Utah’s Legislative Auditor General is telling the state’s publicly funded higher education institutions to get their figurative houses in order. A new report signals that the state legislature plans to cut the state’s higher education budget and warns institutions to determine which of their programs return value to their communities and the State of Utah.
The report encourages colleges and universities to identify programs for expansion or discontinuation based on a variety of factors including graduation rate, cost, graduate earnings, program duplication at other institutions, and even the number of graduates who remain in Utah. According to the report authors, the motivation for this in-depth analysis of program outcomes is that the state’s “enrollment cliff” will hit its colleges and universities in 2032. Additionally, the report authors believe that the only way to retain the state’s young adult workforce is to equip them with education tuned to fill high-wage, high-demand jobs.
Report authors pointed to two programs that typically produced graduates earning $30,000 or less, the current federal poverty line. Graduates of nearly two dozen other programs earn an average of less than $45,000, which is 150% of the federal poverty guidelines. The report even questions the value of programs whose graduates choose to earn post-graduate degrees instead of entering the workforce.
Not everything relates strictly to graduate earnings. The report authors do acknowledge that programs with low enrollment may produce high-impact graduates, and that low earning programs may offer “social good” that looking only at earning potentials can’t quantify.
Nonetheless, the report serves as a guidance of sorts to universities to develop and apply analysis to its program results. The purpose of this analysis is to determine which programs to cut, combine, or modify.
Higher education analysis may identify low-performing programs
There’s nothing wrong with a higher education institution understanding the income potential of its programs. Additionally, there’s nothing wrong with making “sink-or-swim” decisions about programs, especially when revenues, resources, and students are in limited supply. Careful management of higher education resources and ongoing analysis of academic programs are needed to make long-term strategic decisions.
But institutions must conduct this kind of cost-benefit analysis for every program they offer. The analysis must also recognize that no single factor – cost, enrollment, income potential, employability, community need, program duplication, proximity to other institutions – can or should determine a program’s future. While Utah is encouraging its higher education institutions to conduct this bottom-line analysis for the purpose of cutting low-value programs, the same information could also determine how best to increase the value of existing programs to meet or exceed the institution’s minimum viability standards.
I have said that higher education institutions don’t know how to compete effectively. Legislative demands like those in Utah confirm this. Whether by legislative mandate, declining enrollment, competition for students, the imperative to meet the needs and demands of the community, or the survival of the institution, external forces will ensure that such a rigorous analysis will take place.
Photo Credit: Jordanhill School D&T Dept , via Flickr
