Wanted: Higher Education Leaders Who Produce

Larry A. Isaak, president of the Midwestern Higher Education Compact and chancellor emeritus of the North Dakota University System identifies the need for higher education to ramp up to massively larger levels of productivity:

The force of the need to educate many more millions is on a collision course with other forces confronting today’s campuses. The federal budget and many state budgets are constrained by present economic conditions and rocketing spending for defense, public safety, health care, human services and transportation. There likely won’t be a pot of gold at the end of the government budget rainbow for most colleges and universities to garner significantly more operating funds to accomplish what they are being asked to do. Plus, now — even more than earlier this decade — policy makers appear to be more opposed to continuous and significant increases in tuition and fees as a means to redress budget shortfalls.

As a result, productivity and affordability in higher education will take center stage just as accountability took center stage this past decade.