Catching and Riding the Wave of Demographic Change: From costs to opportunity costs

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Catching and Riding the Wave of Demographic
ChangeFrom costs to opportunity (costs)

• Gary Rhoades
• Center for the Study of Higher Education
• University of Arizona

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Three points beyondCatch a wave and

• Public policy discourse at the state level
• System campus level discourse and strategic
  direction
• Incentives and accountability metrics

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Public policy discourse

• Tidal Waves II I in California (Clark Kerr)
• Difference between 1993 and 1960,
• in California and nationally
• from the wave as an opportunity to invest in
• (we can build out for it)
• to the wave as a threat and a cost to be
  contained
• (we cant afford it).
• Declining state support nationally

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Opportunity costs of cost containment

• Demographic wave, beyond tidal wave
• The demographic wave is of color, and it is
  classed (opportunity cost of gt social
  stratification)
• The demographic wave as needing accommodation
  (and therefore as expensive) versus recognizing
  the demographic wave as infusing talent and
  energy (opportunity cost of not transforming
  ourselves by chasing, catching, and riding the
  wave).

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System and campus level discourse and strategic
direction

• Similar sense of constraint in public sector, of
  fiscal realities, contributing to more academic
  capitalism.
• That has contributed to changing the way
  institutions organize and are oriented to student
  aid (McPherson Shapiro, 1998).
• So too, I think, it has contributed to the
  expansion of strategic enrollment management
  practices aimed at enhancing institutional
  resources, prestige.
• In this context, low income students are seen as
  being costly to recruit, retain. So the pattern
  is generally to develop programs at the margins.

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The Global patternEngines of Inequality

• Less access over time for underrepresented
  minorities, relative to high school graduation
  (35 of 50 flagships reduced access relative to
  high school graduation).
• Less access for low-income students (44 of 50
  flagships reduced access relative to other
  universities).
• Public universities pursuing better students
  and wealthier (and out-of-state) students to
  maximize their prestige and their net tuition
  revenue. Strategic enrollment management has led
  to more universities chasing the same students to
  win at the same prestige and revenue games.
• It is not only the flagships that are playing
  this game the next tier of publics is moving in
  this direction too.

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From reactivestrategic imitation
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To creative, strategic imagination
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The importance of place

• Working to the historical, comparative advantage
  and strength of ones place.
• Working to sustainable, distinctive niches.

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Incentives accountability metrics

• More complete accounting internally, of the costs
  of pursuing and serving various student
  populations, to make informed decisions about
  strategies.
• Rethink our accountability externally, because
  graduation rates and time to completion are
  organizational efficiency measures that are
  socially inefficient.
• Value added beyond undergraduate learning
  outcomes Mapping the institutions specific
  contributions to intergenerational upward social
  mobility, human capital development, and
  non-cognitive outcomes. Value added that
  fulfills our social compact.

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Catching
and riding the wave of demographic change