There’s a disturbing lack of faith in institutions these days, with favorability ratings for every institution in America — except the military and small business — below 50%. While this is certainly cause for concern, since no society has ever survived without institutions, many institutions have proven themselves unworthy of public support.
Foremost among these is higher education, which clings to a 400-year-old model that today often leaves students in debt and unprepared.
But there’s hope that higher ed can be saved.
In the coming weeks, the Trump Department of Education will set forth an ambitious policy agenda signaling a long-overdue detour from the policies of the last four years. Chief among these pivots must be a renewed focus on reforming our broken higher education system. Utah and the rest of the country stand to benefit from a new approach, one that embraces innovation and adaptability, in hopes that it will shake up what many acknowledge is a dysfunctional status quo.
It’s not an overstatement to say we’re in the midst of an education crisis. Recent polling from Pew shows that increasing numbers of young men are foregoing college, citing high costs and a lack of incentives. Meanwhile, other survey data shows that 1 in 6 employers are actually hesitant to hire recent college graduates, with employers pointing to concerns about communications skills, preparedness and professionalism. Colleges aren’t fulfilling what most Americans view as their primary purpose: actually educate students for the high-skilled jobs of tomorrow.
Several institutions in Utah are showcasing what a new path forward might look like, partnering with employers and tech companies to develop online curricula in response to emerging market demands. Western Governors University — an online institution based in Millcreek, Utah — has prospered thanks largely to industry partnerships that align education with employers. Because the institution is entirely online, WGU offers tuitions at about half the national average with curricula tailored to the 21st century’s rapidly changing needs.
And while WGU was an early adapter, other institutions are developing online programs to prepare students for in-demand jobs. In 2021, Southern Utah University launched an affordable online program to address rising costs. Circumventing traditional brick-and-mortar infrastructure has made a nursing degree far more accessible to many students. SUU also offers hybrid and fully online, award-winning nursing programs. In 2023, the University of Utah became one of six schools to partner with edX to launch Artificial Intelligence boot camps for entry-level technical roles in the blossoming new field.
The state Legislature is also making efforts to reform higher education’s more regressive traditions, cutting wasteful programs and ensuring better return on investment for students. University of Utah President Taylor Randall says he wants to prepare students for the “profound economic upheaval” of the future.
This commitment to change demonstrates that both public and university officials recognize they need to innovate instead of continuing to profit from the problem. But the ecosystem that facilitated this growth is on shaky ground.
The swift growth of online programs was fostered by a revenue-sharing exception that arose from an Obama administration Dear Colleague letter, which allowed for universities to enter into agreements with companies called online program managers that provide “bundled services.” These revenue-sharing agreements allowed the institutions to keep the up-front costs of new programs low, allowing them to take more calculated risks on programs that they might not otherwise invest in. It also allowed schools to attract nontraditional students, notably those more focused on a career than the average 18-year-old just going through the motions.
This is the sort of innovation that should be welcomed and celebrated. Alas, the Biden administration took a hostile posture to this growing ecosystem of actual progress, all but rescinding Obama’s letter that drove all this innovation, attempting to impose massive compliance and liability costs on such partnerships in a widely panned regulatory move.
And while Biden officials are now gone — and the threat of similarly regressive behavior from more innovation-friendly Republicans is unlikely — something must be done.
As the Trump administration looks to — pardon the perhaps over-used idiom — make education great again, it can look to the innovations of institutions here in Utah that are reducing costs while improving outcomes. With institutions of higher ed working in tandem with tech companies and the government, we can and should codify the framework for this to cement the federal policy reforms higher education desperately needs.
A society needs institutions to survive — but troubled institutions need to prove themselves worthy of saving.