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Creating a Sustainable American Higher Education System

By Gail O. Mellow

We are all familiar with the old adage that we must understand our past, lest we repeat its mistakes. It's certainly an important lesson, but what are the prospects for taking charge of our future when we do not yet fully understand the present? We need to get a handle on the actual dimension of higher education today. We must locate ourselves firmly in the context of a world that is radically different from the one that created the current systems of American colleges and universities. Without a more honest depiction, and absent an ability to accurately define, appropriately measure, and innovatively respond to reality, American higher education is not sustainable. Like an ecologically threatened environment, we must come to grips with what is undermining our ability to grow a sound ecosystem.

But how can we grow a sound higher education ecosystem? What are the requirements and principles that should guide us? I propose that if we single out and concentrate our efforts in three areas—pedagogy, measurements, and funding mechanisms—we can take charge of the formidable challenges that are present and that will be with us for some time to come. . . .

Excerpted from the spring 2008 issue of The Presidency. To subscribe to the magazine, please call (301) 632-6757, or order online through ACE's bookstore.