In his latest blog, State System of Higher Education Chancellor Dan Greenstein looks into the future of higher education and the State System in particular, drawing on information from a recent Board of Governors workshop.
Greenstein writes that enrollment will be even more difficult to maintain between 2026 and ’36 due to an anticipated shrinkage of about ten percent in the number of high school graduates, growing skepticism about the value of higher education, employers who are not necessarily looking for college graduates, and aggressive competition from schools in bordering states which offer in-state tuition to students from Pennsylvania. He goes so far as to refer to the challenges as an “enrollment bust” and suggests new directions colleges such as IUP will need to pursue. Some of those strategies include degree completion programs for students who left college before graduating, expanding non-degree credentialing (a program which the State System recently introduced), and “emphasizing credentialing pathways over degrees, where workers would be able to “stack” certifications as they advance in their careers.
Greenstein says all of this must be done while attending to budgetary realities “even where we don’t like them”, writing that State System can’t simply wait for more state funding to arrive and must use what monies it can find wisely.
HERE IS THE LINK TO THE CHANCELLOR’S BLOG:
https://chancellorgreenstein.blogspot.com/2023/02/purposeful-action.html
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