In order to do that, state governments need to end duplication and require efficiency. Boards of private colleges have to insist on the same kind of budget control to stop runaway tuition. On the positive side, a better use of scarce tax dollars, an end to tuition inflation, and the introduction of new educational technologies that lower costs and improve learning. On the downside, a drop in quality, the erosion of a system of higher education that is the envy of the world, and more centralized bureaucratic control. Many of the courses and even some of the research is irrelevant.
Teaching students seems to be a low priority.
Higher education, including the boards who are supposed to be representing the public, is out of touch or just afraid to take on tough issues like the curriculum and the quality of teaching. We need new boards and ways of governing these institutions that give citizens the strongest voice. Possibility of a revitalization of the curriculum, better teaching, more relevant research, and a closer tie to the public that could rebuild confidence and renew support. The downside, a narrow vocationalism, an immediate relevance that ultimately proves irrelevant, the collapse of basic research, and organizational disarray. In a mad rush to efficiency and relevance, we are in danger of losing the great traditions of higher learning.