The Uncertain Future of American Public Universities

But today the nation’s public research universities are looking down a dark vista of decline, with few discernible paths forward that would effectively sustain, let alone enhance, the public mission forged when Abraham Lincoln signed the Morrill Land-grant Act on July 2, 1862. It is a vista defined by steeply declining state appropriations, by wavering, at-risk federal investment in research, and by aging physical plants that are less and less adequate to meet the educational needs of a growing population and national needs for research-based problem solving. Reduced public funding, moreover, drives relentless upward pressure on tuition, undermining the historical commitment to a low-cost college education for all and putting public higher education on a collision course with a growing body of feeling and commentary that college may simply not be worth it. And thus the question posed in the title Precipice or Crossroads? comes into focus: Our public research universities are the nation’s most productive centers of education and talent development, not just of physicists, engineers, biologists, and computer scientists, but also of the practitioners of virtually all of the professions and callings that together weave the fabric of our society, from nurses, social workers, accountants, and physical therapists to designers, artists, dancers, and writers; they are our most prolific sources of research, discovery, and innovation, not just in science and technology but also in philosophy and ethics, in public policy, in education itself, indeed in almost everything; can the nation, then, remain prosperous, strong, and healthy if these critical institutions have been sent careening toward a cliff edge, and can that hair-raising course be changed?

Of course, we have not yet reached the verge of the precipice, and in many respects our great public universities have never been stronger and more effective. But here is the paradox: we know that these powerful institutions, their missions of accessible education, knowledge creation, and service, and their world-leading quality are at risk when we look at the unsustainable trend lines in public funding and tuition pricing. As I was writing this introduction, I paused to read a just-published news story on public higher education reporting that nationwide “[s]tate appropriations per full-time equivalent student dropped by 4 percent in constant dollars in 2010–11, after dropping 6 percent in 2009–10 and 9 percent in 2008–9” while in-state tuitions rose an average of 8.3 percent (paced by a 21 percent increase in California), and, moreover, that “in 2010, average American income in every quintile of the income distribution was lower in inflation-adjusted dollars than it had been a decade before.” We only have to juxtapose these data points with the observation of Michael Crow and William Dabars in their chapter of this book that “there is a direct correlation between fiscal robustness and the capacity of an institution to pursue excellence in teaching, research, and public service, as well as its potential to contribute to the standard of living and quality of life of communities and regions” to see the vicious downward spiral threatening our public universities and American well-being as economic and political forces increase institutional reliance on tuition, pushing student costs toward levels beyond the reach of many families. Either students will be squeezed out, or institutions will lack the fiscal robustness to sustain excellence, and, in time, both of those undesirable consequences will come to pass. So the first part of the question this book poses is frankly rhetorical, the answer implicit in the question itself: the nation’s public university sector, the most important source of renewal of the nation’s human resources and of its capacity for innovation, problem solving, and economic competitiveness, is at risk; ergo, so is the nation.