Higher education appears to be poised at one of those crossroads—unless you believe it’s been walking down the wrong road for years. The cost of going to college has skyrocketed. The competition from online and research alternatives and from entrepreneurial and social ventures after high school are siphoning students away. More are questioning the value of a college education and deciding that it’s just not worth it.

On his blog, Seth Godin lists five reasons he thinks higher education is about to crash and burn:

1. Most colleges are organized to give an average education to average students. We no longer live in an industrial economy that demands standardized students. In a networked, global economy, we need to teach students how to think critically, solve problems, work together, and be creative. Most colleges fail to do that for the majority of their students.

2. College has gotten expensive far faster than wages have gone up. Godin includes a chart that shows the inflation of tuition and fees compared to medical costs and the cost of living. Since 1978, tuition and fees have risen by a factor of 9.5, medical costs by a factor of 6, and the cost of living by a factor of 3.2. We hear a lot of outrage over medical costs, which suggests that outrage over the cost of college is likely not far behind.

3. The definition of “best” is under siege. According to Godin, colleges send millions of pieces of junk mail to high school students to boost the number of applicants so that they can reject more of them, which raises their rank in US News. As Godin writes, “Why bother making your education more useful if you can more easily make it appear to be more useful?”

4. The correlation between a typical college degree and success is suspect. Data show that a degree “doesn’t translate into better career opportunities, a better job, or more happiness.”

5. Accreditation isn’t the solution, it’s the problem. Uniform accreditation programs fail to produce the right product: the leaders and problem-solvers that we need.

Like the K-12 schools they draw from, colleges need to rethink their missions and visions, the needs of society and of their students, and the knowledge and skills that are truly essential to produce intelligent, productive, curious, confident students. Failing to do that, they will become increasingly irrelevant in a rapidly changing world.

To read more about Baldrige and higher education, click on these articles:

• What’s the Real Value of a College Education?
• Inspiration for a New Education System
• MHA Programs Fail to Prepare Students
• Accreditation through Baldrige
• Baldrige Goes to College

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