm glad.
Political Motivations in UK Higher Education Scrutiny
00:13:16
Speaker
about that. And i'm also think that it's a good move that it's shifting the conversation away from just institutions. You know, I go to Duke and, you know, is that worth it?
00:13:28
Speaker
And getting more into, yes, but what's your major? So it's moving to a program level discussion, which I think is very relevant. And so I think that's a healthier aspect as well.
00:13:40
Speaker
One Having said that, one of the things that's become a very unhealthy part of the media coverage and the discussion is when you do see these efforts to say, well, what is the return on college? Is it worth it?
00:13:54
Speaker
What's the college premium? And then you might start out with this whole... richer set of data around programs because you might have a different answer depending on the programs the defensive mechanism at least in the u.s way too often is is to aggregate the data and say yes college is still worth it the data proves college is worth it and uh engineers and jazz musicians and political scientists all in the same bucket Exactly. But it's also like you should not look deeper. College is worth it.
00:14:30
Speaker
And if you're trying to look too deep, you're trying to attack higher ed as opposed to ask a natural question. And then I think those conversations just go off the rails and are not helpful because very few people are actually questioning, does the concept of higher education make sense?
00:14:50
Speaker
yeah I'm sure there's some French, but that's ah way on the side. It's now a program-level distinction, and coming up with your response being, yes, college aggregated together,
00:15:02
Speaker
that's when it becomes an unhealthy conversation in my mind. I think this is an interesting aspect of it because I think there's there's the political and you know maybe on the other side, you could say, describe it may as maybe as a pragmatic. I think certainly over here, there's this been the political element has been using this as a rod to beat universities and not as a means of trying to rebalance higher education and training and skills in your country. And as a result, we've had, you know, University UK, the big representative body over here, publish lots of data around the value of universities and, you know, the value of getting a university degree.
00:15:46
Speaker
And you kind of have that back and forth. And I think when I agree with you guys, and I think it's broadly positive. But I think when it's driven by a political motivation, that's a bit you know a bit too anti-university that's where it becomes problematic and certainly that felt like that was the case on the last for the last government i mean actually we had a report i haven't had chance to to to fully read it but we had a report recently that was commissioned by the previous government um So the Institute of Fiscal Studies is kind of proposing um using graduate-earning data um in the regulation of universities. So we have we have metrics already around the percentage of students that kind of continue and complete their degrees, but they were they're proposing a slightly more sophisticated metric than has been around previously.
00:16:38
Speaker
to gain um to gauge the kind of value of a university degree based on graduate earnings over, I think, three to five years post-graduation. And I think they were proposing that that comes into the regulation as well.
00:16:52
Speaker
um So, yeah, I think the focus is a good one, um but it's just it's just tricky because I think in general in life, The nuance of all of this stuff is just really hard.
00:17:06
Speaker
and You know, we kind of talked about our own different career paths and things. It's very difficult to kind of interpret all of that into a kind of a financial sum three to five years post-university.
00:17:21
Speaker
But I think it is also difficult to do well. I think this new report does does propose and you know adjusting for different factors, but it's still it's still very difficult to say you know if an arts graduate is on 20 grand three years down the line, to is that...
00:17:40
Speaker
representative a poor course? How does the industry and how do other factors I, I just think it's very, it's very,
Data Dashboards: Effective or Not?
00:17:47
Speaker
it's very complicated. I think the I think the good thing is, is the way that this might drive ah more balanced education system as a whole, with different diversity of routes and different focus and a bit more vocational stuff thrown in, in the UK.
00:18:01
Speaker
Sorry, that was a bit of a rambling answer. Yeah, get the gist. Well, One thing I would point out though, I'm the one with the electrical engineering degree. I would be negative for my group because I was in the Air Force ROTC.
00:18:16
Speaker
And so I go to get my degree, get my master's, and then I went into the Air Force active duty. And at the time, I think I was making $26,000 a year. i know it'd be higher now.
00:18:29
Speaker
But for the for for that timeframe where this tends to get measured and the, I would say, two to five year range, I was making virtually nothing because it was part of going ah into the Air Force. It would be tricky to measure it because it's not actually capturing what's happening.
00:18:49
Speaker
And I will say that gets to another one of my biggest complaints is instead of just being an additional tool and data source to inform decision making, too many of these frameworks assume this is what it's all about.
00:19:05
Speaker
And then it becomes just too difficult to measure because I didn't do it so I could make money the first three to five years out of college. It did pay off for me long-term. And that sort of gets to your point, Morgan, about, you know, you're doing this for the fifth job that you have.
00:19:21
Speaker
I'm actually a case where that did make sense for me. Yeah, yeah. The metrics, it's all in the metrics because, yeah, at the moment they're really small. And even at the state level, they're worse. Like in Utah, they're one or two years what that that they're measuring it.
00:19:35
Speaker
um And, you know, the the data to show, for example, like humanities graduates out earn, know, ah engineering graduates over the long term, but not over the short term.
00:19:46
Speaker
And so I think the measurements of ROI are difficult. And I think we also need to shift more attention to what universities can do to help.
00:19:57
Speaker
Well, let's ah let me talk about some a couple of specific data points that I'm seeing. And one of them is early last year, so just over a year ago, the University of North Carolina system They did a whole study where it wasn't just a static report, but they came up with a live dashboard that looked at return on investments per program across the 16 institutions in the system, what level, what specific major you have. And they collected all this data.
00:20:28
Speaker
It was, I think it was Deloitte, but they also um worked with Burning Glass, which is the one that's looking at jobs alignment. So it wasn't a perfect job, but it was comprehensive.
00:20:41
Speaker
And I have to admit, that's part of the problem. I look at the data here and it takes a while to figure out, wait, what's the important thing? And then that raises a question, are any prospective students actually going to data dashboards and making decisions based on this?
ROI Data as a PR Tool vs. Accountability
00:20:58
Speaker
And is that the actual audience? Like when these discussions come up, is it primarily intended for prospective students or should it be interpreted as information for the institutions to help them figure out rebalancing and what they should offer?
00:21:15
Speaker
I question the value of it being used to determine the value of certain courses and certain providers in higher education, which is... what are the angles over here?
00:21:28
Speaker
um i think it's kind of useful to have, but I i think even if you're a kind of a, you know, you could potentially be a parent looking at that when your kid's making a choice for university. I just think there's so much nuance to people's journeys through a degree and out the other side that unless you do something very, very complex and very, very time consuming,
00:21:53
Speaker
the metric isn't going to necessarily help with that. I think i think that kind of post-course completion kind of stuff, I think to your point, Phil, is probably more useful to a university allied to maybe a government approach that that's kind of a bit more of a carrot around, you know, ways in which they can... um have a stronger focus on employability or shape a portfolio around the needs of a nation and the skills needs. So I think it could go hand in hand with that.
00:22:28
Speaker
But as a measure of the value of university and the merits of a particular course or provider, I just think it's too complex for that to be that to be made valuable.
Promotional Use of ROI Metrics by Universities
00:22:41
Speaker
I think the value is is for the university itself as ah as a sort of kick in the pants to to to get moving. um You know, i don't think parents are going to be looking at it. I don't think students are going to be looking at it.
00:22:54
Speaker
It may be used as a political cudgel to to beat certain unpopular kinds of things. Um, but, uh, you know, i certainly know one university where the president, as it happens, came out of a business school where they typically do work with students to actually prepare for what comes after. And he was horrified about what kinds of salaries students from the humanities and the arts were making. So he actually threw some energy and some money into helping prepare them better as well. So, you know, helping them with, with things like resume preparation and.
00:23:29
Speaker
internships and and and those sorts of things. So I think there's value there um because typically it's you know it's it's business and edge and and ah and engineering. Everybody else is just on their own. go you know Good luck with that.
00:23:43
Speaker
You know, we talk about it being used as a cudgel. I think it gets used the opposite way as well. So go read the executive summary of the UNC system, and it's saying, over you know, their key summary, which is what a lot of people take away from these things, not looking at the details, is 93% of programs have a positive return on investment.
00:24:05
Speaker
And that proves the value of a UNC education. And so it's actually promotional the way it's been written up. The problem is, first of all, even if you accept the metrics,
00:24:18
Speaker
You're saying 7% of the degrees, even if students graduate, is not going to pay off over the lifetime. And a further 3%, maybe up to 7%, if you look at the data, they might be positive, but they're barely above positive at all. So what you're saying is essentially 10% of our programs aren't going to pay off, even if you get your degree.
00:24:43
Speaker
But they frame it only in the positive stakes and not in terms of, hey, we need to either rebalance our portfolio or get into what you're mentioning, Morgan, which is we need to help have more of a focus on helping our students actually get rewarding jobs within this field.
Political Debate and University Accountability
00:25:05
Speaker
And it detracts from that. So it's not just a casual, it's also a PR yeah tool. Way too awesome. Yeah, but I would say, ah certainly over here, that's driven by there being too much heat in this discussion, I think. That's my personal view. There is a lot of heat, yeah. Because it's become, you know, the political angle has been to kind of attack universities. And I think, you know...
00:25:29
Speaker
um I think we've all been critical of universities' ability to kind of change and adapt and evolve and all that kind of side of things. So I'm not kind of defending universities per se, but I think if you're if you're attacked, you're going to have you're going to respond in those ways. And and it's a shame that that I think that results in that in that kind of back and forth rather than something that's a bit more grown up that says...
00:25:58
Speaker
you know Because I think some of these things are driven by the the state of the country. i don't think you know I don't think things were necessarily better in the past, but I think the kind of the the underlying conditions were different. The economy was different. The kind of zeitgeist of what we felt we needed around skills is different. I think in the UK, immigration plays a bit of a part in this in terms of training up people that aren't from other countries to come and do jobs.
00:26:26
Speaker
So think there are a range of kind of now factors that influence this. But I do think the political angle is does not lead to that that productive a discussion and debate because you have governments kicking universities, then you have the UK PR fluff pieces around this kind of thing.
Bipartisan Views on Higher Education ROI
00:26:46
Speaker
And you kind of you need something more more more substantial than that.
00:26:51
Speaker
There's also not a nuanced conversation about the other side, you know, so often university is, is is put forward as, or you know, ah the trades are put forward as an alternative to the university. Just today in some of the trade press, there was an article about how Gen Z is opting for the trades.
00:27:08
Speaker
rather than rather than universities. And nobody sort of looks at you know how hard it is on people's bodies, about what levels of unemployment and uncertainty exist in those kinds of things. It's though it's though the only one we're going to look at is is higher ed for an ah ROI. What about the other kinds of things?
00:27:28
Speaker
So you know it's it's it's not perfect there. and Well, too many of my relatives, particularly who worked in the trades, they hear, oh, Phil, you're an electrical engineer. I've got this problem with the house.
00:27:40
Speaker
And I have say, no, no, no, no. I'm not a useful type of engineer. I could tell you if you have like terminated cables affecting the image quality on this, but nothing useful. Yeah.
00:27:51
Speaker
for making things work. But I'm picking up and difference, and maybe I'm overstating this, but it sounds like in the UK there's more of a using this to attack, and it's almost one side right versus left. I'm not sure if that's accurate.
00:28:07
Speaker
In the US, part of what's different is both sides are using it as a cudgel against higher education, and not everybody's represented by left-right.
00:28:18
Speaker
But, I mean, you do have the gainful employment and the following regulations that were used primarily by ah people on the left and looking for predators. You know, it always frames the discussion as there are institutions that are predatory. They intend to take advantage of students and let's catch them and hold them accountable.
00:28:43
Speaker
What you're seeing more from the right recently does have the political angle of higher education at large has gone off the rails. But then it's it's trying to look at, well, if we want to get control over rising tuition and student debts, they need to have skin in the game, incentivize them to lower their own tuition.
Future Changes in Higher Education Due to ROI Focus
00:29:03
Speaker
So more of a market forces kind of argument.
00:29:06
Speaker
And I realize I'm oversimplifying, but they're taking it from both directions, I guess is part of what I'm saying. Yeah, and I think things are changing here because I think there was definitely from the Conservative government, there was a bit more of the kind of culture war.
00:29:19
Speaker
Like, I think we know that, you know, in terms of the political spectrum, universities are kind of on, you know, are predominantly on one end of the spectrum. So when you have a government that's on the other end of the spectrum and is scrutinising higher education, the kind of culture war element comes comes into it. I think...
00:29:37
Speaker
I think things are taking shape a bit more over here in terms of um the government's focus on the kind of economic priorities and we've got a ah new kind of body called Skills England. So I think it will be um it will be universities needing to change, needing to improve in terms of return on investment, but also universities needing to be more aligned with the kind of skills agenda that the country has and the government has,
00:30:06
Speaker
So, it yeah, it's slightly different. I think it's slightly different because of the road that we've been on to get here. you know, in the UK, you often look back, I mentioned the kind of Blair targets of, you know, ah so one of the questions is, you know, actually, do we need that many people in universities?
00:30:22
Speaker
The kind of erosion of the polytechnics and the kind of vocational side of things and then becoming, you know, universities. So we have a kind of a different narrative because of the road that we've been on.
00:30:35
Speaker
But I think the scrutiny is still there, but I think it will become a bit more around, look, we need to go in this direction as a country and you have to come with us.
UK Education Policy Reforms
00:30:44
Speaker
And if you don't, you know, we've already seen kind of cuts in certain funding and I think we'll start to see...
00:30:51
Speaker
we'll start to see that approach in which you know universities will be incentivised or cajoled to go in a certain direction around particular skills needs and kind of industry needs, which isn't quite the same as return on investment, but it is about degrees and programmes that are delivering for the country. And you would hope that that would come with you know decent salaries at the end of it and a student's feeling that they've got a return on investment.
00:31:20
Speaker
ah key area for me is, does a metric do the metrics actually support what you're saying? And are you leading to unintended consequences? So a lot of what I look at is that way.
00:31:32
Speaker
And so I'm critical across the board of the data policy proposals for how to measure this if it's used for institutional accountability.
00:31:43
Speaker
Whereas I find it's more useful if it's more of an information that's used to help rebalance portfolios or track if we're moving in the right direction. That's different than saying this institution or this ah program needs to be held accountable and lose funding, payback, clawbacks, as you were saying last time, Morgan, ah or not.
00:32:07
Speaker
But have given all of this messiness, it's happening. In other words, I don't, certainly in the US, I don't think there's going to be pushback and then nothing is happening. It's just a matter of how does it get implemented. It's just a rolling train.
00:32:23
Speaker
I'm not as familiar with the UK. But if that's accurate, then the question is, what are the implications of this move to using return on investment so often in policy circles? So,
00:32:39
Speaker
What do you think is going to happen in higher education in the UK because of this move, at least in the short to midterm, let's just say three to seven years? Yeah, good question. um Yeah, I don't think it's going to go away. um i think one of the one of the things that comes to my mind is ah a slight degree of risk around this kind of thing for two different reasons. Firstly, the scrutiny that we're talking about at the moment.
00:33:04
Speaker
but secondly, the kind of financial plight that universities find themselves in because you you already see universities shaping their portfolio around higher demand subject areas because they can't sustain lower demand subject areas. And whilst um to a certain extent, I've got some sympathy with moving in that direction and the necessity to move in that direction. I think we've talked in the past with Morgan around, you know, some degrees just have to die.
00:33:40
Speaker
My worry is that the combination of the financial constraints that universities have and that return on investment means that there's a risk that portfolios has become too similar across universities and everyone kind of flocks to areas where they feel that they can get good outcomes in terms of job and and there is a kind of higher demand area I think the other thing that we haven't really talked about um as much is also the kind of adult learning reskilling and retraining side of things and I think that will um
00:34:16
Speaker
that will also influence portfolio direction in terms of subject areas, but also in terms of um kind of shorter offerings as well. So I think that will that will also play into this. So I think one risk is that universities go all in on high demand areas and areas where they can perceive um that there's going to be a better result on return on investment.
Qualitative Approaches in Education
00:34:40
Speaker
The other area is kind of the way in which portfolios may change in terms of different kind of offerings focused on the upskilling and reskilling side of things. And it would be interesting to have it it would be interesting to see what happens in terms of policy policy and scrutiny around that kind of form of provision.
00:34:57
Speaker
and That would be really, really interesting. So... um Yeah, I think there's a danger in this policy, um but i think will so I think portfolios will change as a result and it won't just be degrees.
00:35:11
Speaker
I think this issue is here to stay for the for the short to medium term. So I think it's going to continue to be a huge issue and we need to come to terms with it like higher ed needs to figure it out um and and sort of own the future in a way.
00:35:26
Speaker
ah bit of a philosophical point, it's sort of fascinating to me. you know In a way, over the last 20 years, we've seen the shift of education shift from being a public good to a private good in a way.
00:35:37
Speaker
um and And now this is sort of spinning it. Okay. it's it's ah It's a private good, but there's also a public aspect to it in a sort of weird way there. um So that there's an interesting thing there for me, but also we keep talking about portfolio, you know, like high demand areas, less demand areas, and it needs to be deeper than that because not all computer science programs are created equal. Not all engineers are created equal, you know?
00:36:05
Speaker
um ah ah you can you can be very different there. And, you know, like if a good friend of mine's son was doing computer science at a major um flagship institution, but he just said, you know, nobody there has been in the industry for 25 years. Like it's got nothing to do with anything. So he moved to a much much less prestigious place, but where it's much more connected to the kinds of stuff that's going on. And he gets languages that are much more useful for him and things. So it needs to be deeper than just the name of the of the major,
00:36:35
Speaker
um I think, and and hopefully it won't just be at that level of what are the majors. We need to look at how we prepare students. So, Neil mentioned adult learning, and and I think that's really important, but I think also this tendency for students to do micro-credentials at the same time is is a critical part of that and should be part of the solution so that you get a way of hitting the ground running with a shorter term thing as well as your longer term thinking. So I think there needs to be ah more qualitative focus as well, just on rather than just on money and rather just on the name of the major.
Enhancing Educational ROI through Faculty and Industry Alignment
00:37:12
Speaker
I think that's a really interesting point because I think another area that's not scrutinized as much as I think it should be is the credibility of certain academics to teach students.
00:37:27
Speaker
courses and how up-to-date they are and how um attuned they are to what's happening in their industries. i I feel like, and I don't know if this is as a consequence of my music education background, but when I'm looking at, you know, when I was looking at courses way back when, I'm looking at the experience of the tutors.
00:37:46
Speaker
Okay, which jazz musicians, you know, might my tutor played with Charlie Hayden, a great jazz bass player in the US who went through all the three jazz movements. You know, you look at the credentials of a, I don't i know if that's my background, but I look at the credentials, you know, who've they played with, what they what have they done?
00:38:02
Speaker
And, you know, i think that is relevant to the return on investment side of things. And sometimes, you know, i look and I kind of think, well, you've done some research or you've kind of you got to this kind of level, but what you know what credentials have you got in these areas? And you see things like universities spinning out courses in AI and things like that. And and it it has crossed my mind of thinking, well,
00:38:29
Speaker
given the nature of how fast these things are moving, you know, to what extent can we really say with any confidence that, you know, some of the academics that going to be teaching on these programmes have got the relevant experience to to deliver them and to deliver them in a way that supports kind of graduate employability and kind of alignment with industry. So I think You know, that is a really, really important, just the final thought. I remember working in a business school and we had a hugely popular academic in marketing who got great student reviews because he was very charismatic.
00:39:10
Speaker
But all of the case studies and all of the stuff in the curriculum was incredibly dated, incredibly dated. um so I think there is an element of this debate, which is how well equipped are academics in terms of industry alignment and and outcomes as well?
Need for Program-Level Accountability
00:39:29
Speaker
So I take this conversation as you two actually not just disagreeing with my point that ah I had said earlier, it depends on which level this is used and where the problem quite often is when you try to target this institution and this program, that's where the data gets too messy.
00:39:47
Speaker
But really what you two are saying is that's a flawed view of mine. that you need this to be set up so that individual programs, some will succeed, some won't in this environment,
00:40:01
Speaker
which allows for these differences you two are talking about. Well, this program, it's not a dated curriculum. This program, they do support students in a different way. So you need specific instance institution and specific program accountability in order to capture those things.
00:40:20
Speaker
Otherwise, and I'm arguing against my previous position, otherwise you end up in a Soviet five-year planning exercise. Let's figure out which majors are needed across the country over the next five years.
00:40:33
Speaker
So you guys have argued me out of my Soviet position before. But here's what I hope happens. It's a little bit more aspirational. I'm starting to look at the current Republican proposals for accountability, and most of the problems are not conceptual.
00:40:52
Speaker
They're in the data themselves. And is this even workable? But they have this type of mechanism where there's a feedback loop. Well, if you want to do better, help your students get better jobs.
00:41:05
Speaker
And it's got a mechanism what's in there. I'm hoping that what's going to happen is it's just going to be ugly for several years, but in a broader sense, it's going to move us into a much healthier place of people routinely looking at what happens to students in this program after they get out of there.
00:41:28
Speaker
So I don't know if I'm predicting it or just hoping it, but it's going to be ugly at the data and unintended consequences level, which we've written about a lot. like ah But it's going to be good.
00:41:39
Speaker
who's Who's the guy with the thing, you know, if, if, if, um, If a metric becomes, you know, if if you introduce a metric and it becomes important, people will find a way to address the metric in ways, you know, so law law schools have been
Reflections and Future Online Education Topics
00:41:53
Speaker
doing that for years. You know, the the ranking of a law school in the US depends on the number of students that graduates who are required, who are in a job that requires a law degree. So when the law industry started being soft, many law schools were just hiring their own students for two years, which is the period of time that they measured.
00:42:12
Speaker
So they could stay. Yeah. Yeah, it's sort of the reverse, you know, and what the positive view is, ah the Edward Deming view is if you want to work on it, you better measure it.
00:42:24
Speaker
Yeah. You're describing the opposite sense. If you measure it, people will game the system and not always in the ways that you want it to happen. So I think that there's a follow-up to this conversation. i think this provides a good overall view. It's not going away.
00:42:41
Speaker
um It's going to have some unintended consequences. The politics get in the way. It's interesting to hear the differences between the U.S. and the U.K., as always. So thanks for the conversation, and we will talk to you guys the next time. We'll be looking at the interview with Rajay and how online education has progressed differently and similarly between the U.S. and the U.K. That's what the interview is about. And then we'll get into back to the exciting world of LMSs and VLEs.