2018 Predictions for Higher Education
December 3, 2018
The American system of higher education is an anomaly. Its origins were humble at first– a loose assortment of parochial 19th century liberal arts colleges that emerged to become the dominant system in the world. Higher education in the US has learned how to survive and thrive in a highly competitive market surpassing its European forbearers in credibility.
Today, higher education is undergoing major changes. It seems as if higher education is constantly under attack from the public and legislators. Here are some predictions that will help you cope with the future.
More mergers of smaller schools and more closures of universities
This is occurring around the US with the rate of closures growing every year. Smaller private independent schools will become increasingly unable to remain financially viable. They have already cut programs and had buyouts of faculty and staff. The inability of small colleges to increase their revenue will result in triple the number of closures in the coming years, a new Moody’s report estimates.
This could lead as many as 15 institutions a year to shut their doors for good by 2018.
It seems as if higher education is constantly under attack from the public and legislators.
The 10-year average for college closures is five annually. So far this year five public and thirty-three private independent colleges/universities have closed. Moody’s cautions that even as closures are predicted to rise, the number will remain less than 1 percent of some 2,300 existing nonprofit colleges. Meanwhile, the number of mergers is predicted to double, reaching four to six a year, up from the 10-year average of two
to three a year.
Public Outrage
The public will become even more concerned about the cost of higher education. Parents are beginning to question the value of paying 50K a year for their child to get a 35K a year job as a teacher. We are beginning to see there is price elasticity in higher education. A recent study of California higher education revealed the public to be more concerned about the cost of education than the quality of education.
Online Education will be increasingly globally.
Competition between online and traditional programs will intensify. It started with the massive open online course (MOOC) and was feared that all education would be free. While that fad did not work out the way it was proclaimed, it did increase the number of online offerings by universities.
The market for micro credentials and boot camps will grow
Just as we are all now ‘sound bite’ listeners and viewers, the public is becoming more sensitive to the length of time and the cost to obtain education. These one-year or less ‘credentials’ or a certificate will intrude on degree programs offered.
Healthcare programs will continue to significantly outpace the market in enrollment growth
Demographics are going to prove this true. More people are aging faster than any other age group. Thus, micro-credentials in healthcare will become more popular.
Successful integration of new and existing technology will be key (big data).
Higher Education will need to enhance the role of data mining from the information they have in-house already and view it as a tool to sustainability. This is a step to assist in future growth.
Academic technology and network security are the top anticipated tech spending areas. (The rate of data breaches doubled for higher education in the first half of 2017 over the entire year of 2016). Also, look for a renewed push to overturn the law that prevents the release of student-level earnings outcomes—and opposition by privacy advocates to any such effort.
Reduction of tax benefits
Higher education is second only to Health Care in the total amount of assets held by all non-profit organizations. This increases Internal Revenue Service (IRS) attention on higher education. The amount of all tax benefits is approximately 3 B dollars and strangely enough, the cost of federal government health care programs is, guess what? – 3 B dollars.
More Unfunded Compliance Costs
On the policy front, higher education officials continue to prepare for a greater level of accountability around access and outcomes, with states and the federal government, as well as the general public, demanding more transparency in data related to how graduates are faring out in the world. Campus finance administrators will continue their intense examination of expenses by identifying and encouraging others across campus to come up with more efficient ways of getting the job done. This transparency comes with a price tag attached to it without a check to cover the costs of increasing compliance by universities.
Don’t count on your endowment
On the revenue side of the budget fence, hopes are high for endowment and advancement income increases in 2017 and beyond. This is purely speculative – gazing into the crystal ball of stock market behavior is growth by chance and is dependent upon a global economy. In addition, the federal government is proposing a tax on the largest endowments.
Stop Building
Be wary of the ‘buildings binge’. One university has added 600,000 square feet of space but still has the same number of students on campus as they did ten years ago. Long-term debt in face of an uncertain future is not a wise course to follow. Rising deferred maintenance on existing buildings will continue to plague universities. Parking will continue to be problematic – 36% of facilities leaders say parking will become a bigger problem next year
Spending more per student that is covered by tuition increases.
Craig Lindwarm, director of congressional and governmental affairs for the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), points out that over the last several years, public four-year schools have spent more per student than is covered by tuition increases. Say folks, it does not take an accountant to determine this is not the way to proceed. So, what is the answer in light of foreseeable funding cuts by States who no longer value higher education in the same light as was done in the past?
More Grade Cards:
Accrediting agencies are under pressure to conduct more rigorous evaluations.
The Department of Education officially stripped the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools – the largest accrediting agency of for-profit colleges and universities – of its authority in December 2017, handing down the final blow in a long controversy over the council’s ability to be an effective watchdog for students and billions of taxpayer dollars.
Notably, also in December 2017, a group of Senators introduced a bill that would increase the federal role in college accreditation by giving the Department of Education the authority to terminate or fine accreditors that fail to do their jobs.
Accrediting agencies are being more aggressive, more schools are being placed on the watch list by the agencies and some have had their accreditation revoked.
Affordability:
It’s shaping up to be a good year for private universities, as they are projected to eclipse their public counterparts in tuition revenue growth for the first time in more than a decade, Moody’s Investors Service said in a report in December 2017.
“Sector-wide, tuition revenue growth is subdued for both publics and privates, but publics are under more
pressure because of a lot of affordability initiatives that have been implemented statewide, a decline in
international students and the rise of dual enrollment programs,” said Christopher Collins, assistant vice
president at Moody’s.
Jump on the International education bandwagon:
2018 is expected to be the year of transnational education (TNE), with 20 international branch campuses currently being developed, adding to the global count of 249 campuses worldwide.
Law schools are in deep trouble
Fewer students are going to law school and fewer graduates are obtaining the jobs that they went to law school to get. During the past decade, the number of law schools increased by 9 percent, to 204, according to Moody’s, while the number of new students hit its lowest number since 1973, when there were just 151 law schools
So, we have more law schools and fewer students are choosing law as a career.
Funding:
States might want to get out of the business of higher education, but most public institutions still depend on taxpayer dollars.
Viewed by legislators as a necessary but not critical funding in comparison to other funding requests. Higher education may have to carry more of the load with limited funds for distribution by the legislature.
Nothing new here, except that state funding will continue to decrease. There will be a breaking point. Universities can only go so far with the ‘do more with less’ mentality. There is little or no organized lobbying effort for higher education. NACUBO cannot help with increasing funding from the States. They have not done it and will not be able to do it without more broad based support assistance from other sources – and that will not be the public, the parents, or the students. News articles describing the presence of greed and fraud, huge buyouts, resulting in student protest show higher education in a less than favorable light.
The cost of compliance will continue to increase.
The issue is important because universities and colleges have said that government regulation is among the reasons their tuition continue to increase. Other news items indicate hiring of administrators exceeds that of faculty – a direct result of increased compliance requirements.
One senator, Democrat Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, has called for a commitment that, in exchange for relief from these rules, they will lower their prices accordingly. So, she’s saying, fewer rules should equal lower prices in higher education. Interesting line of thought but not directly related to the quality of education.
Higher discount rates in the future
On May 15, 2017, the National Association of Colleges and University Business Officers (NACUBO) released its annual Tuition Discounting Study (TDS) for 2016. According to the study, the tuition discount rate for private institutions of higher education surpassed all previous predictions, rising to an estimated 49.1% for the 2016-17 academic year for first-time full-time students, increasing from a previous high of 48% in the prior year.
Since 2009, the average tuition discount rate has increased not only for students of private institutions, but for all first-time full-time students at a staggering rate of nearly 10% over the last eight years. The tuition discount rate is unlikely to fall in the future. As the average tuition discount rate continues to grow, it means that net revenue also continues to fall, and that institutions as a result will face even greater challenges of sustainability going forward.
States’ Interest in Outcomes-based Higher Education Funding Grows
A growing number of states have adopted or are seeking to enact outcomes-based funding (OBF) in higher education, which is indicative of the fact that states are grappling with larger issues of funding for higher education in general.
Twice as many states – four – as in the prior year adopted outcomes-based funding in higher education during 2017, and a growing number of state legislatures made an effort to do so but were thwarted.
Outcomes based higher education funding: Is it fair? Concerns are that OBF might favor institutions that are better resourced. Campuses with more financial resources are better able to help students succeed, which means they are more likely to win under these funding models. This also means it is harder for under-resourced campuses to win new money in OBF formulas. As a result, it is possible the rich colleges get richer and poor get poorer.
Decline in the student pipeline to higher education
Nationwide, we are in the midst of a multi-year decline in the number of high school graduates, which began in 2013. This year, however, will see the sharpest single-year decline in the approximately 10-year downturn and is not expected to recover to 2011 levels until 2024.
In 2017 approximately 80,000 fewer high school students graduated, a decline of more than 2%. For institutions who heavily rely on this population of approximately 3.4 million students, this decline will be significant.
Turnover at the top (Community Colleges)
According to data from the League for Innovation in the Community College, the average tenure for a community college president is alarmingly low - just 2.8 years. This figure should raise eyebrows across the enterprise of US higher education because of what it represents. Community colleges, which educate approximately 40% of our nation’s undergraduate students, are also the institutions most susceptible to local and statewide politics given their funding and governance structures. The recycling of leaders at the top of these institutions puts the future of many two-year colleges in jeopardy.
Talk to the ‘Boomers’
The baby boomer generation, which controls an estimated $30 trillion of wealth, began hitting the age of 70.5 in the summer of 2016 - and each day; approximately 10,000 new boomers hit this milestone. IRS rules mandate that individuals begin taking distributions from their retirement savings plans at the age of 70.5
Because many of these distributions will come with a large tax bill, institutional advancement leaders should seize this opportunity with programs and messages specifically targeting these situations. Institutions would be wise to identify specific messages and campaigns to help donors meet their philanthropic goals while also reducing their tax liabilities.
Tax for Higher Education will be different in 2018 and even more so in the future
Expect to see ‘some’ negative financial impact from the tax reform effort. Simply put, it is higher education’s turn in the barrel. Congress will enact laws that will result in more tax being paid by universities. Examples include removing the exemption for revenue from athletic sports, removing the exemption for revenue received from royalties, a special excise tax on large foundations, removal of the student FICA exemption from social security tax and others. The tide has shifted from being an ardent supporter of higher education to one of questioning the value of funding higher education.
States will get on the tax train too
States will begin to tax the income earned in other states by College Coaches. This is already done at the professional level of sports. Cincinnati started it for and the State of Ohio followed suit. With football coaches salaries in the millions of dollars per year, and approximately half of the games of those games played out of state, these would boost state revenue. What does this mean? More state reporting and withholding by the payroll department.
Summary:
Look forward to these changes, adapt to the environment and be sustainable. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? The higher education industry has faced many challenges in the past. Change has caused turmoil and created frustrations, but higher education survived and grown. The face of higher education may change but it has an intrinsic value that cannot be replaced.
The body of higher education is administration
The mind of higher education is the student
The spirit of higher education is academia
About the Author
Steven W. Hoffman
Steven W. Hoffman, is a tax professional with many years of experience and education and is dedicated to providing education and consulting on taxes to colleges, universities and nonprofit organizations. His experience includes 15 years with the...
Read Full Author Bio
Steven W. Hoffman
Steven W. Hoffman, is a tax professional with many years of experience and education and is dedicated to providing education and consulting on taxes to colleges, universities and nonprofit organizations. His experience includes 15 years with the IRS and subsequently has held tax related positions with multiple universities including, George Washington University and The Ohio State University. Steve is editor and publisher of the Tax Update Newsletter for Higher Education, has earned his membership in the National Speakers. Known as the The Tax Translator, he makes tax law easily understood and has been called ‘Tax with Personality’.
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