What Success in Higher Education Really Means

I spent last Thursday and Friday in my former home town of Indianapolis testifying at the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Some very interesting discussions focused on what higher education quality really means. Which made me look back to the article the Washington Post ran last week reporting that that Stephen Joel Trachtenberg, the President of George Washington University, will be stepping down after nearly 20 years on the job. It's worth giving their top-line summary of his accomplishments a careful read:

"During his time as the 15th president of GWU, the school grew physically, financially and in academic reputation. The endowment is nearly $1 billion, almost $800 million more than when Trachtenberg arrived in 1988; undergraduate applications have jumped from 6,000 to more than 20,000 annually (moving it from the ranks of a "safe" school to one that many students now worry about gaining admission to); and a number of the school's programs have climbed in national rankings. In 2004, there were 10,556 undergraduates.

The city's largest private employer, GWU under Trachtenberg also opened the first new hospital in the District in 25 years, created five new schools and elevated athletics.

"He made the school much more national in scope and impression, upgraded the faculty and bettered the tone of the school for everyone," said Charles Manatt, a lawyer and board of trustees chairman."

First, I want to be clear that I have no reason to think that Stephen Trachtenberg is anything other than a very good president, nor that GW is anything other than a very good school.

But it's telling to observe the terms under which the success for institutional leaders in higher education is defined. To summarize, Trachtenberg did a great job of increasing the institution's wealth, exclusivity, and reputation (as gauged by the academic credentials of its faculty), as well as expanding the physical plant.

Nowhere is there a mention of how much better a job GW did in educating its students under Trachtenberg or helping them earn degrees, how much more they learned or how increasingly successful they were as they moved on into further education, the workforce, and their lives.

I'm not saying none of those things happened. But they aren't mentioned, for the simple reason that nobody really knows if they happened or not. Colleges and universities gather and make available virtually no information about the learning outcomes of their students.

Thus, institutions aren't judged on student outcomes. They're judged on the aforementioned measures of wealth, exclusivity, and reputation, which (not coincidentally) are the primary drivers of the rankings published by the likes of U.S. News and World Report. The most succesful higher education leaders--and Trachtenberg seems to have been quite successful--understand these rules of the game and play them well.

Inevitably, this has the effect of marginalizing student success when it comes to institutional priorities and resources. Successful university presidents must raise a lot money, increase the applicant pool, and attract star faculty. They can take steps to improve the quality of teaching and learning. This distinction between mandatory and optional priorities makes a huge difference, generally not to the benefit of undergraduates.