Planning for Contraction. Is Expansion in Higher Education Over?

Timothy Burke has long been seeing a problem with what he sees as an innate assumption in thinking by academic stakeholders— "the assumption of growth or plenitude is deeply ingrained."

Even before the economic news of the last year, I was increasingly convinced that all but perhaps four or five American universities with extraordinary wealth had come to the end of a long period of expansion. . . . So, the party’s over. However, I’m not hearing a lot of preparation for what higher education will look like if growth is over. Planning for minimal growth or even contraction in some cases might just require budgetary prudence and restraint, but I that’s not enough. There’s a different mindset involved. . . . Here are some of the shifts in thinking needed.