Business as Usual In Higher Education Is Over – Rethink the Future at SUNYCON

The State University of New York developed the Critical Issues in Higher Education conference series to create a dynamic forum for conversations about the status and future of higher education among society’s stakeholders, including scholars; higher education leaders; business, industry, and philanthropic leaders; and policymakers. As the largest comprehensive system of higher education in the United States, SUNY takes seriously its role in facilitating the idea that exploration empowers colleges and universities to master the challenges of delivering high-quality, affordable education in the 21st century.

In 2011, we discussed the role of higher education as an economic driver. The next year, we highlighted how harnessing ‘systemness’ can maximize our resources to deliver performance. In 2013, big data and all its potential for higher education took center stage. Last year, we looked at the themes of driving through collective impact.

At SUNYCON 2015, we are going to explore some of today’s most pressing questions through the theme: Building a New Business Model for the Academy: Partnerships, Affiliations, Mergers & Acquisitions.

It’s a timely topic. Earlier this summer, Jeffrey Selingo of The Washington Post asked, “How many colleges and universities do we really need?” Many systems and institutions find themselves in the midst of major restructuring and consolidations, struggling to meet the demands of increasingly diverse students, performance-focused governments, and employers in the private sector. However, some systems and institutions, including SUNY, are taking these challenges head-on, reinventing themselves in innovative and disruptive ways that promote success for students, communities, and employers alike.

In January 2015, Chancellor Nancy L. Zimpher announced an ambitious goal for SUNY: we will increase the number of degrees awarded annually from 93,000 to 150,000 by 2020. To support all of our campuses in pursuit of that goal, we have pooled our state resources into a $100 million Investment and Performance Fund which will allow us to reward innovative proposals to take evidence-based programs to scale and replicate them across our campuses. Some examples include:

• Making sure a student has the opportunity to engage in an applied learning or internship experience, which is proven to shorten time to degree and, more importantly, help them get a job after graduation.
• Expanding our Educational Opportunity Programs currently at 43 campuses, which provide access, academic support, and financial aid to at-risk students who show the promise to succeed in college but who may not have otherwise been offered admission. The six-year baccalaureate graduation rate of 65% for EOP students exceeds the national rate of 56% for all students in public institutions.
• Scaling up our system-wide online education platform – Open SUNY – which will reach the nearly 7 million adult New Yorkers without a degree and help students throughout the system get the courses they need, when they need them, to complete their degree on time.
• Expanding access to the QUANTWAY/STATWAY remedial pathways, which are showing double and triple the success rate in getting students into credit-bearing coursework in half the time.

This approach will work hand in hand with our “SUNY Excels” performance management system which has begun tracking improvement in 17 metrics in the areas of access, completion, success, inquiry, and engagement. We look forward to sharing the lessons learned in developing these programs across the SUNY System as well as to find opportunities to adapt the best practices of our colleagues across the academy and in other sectors.

Rising costs of attendance, demands for efficiency, and increased attention to return on investment are forcing higher education to rethink its path forward. Today’s environment seems perilous, but it’s also promising. This is an opportunity to take the current business model characterized by credit-hour tuition, high overhead costs, research-driven faculty and enrollment-based funding and redefine it by using a flourishing online sector and flexible faculty to translate the increasingly diverse needs of various stakeholders, most importantly students, into a credential that holds undeniable value.

As in years past, SUNYCON 2015 will provide opportunities for diverse perspectives of leaders from a wide range of business sectors about actionable solutions to tackling some of the greatest challenges facing higher education today. Register for SUNYCON and be part of the discussion.

Who will be present?

Learn more about SUNYCON 2015 and register today!