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As higher education navigates uncertain times, can looking back at history assuage some of our concerns? Higher education has endured many trials and tribulations over the years and our current reality will make history as yet another trial. In this Higher Ed Careers interview, we hear from John Thelin, university research professor of history of higher education & public policy at the University of Kentucky, on how higher education has persevered throughout history.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: For many of us, this moment in time (a pandemic and its subsequent economic impacts, public supported and sustained protests for racial justice, the largest economic downturn in most people’s lives) is monumentally novel and has forced us to reconsider, rethink, and reshape our lives, but higher education has endured circumstances like this before — albeit not all at once. Before we discuss these seismic events, can you share historically what are the most important factors for students to get access to and attend college and what are the most important economic factors in operating an institution?
John R. Thelin, University of Kentucky research professor: Geography and affordability persist over time as clear, crucial determinants for students who wish to go to college. These seem obvious, even simplistic. But whether in 1720 or 2020, they are necessary. Even complex research universities can be distilled to the essence of students and teachers joining together in a campus community. If students do not have a college within reasonable distance of home and if the price is not reasonably manageable, students get left out of the balancing act. And, few (if any) colleges or universities can survive financially without student payments for tuition and campus living. So, with these two factors missing, the American campus becomes an empty stage set — architecturally impressive, but lifeless.
Hibel: The higher education admission, retention, and graduation cycles have become very standardized and methodical over time and COVID-19 has certainly challenged this standardization. What are some, if there are any, benefits to this standardized cycle being obstructed? Has this happened in the history of higher education and how did institutions respond?
Thelin: The lock-step of the college admissions cycle probably is a function (or, dysfunction) of high student demand to attend. However, when a college faces an enrollment shortfall or a serious decline in number of applicants, it’s amazing how resilient and innovative admissions can be. In the late 19th century even such prestigious universities as Cornell and Vassar, to name a few, depended on “preparatory departments” — which were little more than cram schools to help potential applicants bolster their secondary school transcripts and also prepare for a college’s admissions exam. Colleges gain in two ways – an added revenue stream as students paid for those preparatory courses; and, since these students usually became applicants for full admission, the preparatory department became a feeder to help approach full enrollment. In contrast, toward the end of World War II, especially with passage of the GI Bill®, colleges braced themselves for a huge surge in applications. One response was to offer GI applicants “life credit” for various skills learned in the military, leading to advanced placement and fulfillment of many degree requirements. The result was that colleges could enroll more students because a substantial number of them could graduate in less than four years due to the flexible admission and placement and credit arrangements.
Hibel: Whether it was a 10 percent salary cut by the Penn State Trustees in 1933 or Yale University being affected another ten years later, the Great Depression left a mark on higher education. What lessons can be gathered from the Great Depression that help us understand the effect of the current economic climate?
Thelin: Perhaps one of the best legacies of higher education during the Great Depression was cooperation and interdependence among all campus groups. It led to mutual sacrifice, which in turn led to institutional survival. In addition to the cases of Penn State and Yale you noted, a number of colleges paid faculty and staff in scrip — essentially, “good faith” IOUs that would potentially be redeemed “at a later date.” And some colleges eased up on collecting student bills for tuition. The result was that the American campus often resembled a barter economy — exchanging goods and service — and goodwill — without cash. Students needed to study. Professors needed to teach. The campus was a haven of sorts, especially when few had employment prospects elsewhere in the economy. Important to note is that for probably the first time in American governmental history, as part of The New Deal, the federal government provided emergency relief funds for college student financial aid. It was money well spent, perhaps an antecedent of what we have known recently as “nudge loans” — small amounts of money at the right time that can make all the difference in a student’s ability to pay for and stay in college.
Hibel: Protests and activism about racial equity have been a part of the fiber of college life. It appears (and I hope) George Floyd’s death during the pandemic has hit our country in a completely different way than ever before. As a community, how do we best understand our relationship to the history of racial inequality in a way that brings us to action at this moment?
Thelin: These protests at their best represent an opportunity for a current generation of students — as well as alumni, administrators, donors, staff, and faculty — to reconsider their past and present. Certainly concerns over naming of memorials and monuments, and even colleges themselves, provide graphic examples of historical scrutiny. And, I hope those concerns over icons and symbols extended deep into re-examining policies and practices on who goes where to college — and what they study.
Hibel: The idea of what constitutes a college town has changed over time. Changes in how we conduct classwork and learning in higher education due to social distancing may again change what a college town looks like. The economic impact of a school on that town can be significant. What can we learn about the evolution of the college town that informs us on what the future may be?
Thelin: It’s well known that in many small communities, the local college often is the largest employer and landlord. Less obvious and worth noting is that this holds true even in major metropolitan areas. So, one cannot imagine Oxford, Ohio without Miami of Ohio University — or, Bloomington without Indiana University. Add to that characterization that Johns Hopkins University is the largest landlord and employer in Baltimore — and continue that symbiosis with Brown University and Providence, Columbia University and New York City, Harvard in Boston, and so on. It also includes a clustering of colleges and universities in close proximity within a metropolitan area.
A change over time has been to supplement students as consumers for rents and groceries and restaurants with the added dimensions of spin-off corporations, high tech institutes, and a host of nonprofit research and development organizations that attract and retain educated talent at many levels and in many fields. Consider that Columbus is now the largest city in Ohio. How can that be, one might ask? What about Cleveland and Cincinnati? The answer, I think is that this once relatively small “college town” now is a blossoming “University City” in which the anchors are THE Ohio State University and the state capitol — and a host of enterprises that grow and flourish together. It’s a fascinating multiplier effect of what Clark Kerr in 1960 called “The Knowledge Industry.” Oh, yes, it still includes student bars and coffee shops!
The net result is a peculiar vulnerability. The clustering of talent that makes American campus communities exciting and energetic also is their great weakness in the period of the pandemic.
Hibel: As we try to navigate our current and future higher education landscape, what can the history of higher education and how it has responded to individual events like these in the past teach us? And what legacy will it leave on our institutions of higher education?
Thelin: American colleges and universities, over three hundred years, have been participant-observers in crises where external events cause a drastic stop in academic life as usual. And higher education institutions usually have been welcomed good neighbors in these times of duress. It could be having the campus chapel serve as an emergency military hospital after a battle. It includes the incredible record of faculty at American campuses to channel their scholarly expertise to assist the national effort in World War II. And this included not only scientists collaborating on military projects and weapons, but also extended into providing expertise and training in numerous languages, cartography, as well as campus training sites. A difference today is that the combination of public health concerns combined with economic disruption stands as strike two against colleges and universities. But the American campus is still at bat at the plate, down but not out. Now is the time to rally, quietly and persistently as we draw on the abundant talent that shapes and defines higher education in the past and now into an uncertain challenging present and future.
To return to the original question — “Can history soothe the pain of the pandemic for higher education?” Probably not directly or completely. I do think a substantive knowledge of American higher education’s history can remind us of the challenges and the earnest responses that students, faculty, leaders, alumni, and donors have made over time. And that is a legacy that I think can give American colleges and universities now a gyroscope and work ethic to face these critical problems today — and tomorrow.