Institutions of higher education are becoming increasingly "market- oriented" and less focused on the quality of education they provide, according to a report published by The Futures Project, a higher education research group, on Feb. 17.
"There are so many things about higher education that are so critical to the way that society functions," said Lara K. Couturier, Futures Project interim principal investigator. "Our main purpose is to look at how we can ensure that in the market those public purposes are not lost."
The report, titled "Correcting Course: How We Can Restore the Ideals of Public Higher Education in a Market-Driven Era," is a conclusive evaluation of five-and-a-half years of higher education research and policy analysis at the Futures Project.
The group researched trends in institutions of higher education of all types -- private and public, two-year and four-year, nationally and globally.
The report suggests that the growing trend of higher education institutions pushing for autonomy typically reserved for private institutions -- including the charter initiative in Virginia -- indicates a problem in higher education.
In reference to more autonomy for public institutions, Couturier said she believed that more autonomy is good, but institutions need to be held accountable for their performances.
"Any autonomy needs to be coupled very closely with accountability for performance, and that can't be written in very vague terms," Couturier said. "There should be something very specific and measurable that institutions can be held accountable for."
The report calls for a new contract between higher education and the public, which would provide the state control over the missions of schools and give states the ability to hold institutions accountable for living up to that mission.
The Futures Project also recommended in its report that institutions and state governments address the need to move away from business-oriented practices and toward being accountable for providing quality education for all students.
The University embraces accountability measures and is currently working with Virginia legislators and the governor's office on an agreement, University Spokesperson Carol Wood said.
"There are strong accountability measures in what we're doing [in the restructuring legislation] and what we're trying to negotiate," Wood said. "We had them written into the legislation from the very beginning because we felt that it's important to be accountable to the citizens of the Commonwealth."
The problem, according to the report, is that schools are more concerned with the business aspects of their institutions than with providing quality education for the public.
"They are engaging in competitive behavior that is more like a market than it has ever been," Couturier said. "In the past, colleges and universities operated more in the public interest and they didn't focus so much on the revenues and the rankings, like U.S. News and World Report and building facilities."
According to the report, there is a large gap between what institutions practice and what they preach. Concerned more with reputation, institutions are spending more money on lavish facilities, which does little to provide more access and help for students in need. Rather, such spending attracts donations, athletic championships and high rankings.
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