President Donald Trump has generated a lot of consternation and concern in colleges and universities across the country. His attacks against higher education are taking place at a moment of great vulnerability for many colleges and universities, which are facing the consequences of the demographic cliff, questions about the value of their degrees and loss of trust in their work.
How can universities respond? Staying the course and waiting like sitting ducks does not seem a productive option, particularly given how vulnerable our institutions are.
First, we need to reaffirm and convince the public that we are not partisan institutions by ensuring ideological diversity in our campuses. Second, and related, American democracy is in crisis, and the current climate of polarization and confrontation makes it even more urgent for colleges and universities to play a central role in training citizens for democracy. We must teach our students the intellectual and ethical foundation for democratic citizenship, and train them on how to build communities, how connect self-interest to the public interest, how to engage effectively with others, how to accept legitimate disagreements and how to bridge ideological and cultural divides to address public issues.
Third, we need to be humble and reassert our role in society. For decades most colleges and universities have come to accept the societal expectation that our job is to provide graduates an education to get good jobs and economic security. As long as we could deliver on that expectation students would enroll, and we would prosper. However, more and more we are failing to deliver, as many students fail to graduate, more than half of the graduates end up underemployed and many of them with growing levels of debt.
Rather than committing to providing just professional development and good jobs—something that is not only up to us and we can hardly deliver on—we should also focus on the whole person. Colleges and universities must recommit to our original mission, which was not just job preparation, but rather producing and disseminating knowledge for the purpose of addressing the challenges facing humanity, as well as educating the citizenry and shaping public policy.
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Fourth, we must reach out beyond the gates of our campuses and work with the communities we are part of. Our students must have experiential learning opportunities and work on projects to support our communities, including projects related to the health of America. It has been said that we are facing a crisis of respect from those who feel that they have been left behind, and only by broadening and expanding our reach to them we will be able to close the gap and rebuild trust.
Fifth, colleges and universities must reduce costs by focusing on their core educational mission to ensure access. The cost of tuition has reached unsustainable levels, which makes access to a college education unaffordable for millions of families, and it has played a role in perpetuating inequalities. Colleges and universities should focus more on broadening access to foster social inclusion. This will be crucial to close the existing gap between elites and working-class and address the growing resentment against universities.
Last, while universities should broaden their commitment to diversity and inclusion and continue playing a central role in helping our country become a thriving multiracial and multiethnic democracy, we must ensure that all groups are recognized, that class is also factored in (not just identity), and we should move away from DEI statements that have become a distraction. Universities should also make sure that students learn how to foster social inclusion. We must help heal the divides that have brought us to this moment.
None of this will be easy and it is likely to generate intense debates within our campuses. We must recognize that this is a moment of reckoning for our colleges and universities. It is imperative that we challenge ourselves and accept that change is unavoidable. Trumpism is a real threat for our institutions, but the larger threat is staying the course and becoming even more isolated. If we want to remain relevant and thrive, we must continue contributing to address humanity’s challenges and prioritize the rebirth of our great, if imperfect, democracy. We cannot fail, much is at stake.
