The Future of Undergraduate
Education: Will Differences across
Sectors Exacerbate Inequality?

Daniel I. Greenstein

This essay looks at how different sectors of U.S. higher education are funded,
the students they serve, and the outcomes they deliver for those students. It rais-
es serious policy questions about whether the distribution of public funds across
this highly segmented industry both reflects and contributes to growing inequal-
ity in this country. It also asks whether recent trends in educational innovation
and the impact of technology innovation in higher education will exacerbate
or ameliorate that inequality. While the evidence is disturbing, the essay con-
cludes optimistically. The past, it suggests, need not be prologue in higher edu-
cation. The path forward for our industry, while highly constrained, can as yet
be shaped through thoughtful, conscious, and analytically driven choices at in-
dividual, institutional, and state and federal policy levels.

T he U.S. postsecondary education system, which serves an increasing-

ly diverse student population, is sharply segmented. Public research,
comprehensive, and two-year institutions have very different mis-
sions, resource levels, student bodies, and outcomes. Adding the private non-
profit and for-profit sectors creates an even more complicated picture. Stu-
dents come to the door with very different levels of preparation, goals, expec-
tations, and conflicting responsibilities such as family and work; the same
programs and institutions are unlikely to serve all of them well. However,
the current stratification patterns reinforce and may amplify the inequali-
ties with which students come to higher education. Although we know quite
a bit about how to improve outcomes for students, there is a real danger that
well-resourced institutions, which generally enroll relatively privileged stu-
dent bodies, will outpace underresourced institutions, which generally enroll
relatively disadvantaged student bodies, in implementing promising inno-
vations. This possibility reinforces the need for thoughtful and constructive
changes in our systems of financing and managing colleges and universities.

108

© 2019 by the American Academy of Arts & Sciences
Published under a Creative Commons
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license
https://doi.org/10.1162/DAED_a_01763

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After a brief review of the importance of a conversation about the future of
undergraduate education in the context of these sectoral differences, this es-
say reviews key structural characteristics of the higher education industry. It
focuses on the different needs of the student groups that flow through the sec-
tors, based on age, race and ethnicity, family income, and other characteris-
tics. It raises questions about how, whether, and to what extent there is a sin-
gle future for undergraduate education, or if we are looking instead at a vari-
ety of futures for institutions offering very different educational “products”
to many different “consumer” or student groups.

Focusing on how different sectors are funded, the students they serve, and
the outcomes they deliver for those students, this essay also raises serious pol-
icy questions about whether the distribution of public funds across this highly
segmented industry both reflects and contributes to growing inequality in this
country. A second section looks at recent trends in educational innovation: in
particular, those growing out of the student completion movement that took
shape beginning in the 1980s. To date, these efforts have reached only a fraction
of today’s students. It is too soon to know their impacts on the industry going
forward. It is not too soon, however, to wonder whether they will be adopt-
ed by institutions in all segments and used with all student groups or will in-
stead amplify the distinctions that already exist across sectors, exacerbat-
ing inequalities rather than ameliorating them. A third section asks a similar
question with reference to the impacts of technology innovation, particular-
ly online learning, and results in a similarly tentative and disturbing progno-
sis. This essay concludes by reflecting on the extent to which our past is pro-
logue in higher education, and suggests that the path forward for our industry,
while highly constrained, can as yet be shaped through thoughtful, conscious,
and analytically driven choices.

C ollege enrollment has increased dramatically over time among all dem-

ographic groups. As both young people and older adults have real-
ized that it is difficult to find jobs that will support a middle-class life-
style without some college education, students who would not have contin-
ued their education beyond high school a generation ago now pursue a range
of postsecondary paths. The available paths have expanded, and half of all un-
dergraduate credentials are now short-term certificates or associate’s degrees,
as opposed to bachelor’s degrees. New institutions and programs are serving
a student body that is more diverse in terms of socioeconomic background,
race and ethnicity, and age than the college population fifty years ago.

With the expansion of higher education, the differences across sectors have
been amplified. Public research universities are more selective, spend more per

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148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein

student, and have higher completion rates than public comprehensive univer-
sities and community colleges. Private nonprofit colleges and universities en-
roll a very different population from for-profit institutions–and have very dif-
ferent student outcomes. The inequality across institutions exacerbates in-
equality among the students who enroll in those institutions. The challenge
that lies ahead is providing the range of opportunities and supports that best
serves the needs and goals of a diverse student body, while narrowing the gaps
in both resources and outcomes across the sectors of postsecondary education.
Earnings are highly correlated with educational attainment. In 2017, medi-
an earnings for thirty-five-to-forty-four-year-olds whose highest degree was
a bachelor’s degree were 71 percent higher than the median for high school
graduates. The annual earnings premium for an associate’s degree was 17
percent, or about $6,000.1 But perhaps as important as wages are the chang- ing demands made by U.S. employers with respect to the educational attain- ment of the people they hire. A study by the Georgetown Center for Education and the Workforce showed that of the 11.6 million jobs added between Janu- ary 2010 and January 2016 (during the recovery from the Great Recession), 11.5 million required some college education, which might range from short courses in welding and advanced manufacture to bachelor’s degrees in phys- ics, economics, or English literature.2 And if labor economists are to be be- lieved, demand among employers for some higher education will continue to grow, and will require workers to return to school to boost skills and capabili- ties throughout the course of their careers.3 College was not always the primary bridge to opportunity. When I graduated from a large public high school in Rochester, New York, in 1978, I was part of the minority of all graduates that enrolled in college. In those days, it was entirely reasonable for a high school graduate to assume he could cross the stage, receive his diploma, and secure a job with reasonable long-term opportunities with a local manufacturer such as Kodak. Those jobs are not gone for today’s gradu- ates–Pennsylvania, for example, predicts that as many as 46 percent of all jobs in 2026 will not require any form of postsecondary credential owing to continu- ing strength in manufacturing and agriculture–but the number of these jobs is declining dramatically and, once gone, they are not likely to return.4 Unemployment rates are about twice as high for high school graduates as for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher. In April 2018, 4.3 percent of high school graduates ages twenty-five and older and 2.1 percent of those with a bachelor’s degree or higher were unemployed, down from 7.5 percent and 3.9 percent, respectively, five years earlier.5 Of course, going to college is not just about improving one’s employability and financial security. Education levels are associated with a range of desirable lifetime outcomes including relatively 110 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality? low rates of divorce, obesity, and smoking, and higher levels of voting.6 It is in part for this reason that in survey after survey, the vast majority of parents from all backgrounds want a college education for their children. The opportunity to attend college is greater now than at any time in our past, thanks in large part to sustained public investments since the late 1940s. Public investments have provided funding both directly to students and to in- stitutions, increasing the number of students able to enroll as well as the ca- pacity of public higher education. The GI Bill of 1944 allowed returning ser- vice men and women to attend college; the Higher Education Acts of 1965 and 1972 created federal grants (now Pell Grants) and low-interest loans to remove financial barriers for low-income students. The mobilization of public fund- ing that grew out of the Truman Commission underscored the importance of low-cost on-ramps to a college degree and stimulated massive growth in two- year (once “junior,” now “community”) colleges. And states make major in- vestments in individual students through financial aid programs such as Cal Grants in California and Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance grants, as well as in the form of appropriations to public two- and four-year colleges.7 The net result has been transformational. The nation expanded its higher education infrastructure, growing the number of degree-granting institutions from 1,851 in 1949–1950 to 3,152 in 1979–1980 and to 4,360 in 2016–2017.8 The number of postsecondary students grew from 2.4 million to 11.6 million to 19.8 million over these years, respectively.9 The share of high school gradu- ates enrolling immediately in college rose from 45 percent in 1960 to 58 per- cent in 1985 and to 70 percent in 2016.10 The trend line for enrollment growth was particularly steep in the 1950s and 1960s as the nation expanded its higher education capacity to accommodate the baby boomers and their children (so- called Tidal Waves 1 and 2). The dramatic expansion in higher education did not just swell overall stu- dent numbers, it democratized the face of the student body. Once largely the preserve of the sons and later daughters of White and relatively affluent fam- ilies who attended residential colleges directly after completing high school, higher education became accessible to low-income students, students of color, and adult students entering college from the workplace. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the resurgence of feminism in the early 1960s (coupled with slower overall wage growth, which fueled women’s growing participation in the labor market) contributed to the diversification of the student body. Diversification happened in other ways as well, with increases in the proportion of students at- tending part time, working while attending college, or who are parents raising children of their own. The democratization of U.S. higher education proceeded so far that today the typical student as conceived of in the popular imagination 111 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein Will Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality? Figure 1 Total Fall Enrollment in Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions, 1947 to 2018 25 20 15 10 5 0 ) s n o i l l i M ( t n e m l l o r n E l l a F l a t o T 7 4 9 1 0 5 9 1 0 6 9 1 0 7 9 1 0 8 9 1 0 9 9 1 0 0 0 2 0 1 0 2 8 1 0 2 Source: National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 303.10. Total Fall Enrollment in Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions, by Attendance Status, Sex of Student, and Control of Institution: Selected Years, 1947 through 2023,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs /digest/d13/tables/dt13_303.10.asp. (relatively affl uent high school graduate attending a residential college full- time for a few years after high school) represents at best perhaps one-quarter of the student body. Students once labeled as nontraditional are now in the major- ity (and will henceforth be referred to as new-majority students). The enrollment growth in the postwar years had a dramatic impact on the landscape of institutions offering education after high school and ampli- fi ed the institutional diversity (industry segmentation) that was already ap- parent in the fi rst half of the twentieth century. The greatest growth occurred among public two-year colleges. Initially established as on-ramps to four- year colleges, the two-year sector evolved from the 1930s to take on a career 112 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 orientation and, from the 1970s, various types of adult education.11 The boom years (from the 1950s to the 1980s) swelled enrollments in public two-year colleges from 585,240 in 1958 to 4,826,000 in the fall of 1980, and saw the in- troduction of state support for two-year colleges that had hitherto relied on a combination of local funding and very modest student tuition and fees. The share of all postsecondary students enrolled in public two-year colleges rose from 26 percent in 1970 to 38 percent in 1991, but between 2002 and 2016, de- clined from 38 percent to 29–37 percent of all undergraduate enrollments.12 Both public research universities, which teach to the doctoral level and of- fer professional degrees, and public comprehensive universities, which teach to the master’s level and in which typically half or more of all students ma- jor in areas such as education, business, and health sciences that track direct- ly with specific careers, have also grown over time. Public research universi- ties grew out of the Morrill Land Grant Acts of 1862 and 1890, intended “to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechan- ic arts” and, in effect, to fuel directly the nation’s economic development. Af- ter World War II, they prospered from public investments in students as well as in research, the latter driven by federal agencies like the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. The comprehensive uni- versities had diverse origins: technically focused land grant institutions es- tablished under one of the Morrill Land Grant Acts; teachers’ colleges estab- lished to meet demand for a rapidly growing public education sector; and sec- tarian and other community-specific institutions (such as historically Black colleges and universities) that evolved with an emphasis on education track- ing directly to specific occupations. They, too, prospered from public fund- ing and provided robust pathways into high demand occupations required in Main Street America and in education, social services, and health care.13 Private nonprofit colleges and universities enrolled 21 percent of all post- secondary students in fall 2016, a share that has remained fairly steady over time.14 The institutions in this sector are diverse, with 18 percent enrolling fewer than two hundred students and 11 percent enrolling five thousand or more.15 Tuition prices also vary over a wide range: 10 percent of full-time stu- dents in the sector are enrolled in institutions charging less than $15,000 per
academic year and 20 percent are at institutions charging $51,000 or more per academic year.16 One-quarter of all private nonprofit four-year institutions ac- cept 90 percent or more of the students who apply; 5 percent accept less than one-quarter of applicants.17 They also vary in the kind of education offered and the types of students served, including the most selective research univer- sities (such as the University of Pennsylvania) and liberal arts colleges (such as Williams College), small sectarian schools, and niche-oriented institutions 113 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein (such as women’s colleges like Mills College and historically Black universi- ties like Johnson C. Smith University). And this sector is the home of the 240 or so independent “classical liberal arts colleges” that typically teach to the bachelor’s level and promote an education that, while enabling students to concentrate in a specific major area, emphasizes a general education curric- ulum with exposure across broad discipline areas, including the humanities, social sciences, and hard and life sciences.18 Private for-profit institutions initially focused on career and technical ed- ucation for people seeking middle-skill workforce roles. Their numbers (mea- sured both in terms of institutions and enrollments) swelled to a high-water- mark in 2010 when they enrolled 10 percent of all students.19 Growth resulted from a number of factors including easily available student financial aid (in- cluding loans), tuition assistance for in-service military personnel, and edu- cation funding for veterans–a very large and continuously self-replenishing group of potential students–and growing demand for an educated workforce, which outstripped the supply of students who went to college directly after high school. For-profit institutions also proved more nimble than their not- for-profit counterparts, leveraging available capital and relatively weak shared governance structures to integrate instructional approaches catering to their “nontraditional” adult students who were typically integrating education into lives that were already crowded with obligations to work, family, and/or military service. These multiple factors account for the sector’s tremendous growth, largely through online distance learning, which began in the 1990s. All sectors experienced the tidal waves of new students and new dollars in the postwar years, but they did so differently, emerging with distinguishing characteristics measurable by the kinds of students they served (see Table 1). In 2015–2016, when 39 percent of undergraduate students enrolled in pub- lic two-year colleges, 46 percent of independent students (those who are old- er, are parents, are veterans, or have other characteristics that eliminate their parents from affecting their financial aid eligibility), and 46 percent of His- panic students were enrolled in this sector. The share of students enrolling in public four-year institutions increased with family income and among those students, those from more affluent families were most likely to enroll in doc- toral institutions, which are the most selective and have the most funding. Notably, 15 percent of Black undergraduates–compared with 8 percent over- all–attended for-profit institutions. In other words, students from different backgrounds attend different types of institutions. These sectors of higher education vary in a number of visible ways. For example, in 2015–2016, public doctoral universities devoted $19,270 per stu-
dent to education and related expenditures, compared with $14,530 at public 114 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality? Table 1 Sectors of Postsecondary Enrollment by Dependency Status, Family Income, and Race and Ethnicity, 2015 to 2016 Public Two- Year 39% 33% 46% Public Four- Year 35% All 45% Dependent Independent 24% Dependent Students’ Parent Income Less than $27,900
$27,900–$62,999
$63,000– $113,499

40%

47%

43%

38%

37%

33%

$113,500 or more 20% 51% Race/Ethnicity White Black or African American Hispanic or Latino Asian Other 37% 38% 46% 41% 41% 37% 30% 31% 39% 36% Private Nonprofit Four-Year 15% 18% 12% For- Profit 8% 3% 13% 13% 15% 17% 27% 17% 13% 11% 14% 12% 6% 4% 2% 1% 6% 15% 9% 5% 8% Other 3% 2% 4% 3% 2% 1% 1% 2% 4% 4% 1% 2% Source: National Center for Education Statistics, National Postsecondary Student Aid Study 2016, https://nces.ed.gov/datalab/index.aspx. master’s universities and $10,080 at public two-year colleges.20 Graduation
rates also vary dramatically across sectors. The segments’ characteristics
shaped the overall educational experience available to students within them.
Additionally, faculty teaching loads and composition are different across
sectors in a variety of ways that affect the experiences of the students they ed-
ucate. Typically, faculty in two-year, four-year comprehensive, and for-profit
institutions have higher teaching loads than those in independent colleges
and research universities.21 And while the use of adjunct faculty–faculty who

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148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein

neither have nor are on a track to gain tenure–is at an all-time high (about 70
percent industry-wide), it is distributed differentially across sectors. Yes, ten-
ured faculty with high course loads are typically found in institutions where
they are not expected to do research, explaining some of the variance in work-
load. And yes, it is difficult if not impossible to compare teaching quality of
adjunct and tenured (and tenure-track) faculty. Still, it is impossible to ig-
nore the impacts that teaching load and employment status have on faculty-
student engagement and thus on student outcomes.22

The point here is not to advocate for one or another educational experi-
ence, to engage in a conversation about how public funding is distributed
across various sectors, or even to address issues having to do with faculty sup-
port and composition (however important these subjects are to the future of
undergraduate education). It is simply to illustrate how the undergraduate ex-
perience will be–must be–very different in different sectors in ways that re-
flect the characteristics of the student body, the level of financial support that
is available, and the composition, workload, and support of the faculty.

Democratization did more than amplify differences between segments of
U.S. higher education. It also reduced the substantial educational access gaps
that had existed between rich and poor, White and non-White. In 1970, high
school graduates from families in the top income quartile were nearly three
times as likely as high school graduates from families in the lowest quartile (78
percent compared with 28 percent) to enroll directly in college. In 2016, they
were 1.5 times as likely (78 percent versus 46 percent, respectively), and the
gap between high- and middle-income high school leavers has also narrowed.
Access gaps by race and ethnicity have shrunk as well, as evident in the college
participation rates of recent high school graduates in 1976 and 2016 shown in
Table 2. There is evidence as well that attainment gaps by race and ethnicity
have been reduced somewhat, as shown in Table 3.

Still, there is a great deal of room for improvement in narrowing college
completion gaps. On average, White and Asian students who first entered
college in 2010 earned a college-level credential at a rate about 20 percentage
points higher than Hispanic and Black students.23 And significant gaps in col-
lege completion remain by income. While the gap between students in the
wealthiest two quartiles has closed between 1970 and 2016 (from 25 to 17 per-
centage points), that between the top two quartiles and the bottom two quar-
tiles has widened.

There is enormous variation in the characteristic of the students en-
rolled in different higher education sectors. Bluntly, new-majority students
–low-income, adult students, and students of color–attend in great dispro-
portion those colleges that have the lowest average per-student investment in

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality?

Table 2
Percent of Recent High School Graduates Enrolling in College,
by Race/Ethnicity, 1976 and 2016

White
Black/African American
Hispanic/Latino

1976
41
33
34

2016
66
51
59

Source: The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in Higher Education, “Equity In-
dicator 1c(i): Cohort College Participation Rates of Recent High School Leavers by Race/
Ethnicity: 1976 to 2016,” in Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United States: 2018 His-
torical Trend Report (Washington, D.C.: The Pell Institute for the Study of Opportunity in
Higher Education, 2018).

Table 3
Percent of Population with Some Postsecondary Education,
by Race/Ethnicity, 1992 and 2016

White
Black/African American
Hispanic/Latino

1992
58
45
35

2016
74
66
45

Source: Anthony P. Carnevale and Megan L. Fasules, Latino Education and Economic Progress:
Running Faster but Still Behind (Washington, D.C.: The Georgetown University Center on
Education and the Workforce, 2017), Figure 4.1, https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn
-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Latinos-FR.pdf.

instruction and student support, the largest (most unfavorable) student-fac-
ulty ratios, and the lowest graduation rates for first-time full-time students.

Research by economists Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner has shown that
students in more-challenging academic environments are likely to succeed at
higher rates than similar students in less-challenging environments. The so-
called undermatching phenomenon–in which academically high-achieving
students enroll in colleges with a majority of lower-achieving students–is
particularly acute for low-income and first-generation students and students
of color.24

Additionally, no one institutional structure, pedagogical approach, or set of
support services delivers the same level of success for all students. Intuitively,

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148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein

this makes sense. A first-generation high school graduate who enters college
needing two levels of remediation in math and/or English requires a very dif-
ferent kind of pedagogy and a more intrusive approach to advising than say a
high-achieving, fourth-generation high school graduate entering into an hon-
ors program at a selective college. Arguably, the adult student enrolling in an
online degree program while working full-time in order to complete a bache-
lor’s degree that they began but did not complete ten or fifteen years ago is likely
to require something different yet again from these other two groups in the way
of instructional approach and student supports. For undergraduate education,
context matters: the kind of college, the level of support available, the kinds of
students that are present. So, the research suggests, do students’ backgrounds,
needs, and preparedness. This forces us to think hard about the future of under-
graduate education: to adopt an approach that ensures higher education is rel-
evant to the needs of the very different student groups that we serve and to en-
sure the approaches that are adopted are both effective in terms of student out-
comes and financially viable in what are very different industry segments.

Finally, it is worth noting that the increasing differentiation of the higher
education landscape and the distribution of different student groups across it
has implications that extend far beyond how we think about delivering a stu-
dent’s educational experience. These are represented most starkly in work by
economist Raj Chetty and colleagues at the Equality of Opportunity Project.
A working paper published in 2017 showed that at the highly selective Ivy-Plus
colleges (colleges that typically accept fewer than 10 percent of all undergrad-
uate applicants, comprising the eight Ivy Leagues–Brown, Columbia, Cor-
nell, Dartmouth, Harvard, Penn, Princeton, and Yale–plus the University of
Chicago, Stanford, MIT, and Duke), more students come from families in the
top 1 percent of the income distribution than the bottom half of the income
distribution. Indeed, they find that children with parents in the top 1 percent
are seventy-seven times more likely to attend an Ivy-Plus college than chil-
dren with parents in the bottom 20 percent.25 Table 1 makes the point more
generally, showing the degree of stratification that exists across the industry.26
The relative segregation of new-majority students matters in at least two
ways. First, it deprives all students of exposure to multicultural experiences–
critical in reversing disturbing tendencies apparent in our civil and political
society toward growing isolation of and intolerance across social groups de-
fined at the intersections of race, class, and gender. Second, it matters because
higher education sectors perform very differently with respect to student out-
comes. Again, according to Chetty and his colleagues, graduates from highly
selective colleges do not just graduate at much higher rates, they also signifi-
cantly out-earn graduates of less selective institutions. According to journalist

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality?

Thomas Edsall, “instead of serving as a springboard to social mobility as it did
for the first decades after World War II, college education today is reinforc-
ing class stratification.” In an opinion piece published in The New York Times in
2012, Edsall argued that this is not meritocracy at work. The trends cannot be
explained by test scores alone. “When high-scoring students from low-income
families are compared to similarly high-scoring students from upper-income
families,” he wrote, “80 percent of those in the top quarter of the income dis-
tribution go on to get college degrees, compared to just 44 percent of those in
the bottom quarter.”27 Even if Edsall is confusing cause and effect–the distri-
bution of students across higher education sectors may reflect existing social
inequalities–there is little doubt that the distribution of students across the
industry coupled with public policy choices that are reflected in levels of fund-
ing made available to those sectors reinforce and amplify those inequalities.

D espite their reputation for being stubborn, legacy-centric, and

slothful with respect to change, colleges and universities in all sec-
tors have been remarkably agile in evolving educational approach-
es in response to the changing demands of their students, funders, and em-
ployers, and in reflection of their constantly changing financial circumstanc-
es. This is particularly evident in the college completion movement that has
emerged since the 1980s in response to probing questions about the growing
cost and perceived value of higher education. While the movement has regis-
tered some gains in terms of student outcomes, it also raises questions about
whether it will only reify the inequalities that result from and reflect the in-
dustry’s segmentation.

The birth of the completion movement reflected the phenomenal success
of public policies that dramatically expanded participation in higher educa-
tion, placing enormous pressure on scarce public funds and raising natural
questions about what taxpayers were getting for their money. One thinks of:

•

• A Nation at Risk (1983), which concluded that “the educational founda-
tions of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of medi-
ocrity that threatens our very future as a Nation and a people”;28
the 2006 report of the Commission on the Future of Higher Education,
convened by then–Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, which
urged a higher level of accountability with respect to student outcomes
in return for public investments;29 and
state-level initiatives that tie state funding to institutional performance.30

•

Employers, too, added voice in questioning the value of higher education.
That voice rises and falls in waves and has reached almost deafening levels

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148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein

today in concerns being expressed about graduates not having the skills they
need to participate effectively in the twenty-first-century economy.31

Another force driving educators to think hard about improving student
outcomes is of more recent origin. It is driven by the growing need that col-
leges feel to demonstrate the value of their increasingly high-priced product;
to demonstrate the price is worth paying and will pay off by opening access to
sustaining careers.

The need to measure outcomes was not always felt so acutely. One factor
feeding this need is Baumol’s cost disease, which describes the challenges cer-
tain “professional services” face when controlling costs because they rely on
high-priced labor (such as faculty in the higher education sector), which is
not easily replaced or augmented with automation. In higher education, the
impacts show up in tuition increases that routinely surpass the overall rate
of inflation.32 The trend is compounded by the long-range decline in public
funding represented by the secular decline in state appropriations per student
in public higher education.33 Demographic trends are also a factor as demon-
strated by economist Nathan Grawe, who looks at changes in the size of high
school leaving populations and their impacts now and, very soberingly, into
the future, where populations are projected to flatten or decline in most states
from around 2025.34 In states or regions where that contraction is already ap-
parent–Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Massachusetts, rural parts of Georgia
and Texas–there are already signs of the cutthroat competition that is yet to
come for most higher education institutions in this country. In Pennsylvania,
which is experiencing the competition acutely, institutions are struggling to
generate necessary revenues, balancing the declining pool of students with
tuition price sensitivity. According to Grawe’s analysis, the viability of insti-
tutions in all sectors that are outside the top 150 (ranked in terms of selectivi-
ty at admissions) is seriously at risk.

The completion movement took shape in the last two decades of the twen-
tieth century, growing out of concerns arising from the public cost of grow-
ing enrollments and uneven student outcomes, and gained force in the ear-
ly twenty-first century in response to both student and employer concerns
about the value and price of higher education. The movement is less a coordi-
nated campaign and more a series of loosely connected skirmishes, several of
which are worth touching on because they demonstrate the tools that are cur-
rently available to practitioners as they think about the future of undergradu-
ate education, as well as the limits to scaling those tools effectively.

Concern with students’ learning outcomes emerged forcefully in response
to a 1989 federal regulation that directed accreditors (responsible among oth-
er things for evaluating colleges and universities with respect to their fitness

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality?

Daniel I. Greenstein

Figure 2
Public Full-Time Equivalent (FTE) Enrollment and Educational
Appropriations per FTE, United States, FY 1992 to FY 2017

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$16,000 $14,000

$12,000 $10,000

$8,000 $6,000

$4,000 $2,000

$0 E T F r e p s r a l l o D Educational Appropriations per FTE (Constant $)

Net Tuition per FTE
(Constant $) Net FTE Enrollment (Millions) Source: State Higher Education Executive Offi cers Association, State Higher Education Finance: FY 2017 (Boulder, Colo.: State Higher Education Executive Offi cers, 2017). to receive Title IV student fi nancial aid funding) to examine them. The regu- lation itself refl ected growing concern with the nation’s economic competi- tiveness and the cost and value of higher education. According to Peter Ewell, president emeritus of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems, it also refl ected a newly activist regulatory stance within the Depart- ment of Education.35 Notable within the cottage industry that sprung up in response are the American Association of Colleges and Universities’ LEAP program (Liberal Education and America’s Promise) and the College Learn- ing Assessment. The former, launched in 2005, identifi ed workforce-aligned learning outcomes, providing practitioners with guidelines for integrating them into liberal arts course rubrics for assessing student mastery of these outcomes. The latter was one of several instruments designed to look beyond graduation rates and salary outcomes to determine what students actually learn in college. 148 (4) Fall 2019 121 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Shining a light on learning outcomes revealed some disturbing patterns about student workload (low) and learning (low) in higher education, and raised questions about whether and to what extent colleges really add value to a student’s human capital through learning.36 The patterns that emerged were similar across higher education sectors and student groups, but with the grad- uation rate and earnings problems concentrated in sectors that disproportion- ately serve new-majority students. The findings at once stimulated and rein- forced debate and discussion about the role higher education plays in reifying and potentially expanding class and racial inequalities. In particular, it fueled debate about whether the higher salary outcomes apparent for students from selective schools were primarily a reflection of socioeconomic background, a consequence of the networking effects they experienced in college, and the signaling effect that degrees from selective colleges had in the marketplace, or whether these students actually learned more in college than others.37 Ethno- graphic research fueled the discussion, focusing on the challenges new-major- ity students face succeeding in selective institutions where the student culture and academic pathways are created for the predominantly White and more af- fluent plurality.38 The literature speaks to imposter syndrome–the feeling that one is not worthy to belong in the academic community–and cultural isola- tion, both of which can lead directly to students stopping out. In Paying for the Party, sociologists Elizabeth Armstrong and Laura Hamilton also demonstrate how low-income women students, lacking the social capital and the network of their higher-income peers, cannot risk achieving a middling academic per- formance, and thus are put at greater risk by engaging fully in the social life of the institution. Still, it appears that the new-majority students who are able to navigate the environmental and cultural challenges they face in more selective and better-resourced institutions will have better outcomes.39 The completion movement has also generated interest in innovations in teaching practices and institutional structures that promise to improve student outcomes. There is growing evidence about the effectiveness of active learn- ing to replace the lecture model, new approaches to developmental education, and curriculum redesign that adds structure to students’ degree pathways: so- called guided pathways that steer and support students through their college ca- reers. These strategies are particularly important for at-risk and new-majority students, but implementing them requires institutional resources. There is a real danger that the colleges at which most low-income students enroll will be unable to match the improvements adopted by better-resourced institutions. With respect to teaching practices, an evidence base is growing under “high-impact practices” that appear to generate better student outcomes as measured in performance on course exams and in course completion rates. 122 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality? A meta-analysis conducted by biologist Scott Freeman and others showed the positive impact of a single high-impact practice: the use of active learn- ing techniques that enable students to construct their own understanding of a subject as opposed to sitting passively and listening to lectures.40 And biol- ogists David Haak, Sarah Eddy, and Kelly Hogan have demonstrated that ac- tive learning had disproportionately large positive effects on students from educationally or economically disadvantaged backgrounds, reducing educa- tional attainment gaps.41 While the evidence base is still thin, it is nonethe- less promising and shows that high-impact practices–others of which are referenced throughout this issue of Dædalus–may be a very effective means of addressing persistent educational attainment gaps. The question is wheth- er sectors in which historically underserved students are concentrated are able, given their limited funding and high teaching loads, to support faculty in learning and reproducing those practices faithfully and at a sufficient scale across the institution to have significant overall effect on student outcomes. One wonders, in other words, whether innovation that promises improved student learning outcomes is equally accessible across sectors. A similar concern emerges for practices that are proving themselves ef- fective in improving outcomes for students who begin their college careers in developmental education. Developmental education–efforts to prepare stu- dents to enter and succeed in college–dates back at least into the 1600s.42 In the United States, waves of interest in improving and reforming developmen- tal education have typically been associated with surges in the size of the col- lege-going population, such as after the Morrill Land Grant Acts in the nine- teenth century or with the introduction of federal student aid funding in the twentieth. Such efforts intensified in the 2000s as the accountability move- ment gained steam and shined a harsh light on the appalling low rates at which students beginning in remedial education were completing their degrees, and the disproportionate impacts on low-income students and students of color.43 From around that date, research conducted by the Community College Research Center (CCRC), Complete College America, and others demonstrat- ed the efficacy of a multifaceted, whole-student approach that includes bet- ter student advising; multiple math pathways (the removal of Algebra 2 as the only pathway through which one could demonstrate competency for col- lege); corequisite instructional models whereby students were able to meet remedial requirements while taking credit-bearing college courses; and the use of multiple measures including high school GPA as well as placement test- ing in order to evaluate remedial need.44 Recent research, however, questions whether the approach can be adopted by institutions housing the students that need it most. Implementing a corequisite instructional model reduces 123 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d . / f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein the footprint of developmental education departments on campus without eliminating the need for supplemental instruction: that is, for supporting stu- dents’ remedial needs while they are enrolled in credit-bearing courses. The economic impacts are doubly difficult. Developmental education depart- ments are revenue-generating cost centers and while the marginal costs of instructing a remedial student are actually higher than those for a student in credit-bearing courses, it is not clear that the difference is enough to sustain the additional cost of supplemental instruction. In a nutshell, significant re- duction of a developmental education department results in a potentially very significant hit on a college’s revenues–a hit that may or may not be wholly re- coverable in a way that results from improved student retention.45 Similar concerns arise from recent enthusiasm gathering around guid- ed pathways: a wholesale approach to the construction of narrowly focused, closely advised course sequences that result in a degree. Here, energy is found initially in the elite four-year sectors in which reform warrior and Universi- ty of Pennsylvania professor Robert Zemsky has advocated for curricula care- fully designed to expose students in a structured and sequenced way to the competencies they need in pursuit of a particular degree or major.46 For him, the common “cafeteria”-style approach in which students constructed ma- jors from course catalogs that included a random assembly of courses that in- dividual faculty cared to teach was not only ineffective with respect to learn- ing outcomes, it was also costly. Researchers from the CCRC reached similar conclusions for two-year colleges where they found that the cafeteria-style approach contributed to relatively higher stop-out rates of historically under- served students: notably, first-generation, low-income students, and students of color.47 For them, the antidote was the guided pathway. Initially observed by CCRC researchers in the nine community colleges affiliated with Comple- tion by Design, the approach integrates three practices areas:48 • • • helping students choose and enter a well-defined pathway to a creden- tial that meets their end goals; keeping students on their chosen path by integrating intrusive advis- ing and high-impact instructional practices; and ensuring that students are learning along the path, again with refer- ence to high-impact practices and continuous assessments with feed- back loops. Canonized by economist and CCRC founder Thomas Bailey and colleagues in 2015, guided pathways took off in a flash across the two-year sector initial- ly through an institute launched by the American Association of Commu- nity Colleges (AACC) in 2016 and then amplified through multiple copycat 124 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality? initiatives.49 Downward enrollment pressures resulting from a strong econ- omy may have had a role as colleges turned to retention as a means of main- taining student numbers. And the pathways movement offered college lead- ers a means to integrate a distracting array of piece-part reforms, all of them promising improved student success, but each of them advocated and imple- mented separately. Early evidence suggests that a pathways approach can improve students’ success and contain costs.50 But here, too, one wonders about the potential for widespread adoption. Organizing curricula, instructional practices, and advising around a student’s journey requires nothing less than a fundamental overhaul to the educational and business models that are baked into the cul- ture, practice, and business systems of most colleges and universities. It re- quires significant support for professional development of both faculty and staff who engage directly with students. And it relies upon significant change leadership and change management capabilities, two characteristics that are typically weak in universities and colleges.51 Some third-party supports are available from professional (such as the AACC) and membership (such as Achieving the Dream) associations and from the commercial marketplace, notably through consultants and institutes. But these are weak levers. Seeking to reach the broadest number of institutions at the lowest possible per insti- tution price, professional associations and membership organizations are not able to provide the hands-on supports and capability development required. Consultants can go deeper, but at a cost that may be prohibitive for many in- stitutions. As a result, one wonders how and to what extent the capability to implement proven completion-oriented reforms will track closely with an in- stitution’s resources and financial flexibility. If it does, it will advantage the very large enrollment institutions (because they benefit in all things from economies of scale) and the elite private and public not-for-profits. In this re- gard, the fruits of the completion movement could very well exacerbate di- vides that already exist across the higher education industry. H eralded frequently as a great leveler of educational access and attain- ment, the history of technology integration through online learning also raises questions about whether innovations will reduce or rein- force inequalities.52 Online learning has its origins in correspondence courses mounted to reach working adults, in-service military personnel, and professionals in practices requiring continuing education. Initially conducted on paper and through the mail, it evolved with successive generations of technology. The United Kingdom’s Open University is perhaps the most famous instantiation. 125 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein Popularized by the film Educating Rita (1983), the Open University at one time combined television lectures, occasional meetings between students and their local tutors, and in some cases, short-duration in-residence instruction that used sparsely populated university facilities out of term time (such as during summer). From the 1990s, course delivery in distance education moved from the airwaves to the Internet, eventually, as we have seen, propelling growth in the for-profit sector. Capitalizing on virtually unregulated access to federal student aid, rising demand from working adults and other student groups who were underserved by nonprofits that concentrate on recent high school gradu- ates, and by excess demand in allied health and other industries for vocation- ally trained workers in fields amenable to online education, the for-profit sec- tor grew to represent about 10 percent of all student enrollments by 2010, with particular strength among adult and low-income students.53 Not-for-profits in all segments were slower to engage in online learn- ing than for-profits. Where they did engage, movement was responsive to the same kinds of demand growth that propelled the for-profits, notably in the adult learning sector. It was initially apparent in extension programs that were affiliated with four-year, mostly public institutions that had historical- ly been set up to serve adult and professional students and continuing edu- cation. With weaker forms of faculty-shared governance and greater reliance on nontenured instructors, extension programs were often more nimble with respect to educational innovation and a natural place for four-year universi- ties in particular to experiment with online learning. From the early 2000s, initiatives spread onto the main campuses in both two- and four-year public institutions in which student course demand was outstripping supply, and in which per-student funding cuts energized the search for lower-cost instruc- tional models. Different motivations were apparent among the early adopters. Some used online delivery to expand course-level access for enrolled students who, owing to funding cuts, the pressure of student numbers, and the sched- uling challenges faced by working students and parents, struggled to find the courses they needed to graduate. Others, typically in the four-year universities and at the postbaccalaureate level, sought to break into new markets to meet the growing workforce demand for master’s degrees in specific fields such as business, education, and various areas of computer science and engineering. Engagement by private not-for-profits was even more restricted at the un- dergraduate level. Highly selective institutions were by definition elite and, as a consequence, not interested in expanding their undergraduate numbers in a way that would drive toward greater use of online modalities. As a result, engagement by elite nonprofits–engagement that attracted the lion’s share of media attention–involved boutique, brand-building offerings designed to 126 l D o w n o a d e d f r o m h t t p : / / d i r e c t . m i t . / e d u d a e d a r t i c e – p d / l f / / / / 1 4 8 4 1 0 8 1 8 3 1 3 6 6 d a e d _ a _ 0 1 7 6 3 p d / . f b y g u e s t t o n 0 7 S e p e m b e r 2 0 2 3 Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality? show off research prowess and attract research and venture dollars (examples include Carnegie Mellon’s Online Initiative or Stanford’s early engagement with MOOCs) or, in the case of MIT’s Open Courseware initiative, establish credibility in international markets. In the much larger nonelite part of the private not-for-profit sector, online never emerged as much of an option. The expense associated with an effective move online was prohibitive given small endowments and the revenues associated with low enrollments. Unsurprisingly, by 2009, online instruction outside the for-profit sector was highly concentrated in a relatively small number of outlier institutions. In that year, Western Governor’s University (WGU), established in 1997 by the governors of nineteen states and with a significant grant from the Bill and Me- linda Gates Foundation, offered fully online courses to over fifty thousand stu- dents, Penn State’s World Campus served twenty-five thousand (9,500 full- time equivalent) students, University of Maryland’s University College had twelve thousand online students, and there were one or two others operating outside the for-profit sector at something bigger than fledgling scale.54 There were also a number of headlining failures in the not-for-profit sector to point to, failures that reflected outright resistance to the genre, notably at the Uni- versity of Illinois, where the Global Campus effort announced with great fan- fare and with an investment of $10 million collapsed after only three years.55
By comparison, in the very same year–2009–the for-profit University of
Phoenix was nearing its high watermark enrollment of nearly four hundred
thousand online students.56

Within a decade, the tables had turned. For-profits, under enormous pres-
sure resulting from the Great Recession and a hostile regulatory environment,
collapsed, losing as much as a half of all enrollments. Several of the biggest
for-profits went out of business (Corinthian Colleges), were bought out by
private equity firms (University of Phoenix), merged with not-for-profit insti-
tutions looking to accelerate their own online learning initiatives (Kaplan and
Purdue Universities), or transitioned from for- to not-for-profit status. Large
public universities and community colleges, meanwhile, moved in to pick up
some of the slack. WGU grew to one hundred thousand enrollments and con-
tinues achieving 10 percent year-on-year growth. Arizona State University
serves nearly the same number annually, and the University of Central Florida
has grown to nearly sixty thousand students with almost one-third of all stu-
dent credit hours taken online. Other evidence collected annually since 2002
has demonstrated how online learning has become part of the mainstream in
higher education. Large public universities and colleges are particularly like-
ly to offer a large share of student credit hours online. At these institutions,
the faculty who teach in online courses have a significantly more favorable

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view of their quality than faculty from institutions that offer few courses on-
line. There, too, administrators see online courses playing strategically more
significant roles in their institution’s future than do administrators at institu-
tions with a smaller online footprint.57

Acceleration of online learning in two- and four-year public institutions
is perhaps best understood with reference to developments on the supply-
and-demand sides of the market for online courseware products. On the sup-
ply side, large publishing houses and venture capital groups were, from the
late 2000s and for different reasons, using technology to drive effective, lower-
cost, and interactive forms of education. Publisher engagement reflected their
long-running transition away from printed textbooks and the highly compet-
itive and low-margin nature of their online markets. Venture capitalists, on
the other hand, were expanding into higher education, an industry they saw
as on the verge of “disruption” given the demand from historically under-
served consumers.58 Federal agencies, notably the National Science Founda-
tion, played a role, too, as online learning acted as a focal point for emerging
learning sciences, and so did philanthropies interested in online as a means
of driving the completion agenda while at the same time lowering the overall
cost structure of education.

On the demand side, larger two- and four-year public institutions were re-
sponding to market pressures: most notably, the downward pressure on pub-
lic funding. They turned to online products (stoking demand that fueled de-
velopments on the supply side) for various reasons: breaking into new stu-
dent markets including the adult markets, the grip over which was being
relinquished by the for-profits; enhancing course access for existing (en-
rolled) students where access was threatened by budget cuts; lowering over-
all instructional costs in response to revenue pressures; and in select cases,
improving outcomes for existing students. Work conducted by Arizona State
University with the Boston Consulting Group demonstrated that these very
different objectives required different strategies and had vastly different costs
and outcomes. Breaking into new student markets was certainly possible as
demonstrated by Arizona State, Southern New Hampshire, Western Gov-
ernors University, and a handful of others. Where fully online modalities
were used, instructional costs could be significantly reduced by comparison
with fully face-to-face modalities. Marketing costs were high, but not high
enough to counteract the savings on the instructional side. However, suc-
cess as measured by student outcomes was typically lower than was available
through face-to-face modalities, except in very focused and highly specialized
postbaccalaureate programs that enrolled motivated and already very well-
educated students.

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Gains were also made using online modalities to improve undergradu-
ate students’ course access. Results were mixed, though. Online instruction
proved less expensive than face-to-face, but in a study of California Communi-
ty Colleges, economists Hans Johnson and Marisol Mejia found that students
taking online courses performed less well as measured in their letter grades and
course completion rates, but had higher graduation rates.59 The study may help
explain why, using IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System)
data and comparing institutions within (and not across) sectors, we see that in-
stitutions teaching a disproportionately high number of student credit hours
online have lower per-student instructional costs and higher graduation rates
than those teaching fewer student credit hours online. It is as important to note
that research also shows that outcomes for students in fully online courses vary
significantly. First-generation, low-income, and academically at-risk students
attending college directly out of high school, for example, perform markedly
less well than students in other demographics. Implementation, too, appears
to matter a great deal. A recent study published by Arizona State University and
the Boston Consultant Group has demonstrated that at exemplar institutions,
online undergraduate courses produce better student retention, higher gradu-
ation rates, and lower costs.60 At the same time, there is ample evidence of im-
plementations that depress student outcomes and add cost.

Of course, the industry is hardly static. Experience with online learning
aggressively shapes implementation approaches as well as demand for better
products, driving initiative on the supply side. Two potentially very promis-
ing trajectories are beginning to take shape. The first is the use of hybrid mo-
dalities: modalities that mix face-to-face and online instruction. Where im-
plemented well, they appear to lower costs and improve student outcomes.
This at least is the experience at the University of Central Florida (UCF). With
undergraduates taking nearly one-third of their credits online, UCF shows the
best course outcomes for students in hybrid courses (with outcomes for face-
to-face and fully online falling behind in that order).61 A second very prom-
ising development is seen in adaptive technology platforms and courseware
that integrate data science to make machine-assisted learning directly re-
sponsive to individual students’ needs and their progress and pace in master-
ing explicitly specified course competencies. By the mid-2010s, results were
more rather than less promising for the technology demonstrating improved
student outcomes for students from all demographic groups.62

Interestingly, while one would expect the technology to improve, thereby
introducing even greater affordances with respect to student outcomes and
cost, there are signs that implementation costs, requisite expertise, and scale
economies are beyond the reach of all but large enrollment and/or highly

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endowed institutions, at least with respect to implementations that are locally
grown and managed. While there are other avenues for entering online educa-
tion that rely on third-party partnerships (such as with online course providers
like Straighterline and online program management companies like 2U and Ac-
ademic Partnerships), they are relatively expensive (because they rely on a rev-
enue share with the third party) and require an institution to outsource core ac-
ademic functions, which is hard to accomplish politically. Thus, it is not wholly
inconceivable that effective implementation of online learning may be a fur-
ther differentiating factor that begins to define our higher education landscape,
not necessarily in ways that advantage relatively wealthier and more selective
institutions, but in ways that favor those able to operate at tremendous scale
and as such are able to develop their own operational services that drive enroll-
ment, control cost, and manage quality with respect to student outcomes.

Other implications of this trend are profound and unsettling. We are al-
ready seeing evidence that fully online providers acting at enormous scale are
competing directly in regional markets for low- and middle-income students
with the majority attending college directly out of high school. These are stu-
dents who have historically been served by less- and nonselective four- and
even two-year institutions using traditional face-to-face modalities. As the
net average price of traditional experiences escalates, the fully online provid-
ers (which can cost the students between one-third and one-half as much over
four years) will look increasingly attractive. Given data that question the ef-
ficacy of fully online education with this student segment, these market me-
chanics could result in further stratifying our educational ecosystem. Poten-
tially, personalized, face-to-face experiences could be concentrated in more
selective institutions for those able to afford their relatively high net average
price, and less effective, more impersonal, fully online experiences would be
available for the rest who cannot.

A s a historian, I cannot bring myself to believe that the past is pro-

logue; that the future is determined and entirely beyond our ability
to shape. The observations I have made as an industry spectator, one-
time investor, and sometimes institutional leader also point in a more opti-
mistic direction. Essays in this issue of Dædalus show how the choices made
by individual faculty members about how to engage in teaching and learning
have a profound and significant impact on their students’ outcomes.63 At the
institutional level, too, we all know of colleges and universities that have bent
predicted outcomes for their historically underserved student populations,
in some cases even eliminating pervasive attainment gaps between Brown,
Black, and White and between rich and poor. These institutions are aligning

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countless individual choices behind deliberately chosen strategic goals pur-
sued by leaders who are competent in change management approaches that
work in their sectors.64 Finally, we can point to education public policies that
show promise in altering the course of our future. In Tennessee and Ohio, for
example, we see state governments that have designed and implemented poli-
cy regimes that lessen the degree of difficulty entailed for universities and col-
leges in their pursuit of more equitable outcomes. And while it is too soon
to know the impact of various “promise” initiatives that tilt toward access to
higher education that carries low or even no tuition cost for students (such as
the Tennessee Promise Program), it is reasonable to claim that they reflect in-
tentional policy choices designed to alter the path we are on and blend inter-
est in greater social equity with workforce development goals.65

While none of this constitutes a solid evidence base, it does at least suggest
that the future of higher education may be ours to shape; that the choices we
make for ourselves, our institutions, and our public policies will determine the
trajectory of higher education and its social impacts. Given the direction we ap-
pear to be headed, now is a good time for us to review those choices and think
carefully about where they will lead our industry and with what impacts on our
society. Now is a good time to engage deliberately (and with a view ultimately to
aligned action) in a conversation about the future of undergraduate education.

about the author

Daniel I. Greenstein is Chancellor of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher
Education. He previously led the Postsecondary Success strategy at the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation and served as Vice Provost for Academic Planning
and Programs for the California State University System. He is a contributing
author to The History of the University of Oxford, Volume XVIII: The Twentieth Century
(ed. B. H. Harrison, 1994) and the author of A Historian’s Guide to Computing
(1994) and Modelling Historical Data: Towards a Standard for Encoding and Exchanging
Machine-Readable Texts (1991).

endnotes

1 U.S. Census Bureau, Current Population Survey Tables for Personal Income, “PINC-
03. Educational Attainment-People 25 Years Old and Over, by Total Money Earn-
ings, Work Experience, Age, Race, Hispanic Origin, and Sex” (Washington, D.C.:
U.S. Census Bureau, 2018).

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2 Anthony P. Carnevale, Tamara Jayasyndera, and Artem Gulish, America’s Divided
Recovery: College Haves and Have-Nots, 2016 (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown Univer-
sity Center on Education and the Workforce, 2016), 1, https://1gyhoq479ufd3y
na29x7ubjn-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/Americas-Divided
-Recovery-web.pdf.

3 Kevin Carey, The End of College: Creating the Future of Learning and the University of Ev-
erywhere (New York: Riverhead Books, 2015); and Commission on Creating the
Next in Education, Deliberate Innovation, Lifetime Education (Atlanta: Georgia Insti-
tute of Technology, 2018), http://www.provost.gatech.edu/commission-creating
-next-education.

4 Anthony P. Carnevale, Jeff Strohl, Neil Ridley, and Artem Gulish, Three Educational
Pathways to Good Jobs: High School, Middle Skills, and Bachelor’s Degree (Atlanta: Georgia
Institute of Technology, 2018), 10, https://1gyhoq479ufd3yna29x7ubjn-wpengine
.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/3ways-FR.pdf; and Pennsylvania’s State Sys-
tem of Higher Education, Executive Memo: Key Findings from Pennsylvania’s State System’s
Workforce Needs Assessment, 2016–2026 (Harrisburg: Pennsylvania’s State System of
Higher Education, Office of the Chancellor, 2016), 1, https://public.analytics.oei
.passhe.edu/StateSystemEdHub/Insights/WorkforceNeedsAssessment/Pennsyl
vania-Workforce-Needs-Assessment-Memo.pdf.

5 U.S. Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, “Unemployment Rate 2.1 Per-
cent for College Grads, 4.3 Percent for High School Grads in April 2018,” TED:
The Economics Daily, May 10, 2018, https://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/2018/unem
ployment-rate-2-1-percent-for-college-grads-4-3-percent-for-high-school-grads-in
-april-2018.htm?view_full.

6 Jennifer Ma, Sandy Baum, Matea Pender, and Meredith Welch, Trends in College Pricing

2017 (New York: The College Board, 2017), 4.

7 Both Cal Grants and PHEA grants are need-based and may be used at accredited public
and private colleges and universities. See California Student Aid Commission, “Cal
Grants Programs,” https://www.csac.ca.gov/cal-grants; and Pennsylvania Higher
Education Assistance Agency, “Pennsylvania State Grant Program,” http://www
.pheaa.org/funding-opportunities/state-grant-program/index.shtml.

8 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 317.10. Degree-Granting Postsec-
ondary Institutions, by Control and Level of Institution: Selected Years, 1949–50
through 2016–17,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_317.10
.asp; and National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 317.20. Degree-Grant-
ing Postsecondary Institutions, by Control and Classification of Institution and
State or Jurisdiction: 2016–17,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/
dt17_317.20.asp.

9 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 303.10. Total Fall Enrollment in
Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions, by Attendance Status, Sex of Stu-
dent, and Control of Institution: Selected Years, 1947 through 2023,” https://nces
.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_303.10.asp.

10 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 302.10. Recent High School Com-
pleters and their Enrollment in College, by Sex and Level of Institution: 1960
through 2016,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d17/tables/dt17_302.10.asp.

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11 George B. Vaughan, The Community College in America: A Short History (Washington,

D.C.: American Association of Junior and Community Colleges, 1982).

12 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 303.50. Total Fall Enrollment in De-
gree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions, by Level of Enrollment, Control and
Level of Institution, Attendance Status, and Age of Student: 2016,” https://nces
.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_303.50.asp; and National Center for
Education Statistics, “Table 302.10.”

13 Dorothy E. Finnegan, Opportunity Knocked: The Origins of Contemporary Comprehensive
Colleges and Universities (Boston: New England Resource Center for Higher Edu-
cation, 1991), http://scholarworks.umb.edu/nerche_pubs/6; and Vaughan, The
Community College in America.

14 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 303.25. Total Fall Enrollment in De-
gree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions, by Control and Level of Institution: 1970
through 2015,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_303.25.asp.
15 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 317.40. Number of Degree-Granting
Postsecondary Institutions and Enrollment in These Institutions, by Enrollment
Size, Control, and Classification of Institution: Fall 2015,” https://nces.ed.gov/
programs/digest/d16/tables/dt16_317.40.asp.
16 Ma et al., Trends in College Pricing 2017, Figure 2.
17 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 305.40. Acceptance Rates; Number
of Applications, Admissions, and Enrollees; and Enrollees’ SAT and ACT Scores for
Degree-Granting Postsecondary Institutions with First-Year Undergraduates, by
Control and Level of Institution: 2016–17,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/
d17/tables/dt17_305.40.asp.

18 Definitions from Scott C. Beardsley, Higher Calling: The Rise of Non-Traditional Leaders

in Academia (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2017).

19 The Pell Institute and PennAHEAD, Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United
States: 2018 Historical Trend Report (Washington, D.C.: The Pell Institute, 2018), STS
Figure 4.

20 Jennifer Ma, Sandy Baum, Matea Pender, and C. J. Libassi, Trends in College Pricing 2018

(New York: The College Board, 2018).

21 National Center for Education Statistics, “Table 315.30: Percentage Distribution of
Full-Time Faculty and Instructional Staff in Degree-Granting Postsecondary In-
stitutions, by Level and Control of Institution, Selected Instruction Activities, and
Number of Classes Taught for Credit: Fall 2003,” https://nces.ed.gov/programs/
digest/d15/tables/dt15_315.30.asp.

22 The Delphi Project on the Changing Faculty and Student Success, National Trends for
Faculty Composition Over Time (Los Angeles: Pullias Center for Higher Education, 2013),
https://pullias.usc.edu/download/national-trends-faculty-composition-time/.
23 Doug Shapiro, Afet Dundar, Faye Huie, et al., A National View of Student Attainment
Rates by Race and Ethnicity–Fall 2010 Cohort (Herndon, Va.: National Student Clear-
inghouse Research Center, 2017). “Nationally, 54.8 percent of students who start-
ed in any type of college or university in Fall 2010 completed a degree or certificate

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within six years. When examined by race and ethnicity, Asian and white students
had a much higher completion rate (63.2 percent and 62.0 percent, respectively)
than Hispanic and black students (45.8 percent and 38.0 percent, respectively).”
24 Caroline Hoxby and Sarah Turner, “Expanding College Opportunities for
High-Achieving, Low-Income Students,” Stanford Institute for Economic Policy
Research Discussion Paper No. 12-014 (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford Institute for Eco-
nomic Policy Research, 2013).

25 Raj Chetty, John N. Friedman, Emmanuel Saez, et al., “Mobility Report Cards: The
Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility,” NBER Working Paper No. 23618
(Cambridge, Mass.: National Bureau of Economic Research, 2017), nontechnical
summary, 1, http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/documents/.

26 Segments are based on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Educa-

tion, http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/.

27 Thomas B. Edsall, “The Reproduction of Privilege,” The New York Times, March 12,

2012.

28 National Commission on Excellence in Education, A Nation at Risk: The Imperative for
Educational Reform (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 1983).
29 Commission on the Future of Higher Education, A Test of Leadership: Charting the Fu-
ture of U.S. Higher Education (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Higher Educa-
tion, 2006).

30 Martha Snyder, Driving Better Outcomes: Typology and Principles to Inform Outcomes-Based
Funding Models (Washington, D.C.: HCM Strategists, 2015); and Martha Snyder and
Brian Fox, Driving Better Outcomes: Fiscal Year 2016 State Status Update and Typology Re-
port (Washington, D.C.: HCM Strategists, 2016).

31 See National Association of Colleges and Employers, “Are College Graduates ‘Career
Ready’?” February 19, 2018, from https://www.naceweb.org/career-readiness/
competencies/are-college-graduates-career-ready/.

32 William J. Baumol and William G. Bowen, Performing Arts, the Economic Dilemma: A
Study of Problems Common to Theater, Opera, Music, and Dance (Cambridge, Mass.: The
MIT Press, 1966). The impact of the disease is central to the thesis in David H. Feld-
man and Robert B. Archibald, Why Does College Cost So Much? (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 2014).

33 State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, State Higher Education Finance:
FY 2017 (Boulder, Colo.: State Higher Education Executive Officers Association,
2017).

34 Nathan D. Grawe, Demographics and the Demand for Higher Education (Baltimore: Johns

Hopkins University Press, 2018).

35 In 1989, federal regulations first required accreditors to assess student learning out-
comes. See Peter T. Ewell, Accreditation and Student Learning Outcomes: A Proposed Point
of Departure (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 2001), https://
files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED469482.pdf.

36 Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Cam-

puses (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011).

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37 Scott Carlson and Goldie Blumenstyk, “Why the College Degree Is a Signal–and Why
That Should Worry You,” Chronicle of Higher Education, March 19, 2019, https://
www.chronicle.com/article/Why-the-College-Degree-Is-a/245923.

38 See Elizabeth A. Armstrong and Laura T. Hamilton, Paying for the Party: How College
Maintains Inequality (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015); Mitch-
ell Stevens, Creating a Class: College Admissions and the Education of Elites (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007); and Sara Goldrick-Rabb, Paying the Price:
College Costs, Financial Aid, and the Betrayal of the American Dream (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2016).

39 Hoxby and Turner, “Expanding College Opportunities for High-Achieving, Low-

Income Students.”

40 Scott Freeman, Sarah L. Eddy, Miles McDonough, et al., “Active Learning Increases
Student Performance in Science, Engineering, and Mathematics,” Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences 11 (23) (2014): 8410–8415.

41 David C. Haak, Janneke Hille Ris Lambers, Emile Pitre, and Scott Freeman, “In-
creased Structure and Active Learning Reduce the Achievement Gap in Introduc-
tory Biology,” Science 332 (6034) (2011); and Sarah L. Eddy and Kelly A. Hogan,
“Getting Under the Hood: How and for Whom Does Increasing Course Structure
Work?” CBE–Life Sciences Education 13 (3) (2014): 453–468.

42 David Britt Lundell and Jeanne L. Higbee, eds., Histories of Developmental Education
(Minneapolis: The Center for Research on Developmental Education and Urban
Literacy, 2002), 16, http://www.cehd.umn.edu/crdeul/pdf/monograph/2-a.pdf;
and David Arendale, “Then and Now: The Early Years of Developmental Educa-
tion,” Research and Teaching in Developmental Education 18 (2) (2002): 5–23.

43 Sixty-four percent of White, 78 percent of Black, 75 percent of Hispanic, and 68 per-
cent of Asian students enroll in developmental education courses. Among those
who enroll, 25 percent of White, 19 percent of Black, 19 percent of Hispanic, and
29 percent of Asian students graduate. See Elizabeth Ganga, Amy Mazzariello, and
Nikki Edgecombe, Developmental Education: An Introduction for Policymakers (Denver,
Colo.: Education Commission of the States and Center for the Analysis of Postsec-
ondary Readiness, 2018).

44 Oliver Schak, Ivan Metzger, Jared Bass, et al., Developmental Education Challenges and
Strategies for Reform (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education, 2017); and
Elizabeth Zachry Rutschow and Emily Schneider, Unlocking the Gates: What We Know
about Improving Developmental Education (New York: MDRC, 2011).

45 Clive Belfield, Davis Jenkins, and Hana Lahr, “Is Corequisite Remediation Cost-
Effective? Early Findings From Tennessee,” CCRC Research Brief 62 (2016), https://
ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/media/k2/attachments/corequisite-remediation-cost
-effective-tennessee.pdf.

46 Robert Zemsky and Lisa Banning, Checklist for Change: Making Higher Education a Sus-
tainable Enterprise (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 2013); and Rob-
ert Zemsky, Gregory R. Wegner, and Ann J. Duffield, Making Sense of the College Cur-
riculum: Faculty Stories of Change, Conflict, and Accommodation (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 2018).

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148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein

47 Thomas Bailey, “Equity and Guided Pathways: Which Practices Help, Which Hurt,
and What We Don’t Know,” The Mixed Methods Blog, March 12, 2018, https://
ccrc.tc.columbia.edu/blog/equity-guided-pathways-directors-column.html.
48 Completion by Design, https://www.completionbydesign.org/s/; Thomas Bailey,
Shanna Smith Jaggars, and Davis Jenkins, Redesigning America’s Community Colleges:
A Clearer Path to Student Success (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2015);
and Community College Research Center, “The Movement Toward Pathways”
(New York: Community College Resource Center, Teachers College, Columbia
University, 2015), https://www.aacc.nche.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/The
MovementTowardPathways.pdf.

49 Bailey et al., Redesigning America’s Community Colleges; and American Association of
Community Colleges, “AACC Pathways Project,” https://www.aacc.nche.edu/
programs/aacc-pathways-project/.

50 Davis Jenkins, Hana Lahr, John Fink, and Elizabeth Ganga, What We Are Learning about
Guided Pathways (New York: Community College Resource Center, Teachers Col-
lege, Columbia University, 2018).

51 Adrianna Kezar, How Colleges Change: Understanding, Leading and Enacting Change (New

York: Routledge, 2018).

52 Hyperbolic claims for the potential in online learning reached their peak in 2012,
the year Massive Open Online Courses captured the imagination of the industry.
Laura Pappano, “The Year of the MOOC,” The New York Times, November 2, 2012,
https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/04/education/edlife/massive-open-online
-courses-are-multiplying-at-a-rapid-pace.html.

53 Pell Institute and PennAHEAD, Indicators of Higher Education Equity in the United States,

STS Figure 4.

54 Daniel Greenstein, interview with Wayne Smutz and Yvonne Gaudelius, Penn State,
Borough of State College, Pennsylvania, August 20, 2009; and Daniel Greenstein,
interview with Javier Miyares, August 31, 2009.

55 Daniel Greenstein, interview with Nick Burbulis, August 20, 2009. In 2009, several
other high-profile failures were on their way, most notably at the University of
California. See William G. Bowen and Eugene M. Tobin, The Locus of Authority: The
Evolution of Faculty Roles in the Governance of Higher Education (Princeton, N.J.: Prince-
ton University Press, 2015).

56 Daniel Greenstein, interview with David Bickford and Christy Moreno, University

of Phoenix, Tempe, Arizona, September 11, 2009.

57 See the annual reports of the Babson Survey Research Group from 2002 to 2016,
available at Babson Survey Research Group, “Higher Education Reports,” https://
www.onlinelearningsurvey.com/highered.html. See also I. Elaine Allen and Jeff
Seaman, Digital Learning Compass: Distance Education Enrollment Report 2017 (Babson
Park, Mass.: Babson Survey Research Group, e-Literate, and WCET, 2017), https://
onlinelearningsurvey.com/reports/digtiallearningcompassenrollment2017.pdf.
58 This is the classic definition of disruption as introduced in Clayton M. Christensen,
The Innovator’s Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
(New York: Harper Business, 2011).

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Dædalus, the Journal of the American Academy of Arts & SciencesWill Differences across Sectors Exacerbate Inequality?

59 Hans Johnson and Marisol Cuellar Mejia, Online Learning and Student Outcomes in Cal-
ifornia’s Community Colleges (San Francisco: Public Policy Institute of California,
2014), http://www.sheeo.org/sites/default/files/SHEF_FY2017.pdf.

60 Allison Bailey, Nithya Vaduganathan, Tyce Henry, et al., Making Digital Learning
Work: Success Strategies from Six Leading Universities and Colleges (Boston: Boston Con-
sulting Group, 2018), Exhibits 2, 3, 6, https://edplus.asu.edu/what-we-do/making
-digital-learning-work.

61 Ibid.
62 Louise Yarnall, Barbara Means, and Tallie Wetzel, Lessons Learned from Early Imple-
mentations of Adaptive Courseware (Menlo Park, Calif.: SRI Education, 2016), https://
www.sri.com/sites/default/files/brochures/almap_final_report.pdf.

63 Harry Brighouse, “Becoming a Better College Teacher (If You’re Lucky),” Dædalus
148 (4) (Fall 2019); Sally G. Hoskins, “CREATE a Revolution in Undergraduates’
Understanding of Science: Teach through Close Analysis of Scientific Literature,”
Dædalus 148 (4) (Fall 2019); Sylvia Hurtado, “‘Now Is the Time’: Civic Learning
for a Strong Democracy,” Dædalus 148 (4) (Fall 2019); Jennifer M. Morton, “Mit-
igating Ethical Costs in the Classroom,” Dædalus 148 (4) (Fall 2019); and Benja-
min Castleman and Katharine Meyer, “Financial Constraints & Collegiate Student
Learning: A Behavioral Economics Perspective,” Dædalus 148 (4) (Fall 2019). See
also Freeman et al., “Active Learning Increases Student Performance in Science,
Engineering, and Mathematics.”

64 See David Kirp, “The College Drop Out Scandal,” The Chronicle Review, July 26, 2019,
https://www.chronicle.com/interactives/20190726-dropout-scandal?utm_
source=at&utm_medium=en&cid=at.

65 Tiffany Jones and Katie Berger, A Promise Fulfilled: A Framework for Equitable Free Col-
lege Programs (Washington, D.C.: The Education Trust, 2018), https://s3-us-east-2
.amazonaws.com/edtrustmain/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/05155636/A-Promise
-Fulfilled-A-Framework-for-Equitable-Free-College-Programs-9.6-18.pdf.

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148 (4) Fall 2019Daniel I. Greenstein
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