10-17-2024
Higher education is at a crossroads. The research and graduates produced by leading universities have never been more central to determining the economic vitality of our nation. And yet, public skepticism about higher education’s value and direction threatens to undermine support in legislatures and discourage many students whose lives would be positively transformed by a college education.
As economists with more than a quarter-century of higher education leadership as Deans and Provost at Purdue University, we set out to address these issues through a weekly newsletter, Finding Equilibrium: Two Economists on Higher Ed’s Future. We provide research-informed, data-forward, and solutions-oriented writing on higher education’s present and future. We get below the headlines and probe the essence of key issues facing higher education.
Our initial posts have taken on the question of higher education’s value, including: the wage premium college graduates command (it’s big); the severe and growing challenges faced by high school graduates (it’s bad); college graduates working jobs that don’t appear to need a college degree (it's real but exaggerated); and the student loan crisis (it’s a decades-old legacy of bad policy and for-profit colleges ripping off students, but far less relevant to the vast majority of today’s students).
Our upcoming posts will tackle the gap between what employers say they want from college graduates, and what universities prepare students to do. We diagnose the root causes of the problem, and offer solutions we know from experience to be feasible.
In future posts, we’ll tackle emerging challenges of globalization and changing technology and how universities need to respond to better prepare their students. We’ll address the cost problem in higher education, and the pros and cons of various solutions. We’ll talk about experiments to improve the university-industry interface so that university research is more relevant and college graduates are better prepared for a successful career. We’ll offer case studies, summarize interesting research, and get into the gritty details of how universities can make things better.
Our goal is to reach university leaders, policymakers and non-profits concerned with education, firms and organizations who rely on universities for research and employees, students and their families, and anyone interested in learning how higher education can be improved to transform society for the better.
Jay Akridge is the trustee chair in teaching and learning excellence and a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. He served from 2017-2022 as Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Diversity at Purdue, leading the office responsible for the overall academic strategy, faculty-related matters, teaching and learning, student life, enrollment management, engagement, and diversity, inclusion, and belonging.
David Hummels is a Distinguished Professor of Economics and Research Associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He served as Dean of the Mitch Daniels School of Business at Purdue from 2014-2023 and has worked as a consultant for and visiting scholar at a wide variety of central banks, development banks and policy institutes around the world.
