Question

how can colleges be more innovative and transform academic programs and institutions to serve the changing educational needs of a knowledge economy?

Answer 1

Today higher education faces far more obstacles in its history than ever before. Colleges and universities are forced to accommodate a range of students, from academically talented students to under-prepared students for college-level study. The diminishing number of traditional college-age students in the USA threatens them. The political stresses relating to the expense of attending college and the rising student debt after leaving college threaten them. On many fronts, those problems hit higher education.

Those within higher education may not tend to have performance standards matched with the performance expectations of those outside higher education. This misalignment leads to increased oversight and more anger. There is a perception among those outside higher education that it would change if colleges were more creative outcomes. But despite this need for creativity, the vast majority of state and federal government funding mechanisms tend to be quite conventional.

There's no question that the higher education atmosphere today brings more pressure on college and university leaders to think differently about how they run their institutions. There is more responsibility imposed on the performance organizations. That is, clearly identifying an institution's outcomes-especially related to student learning-and how institutions then demonstrate that they are meeting those outcomes and ultimately the needs of students. National accrediting bodies, long seen as the "price enforcer" of higher education, are directed by the federal government to make institutions more demanding

There are currently private selective universities, small private liberal arts colleges, public universities, community colleges, and for-profit colleges-which have expanded at a rapid rate. The argument is there are options for the students. Whereas in the past a college degree might have appeared out of reach for others, with so many options, it is considered that college is now more attainable regardless of one's circumstances in life.

Today, digital information networks are making access to specialty data and areas ubiquitous, particularly in the scientific fields. Researchers therefore no longer need to work in the same physical venue. The move would lessen the value of expert professors at many universities. For example, a faculty member can choose to teach in a rural setting at a small institution, and work on research with the faculty in a large urban setting.