This is the eighth in a series of opinion pieces from leaders around campus on the
role that Michigan Tech innovators will play to define the world’s emerging needs.
On March 11, 2020, while Michigan Technological University students were enjoying
spring break, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a global pandemic.
In an unprecedented effort, Michigan Tech faculty, staff and administration worked
together to move all instruction online, accomplishing in less than a week a feat
that would have previously been dismissed as impossible. While the move to remote
work and learning posed significant challenges, it also showed us that institutions
of higher education can adapt to change quickly if necessary, and that we can achieve
things in remote learning (such as conducting lab and field courses) that seemed previously
out of reach.
In the years since, the only constant in the landscape of higher education has been
change. As soon as we adapt to one challenge, another presents itself. The looming enrollment cliff means we need to rethink recruitment and retention. The increasing ubiquity of artificial
intelligence tools means we need to rethink how we structure assignments and how we
evaluate them. The decreased public confidence in higher education and uncertain geopolitical
situation mean tenure, academic freedom and other foundations of the University are
increasingly tenuous.
These factors paint a dire picture for higher education as a whole in 2035, but they
also present opportunities for institutions like Michigan Tech to emerge as leaders
in the field.
How can Michigan Tech continue to attract and retain top-notch students in the face
of the looming enrollment cliff?
While the national trend in decreasing enrollments was clearly exacerbated in 2020 by the shock of the pandemic, the crisis began more
than a decade ago. Overall enrollments nationwide have been steadily sliding from
their peak of 18.1 million in 2010; they now hover closer to 15 million. While there
is a noted, albeit modest, increase in graduate level enrollments in the same period
— up to 3.2 million nationally — these gains have not been significant enough to offset
the decline in undergraduate enrollment. Adding to the stress is another daunting
fact: The number of high school graduates is about to peak in 2025 at around 3.5 million, then will decline every year for at least the next dozen.
By 2035, the total number of students coming to college from high school will be 10% less than today’s number.
While the overall trends appear negative for higher education as a whole, the picture
is less gloomy for universities like ours, where a focus has long been placed on the
value of a Michigan Tech degree and the return on investment provided to our graduates.
From 1987 to 2022, the relative percentage of degree completions has shifted significantly toward STEM fields. This bodes well for an institution like Michigan Tech, where science, technology,
engineering and math are integrated into all fields of study and all educational pursuits.
For evidence, just look at the College of Business at Michigan Tech, whose mission is to educate “tech-savvy business students, and
business-savvy tech students.” While the enrollment percentage of graduates in business
has declined nationwide from 24.3% in 1987 to 18.6% in 2022, our College of Business
has seen record enrollment growth in the past four years, even in the throes of the
pandemic.
How can Michigan Tech remain resilient in the face of geopolitical and economic challenges?
Shared governance has taken the spotlight recently in the United States, with front-page
articles in The New York Times and elsewhere questioning the power of faculty in the overall governance of public
higher education — particularly when faculty become engaged in culture wars on campus.
Despite political scrutiny across the nation from state legislators in places such
as Arizona, Kentucky, Wisconsin and Florida, the tradition of shared governance is
still recognized as a foundational pillar of higher education. In light of other pressures, like changes to economic funding models and the inevitable
demographic cliff, the question of public confidence in a tradition that dates back
to medieval times becomes all the more pressing for institutional growth and survival.
Society demands a college’s reason for existence be in service of the greater public
mission. While other institutions have deviated from this core mission and have thus
struggled to sail against the headwinds of declining enrollments and public sentiment,
Michigan Tech has taken a different tack. In recent years, our University Senate has
renewed its focus on innovative and responsive academic, instructional and curricular
policies, all of which support our stated institutional mission to “serve commerce
and industry in the State of Michigan.” The same focus on core competencies, mission
and value has strengthened shared governance on our campus and made it a model for
other institutions. While political battles rage elsewhere, shared governance at Michigan
Tech remains strong and vital.
How can we prepare ourselves, and our students, for the unexpected?
There are few certainties about higher education in the next decade, but one is this:
The demand for remote and distance learning will only increase. The demographic cliff
will necessitate an increasing focus on recruiting and retaining nontraditional learners,
as well as on offering alternative credentials, such as badges and certificates. Rapid
technological advancement, especially in the realm of artificial intelligence and
large language models, will continue to change the nature of teaching and learning
in ways we cannot predict. Stratification in higher education will only increase,
meaning students with means will be able to have immersive, face-to-face, high-contact
experiences, while students without means may be limited to lower-cost, lower-value
online options.
Alongside a robust shared governance model, we need mechanisms that allow us to pivot
and innovate as conditions change.
A prime example is IDEAhub, Michigan Tech’s pedagogical innovation incubator and the product of the Tech Forward initiative Education for the 21st Century. In the wake of the pandemic, IDEAhub not only helped to support the campus community
by offering workshops for faculty adapting to challenges of learning and supporting
students online, but also led the development of the new Essential Education program for general education. The Essential Ed program positions Michigan Tech at
the cutting edge of undergraduate education by providing students with a broad-based
education that integrates education in the arts, humanities and social sciences with
STEM education, and that centers reflection and self-awareness, preparing students with the crucial critical-thinking, problem-solving, communication and analytical
skills they will need to succeed in a quickly evolving job market. Other examples
of curricular innovation on campus are the Pavlis Honors College and the Enterprise Program, which have served as pedagogical incubators that allow us to experiment with new
techniques and models for experiential education and lifelong learning that benefit
campus as a whole.
*****
The core structures of colleges and universities are set up, with good reason, to
preserve tradition and the status quo rather than to upset them — and the status quo
on campus has been under relentless pressure for at least the last 15 years. In the
past few years alone, we have seen many institutions of higher education close their
doors for good. Close to home, these names have included Cardinal Stritch University
in Wisconsin, the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at Waukesha, the University of
Wisconsin-Oshkosh at Fox Cities, and Finlandia University just across the canal in
Hancock. While many of these colleges and universities were private and religious-based,
even flagship and storied land-grant state institutions are not immune to the many challenges facing higher education today.
The world in 2035 will demand that higher education be even more focused on creating
value for students and for society as a whole. This means that Michigan Tech must
thoughtfully and authentically embrace foundational University traditions like shared
governance while simultaneously being able to innovate and adapt. The pandemic showed
us what’s possible. It also showed us how resilient we truly are. Now, it’s up to
us to put to use the lessons we learned and the curricular innovations we devised,
so Michigan Tech can continue to thrive — and also serve as a model for higher education
nationwide.
Michigan Technological University is a public research university founded in 1885 in Houghton, Michigan, and is home to nearly 7,500 students from more than 60 countries around the world. Consistently ranked among the best universities in the country for return on investment, Michigan’s flagship technological university offers more than 120 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in science and technology, engineering, computing, forestry, business, health professions, humanities, mathematics, social sciences, and the arts. The rural campus is situated just miles from Lake Superior in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, offering year-round opportunities for outdoor adventure.