Student Union
US College Leaders See Too Much Competition Ahead
A survey of nearly 500 leaders at colleges and universities reflects other reports that found American higher education is facing challenges on many fronts.
School officials were asked to name the biggest issues their institutions would face in the next three to five years and how they would deal with them. The study was a joint effort with the Georgia Institute of Technology and the Huron Consulting Group, and was released in October.
The study identified the top six issues that the 500 leaders listed. The most common concern? Increasing competition with other educational institutions. About 62% of those questioned noted that concern.
The next most common issue? The increase in non-traditional students, meaning students who fall outside the typical 18 and 24 years olds who enter school each year. The growth of non-traditional students – mostly adults with full-time jobs -- were cited by 39% of leaders.
Two other concerns were shrinking state and federal financial support, and decreasing public trust in higher education. Officials said they were worried about political conditions around the world, too, and their effect on international students coming to the United States.
But the college and university officials said they have answers. In fact, 89% expressed confidence in their school’s ability to meet the needs of the growing number of students who are working adults.
Peter Stokes says colleges and universities have always been dealing with change. Stokes is the managing director for higher education with Huron.
After World War II, when the U.S. experience a sharp jump in the U.S. birth rate -- known as the Baby Boom -- more young people enrolled in college. Then, after the Great Recession in 2008, the birth rate dropped. Around that time, the number of working adults starting or returning to college or university began to rise.
The traditional student population will likely recover eventually, Stoke says. Until then, schools will have to adapt and increase internet-based and short-term programs to meet the needs of students who have less time and money to spend.
As for the five other issues identified in the study, only seven leaders polled felt very confident in their school’s ability to find solutions.
Louis Soares is the chief learning officer at the American Council on Education. He says that in recent years, Americans have come to think of higher education as more of a means of getting a well-paying job than as a public benefit.
This may not be surprising given the increased cost of higher education. But Soares said that this put many educational institutions in competition with one another to prove how their programs can results in better jobs.
At the same time, U.S-based companies like Amazon and Google are creating their own educational programs to compete with traditional degree programs. And countries like France, Canada and Australia are becoming more appealing to international students who would have likely looked to U.S. schools in the past.
As a result, some colleges and universities across the country have been closing. The U.S. Department of Education reports that in 2018 the number of institutions nationwide dropped to its lowest level since 1998.
Soares suggests that schools have a better chance of surviving if they work together, as Georgia Tech has, sharing new program ideas and methods with 50 other institutions. But that is not always easy.
“U.S. higher education is innovative, but the innovation tends to be small-scale,” he said.
Lynn Pasquerella, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, says it is important to focus on public trust and governmental support of higher education.
Pasquerella says U.S. higher education has failed to promote its own importance to society. Many people have come to think of colleges and universities as places where students waste time learning unnecessary subjects or hearing one-sided beliefs.
She says colleges and universities educate future business and political leaders who shape policies that improve conditions in communities and the nation. Major scientific and technological developments usually emerge from a college or university laboratory.
“Demonstrating the ways in which … their success is inextricably linked to the physical, emotional, economic well-being of people in the communities in which they’re located and which they seek to serve … is a first and critical step in helping to restore public confidence in higher education,” said Pasquerella.
She added that as Americans better appreciate the contributions and impact of colleges and universities, funding from state and federal governments will likely increase to previous levels.
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Economics, tensions blamed for Chinese students shifting from US to Australia, Britain
U.S. universities are welcoming international students as the academic year begins. But while the total number of foreign students is steadily growing, the top sending country, China, is showing signs of leveling out or shrinking.
Industry analysts say the negative trend is mainly due to higher costs amid China’s struggling economy, with a growing number of students going to less expensive countries like Australia and Britain, and tense ties between Washington and Beijing.
The number of foreign students studying in the U.S. in 2022-23 passed 1 million for the first time since the COVID pandemic, said Open Doors, an information resource on international students and scholars.
While the U.S. saw a nearly 12% total increase year-on-year for that period, the number of international students from China, its top source, fell by 0.2% to 289,526.
That’s 600 fewer students than the 2021-22 academic year, when their numbers dropped by nearly 9%. The COVID pandemic saw Chinese student numbers drop in 2020-21 by nearly 15%, in line with the world total drop.
While it’s not yet clear if the drop is a leveling out or a fluctuating decline, analysts say China’s struggling economy and the high cost of studying in the U.S. are the main reasons for the fall in student numbers.
Vincent Chen, a Chinese study abroad consultant based in Shanghai, said although most of his clients are still interested in studying in the U.S., there is a clear downward trend, while applicants for Anglophone universities in Australia and Britain have been increasing.
"If you just want to go abroad, a one-year master's degree in the U.K. is much cheaper,” Chen said. “Many people can't afford to study in the U.S., so they have to settle for the next best thing."
Data from the nonprofit U.S. group College Board Research shows that in the 2023-24 academic year, the average tuition and fees for a U.S. private college four-year education increased 4% to $41,540 compared with the previous academic year.
The British Council said three to four years of undergraduate tuition in Britain starts as low as $15,000.
The number of Chinese students in Britain was 154,260 in 2022-23, according to the U.K. Higher Education Statistics Agency, HESA, up from 121,145 in the 2018/19 academic year.
Australia’s Home Affairs office said in the 2023-24 program year, China was the top source foreign country for new student visa grants at 43,389, up slightly (1.5%) from the previous year.
Chen said Chinese state media's negative portrayal of the United States and concerns about discrimination have also contributed to the shift.
Bruce Zhang, a Chinese citizen who received his master's degree in Europe after studying in China, told VOA Mandarin he had such an incident occur to him after he was admitted to a U.S. university’s Ph.D. program.
When he entered Boston's Logan International Airport last year, Zhang said customs officers questioned him for more than an hour about his research, and if it had any links to the military, and took his computer and mobile phone for examination.
"Fortunately, I had heard that U.S. customs might be stringent in inspecting Chinese students, so I had relatively few study-related data and documents on my personal computer," he said.
Zhang was allowed to enter the U.S. for his studies in materials science, but the questioning left him so rattled that he has encouraged other Chinese to study elsewhere.
Cui Kai, a study abroad consultant in Massachusetts told VOA Mandarin that experiences like Zhang’s or worse happen for a reason.
"Students who were questioned or their visas were revoked at the customs are usually those who completed their undergraduate studies in China and come to the U.S. for a master's or doctoral degree in a sensitive major," said Cui.
Former President Donald Trump signed Proclamation 10043 in June 2020, prohibiting visas for any Chinese student who “has been employed by, studied at, or conducted research at or on behalf of, an entity in the PRC that implements or supports the PRC's “military-civil fusion strategy.”
The U.S. says China has been using students and scholars to gain access to key technology and, under Proclamation 10043, revoked more than 1,000 visas issued to Chinese nationals and has denied thousands more.
Critics say the policy is costly to the U.S. and is encouraging Chinese students to look to European and other universities.
Adrianna Zhang contributed to this report.
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