These new attitudes are jarring to higher education. But the new technologies, along with the new demographics, are turning the tables. Society and the state, along with the students, have become disenchanted with higher education. The public decries the soaring costs and declining quality of undergraduate education. The continuing calls for higher state support and student tuition in spite of deplorable completion rates and declining skills displayed by graduates have led to rising complaints.
Higher education is accused of reneging on the promise to deliver both access and quality.
In the past, higher education could always count on the support of the public when it confronted challenges. Today's polls show that public confidence in higher education has turned to cynicism, resulting primarily from the recognition that graduates lack the writing and mathematical skills for today's jobs. That cynicism will increase when the public realizes that education is not teaching its graduates how to navigate the web of databases essential to their success in a society ever more dependent on access to information. New Competition . A serious competitive challenge to the monopoly in granting degrees is posed by the educational potential of the electronic superhighway.