Harvard has long been the pinnacle of higher education. In the past 10 years, its popularity with international students has almost doubled. International students currently make up over 27% of the student population. All of these are presently in legal limbo compliments of the current administration. The idea of restricting international students is bad for Harvard, it’s bad for the Boston area, and it’s bad for the U.S. in terms of being a leader in higher education. Did I mention it’s really bad?
Harvard is just the current lightning rod, but it is a problem for lots of major universities. College enrollment in the U.S. peaked in 2010. It dropped predictably during Covid, but it’s still not projected to get back to the 2010 level for several years. If you start taking international students out of the mix, you are worsening the financial situation of many colleges and universities. At least 79 colleges have closed or merged in the U.S. since 2020 and they are likely to have more schools added to their ranks. This leaves many colleges with two problems, that have a common solution.
The Main Higher Education Problem
The cost for a four-year degree has outpaced inflation, increasing almost 200% since 1980. And the ROI on specific degree types has gone in various directions. My degree is in Architecture which I’ve never actually used and is currently in the negative ROI column for projections for 10 year projections. It eventually pays for itself, as do many degrees, but it can take decades, and people don’t stay in the same career the way they did 50 years ago.
I remember sitting in lecture halls with 200 people. In some cases, I went entire semesters with instructors who didn’t know who I was. That might have been the accepted standard in the past, but it’s not anymore. There are too many ways to be educated on a particular subject complements of the internet. Colleges and universities need to raise their game.
They need to make college more affordable, and more accessible. They also need to create more educational options for different populations. Much of what I learned as an architecture student is automated today. Doing drawings by hand on a drafting table on velum with special mechanical pencils is expensive and unnecessary. And how many IT types remember working with punch cards?
New Models of Education
Colleges need to come up with new models of content production and facilitated discussions. What if you could attend Albert Einstein’s original lectures at Princeton? Or maybe an entrepreneurial workshop with Bill Gates? Or an advanced government class with Barack Obama? And what if you could do all of these things 50 years from now? This is how colleges and universities need to start thinking about what they have to offer. It’s no longer about ivy-covered halls and tenured professors. It’s about access to expertise with different levels of interaction.
When I was in college in the mid-1980s, one of my most memorable moments was a lecture by Dr. Timothy Leary. He had probably done too much LSD in the 60s, but he had a very detailed view of what the internet was going to be at least a decade before it became a reality. Less dramatic, but still very meaningful was the time I spent with Ed Bacon (Kevin Bacon’s father). He is largely responsible for the way Philadelphia looks today. His approval of my work was key to several of my grades, which would have otherwise been lower because I didn’t embrace the tortured artist philosophy that was embraced by the staff. Most people did a bunch of sketches and then pulled an all-nighter to finish projects. I had too many classes so I always had to finish projects early just to keep up with my work. So clearly I didn’t invest enough time in my designs. Ed always gave his seal of approval which I think annoyed the faculty, but I’m eternally grateful for his support.
Colleges shouldn’t just be places for rote exercises and memorization. They should be places for memorable experiences. Since you can’t do that all the time, if you focus on that as a core function, lectures and classes can happen anywhere. So now you have different levels of interaction. You can attend in person at a premium rate, have a hybrid model at a reduced rate, and a completely on-demand option at a discounted rate. This model also presents a solution to the current international student problem.
No Visa No Problem
Currently, most international students are in the U.S. on one of about 4 visa programs. If most of those doors are closed, they may still be able to get that prestigious degree remotely.
For someone without access to a student visa, the optimal legal approach is:
- Study online through a U.S. institution from home.
- Visit the U.S. 1–2 times per year on a B-2 or ESTA for short, non-credit programs or campus activities.
- If eligible, use dependent visas (H-4, L-2, etc.) to attend college fully.
In addition to remote education, heavily impacted institutions can also open satellite locations in other countries. It’s not the full in-person experience, but that was probably going away for most students anyway. This situation just forces the issue. Schools that are better able to do remote/hybrid education will be the ones that are still here in 20 years. They need to separate education from the campus and create meaningful events that leverage the campus. This approach is likely to keep U.S. colleges and universities viable for both U.S. and international students regardless of immigration policies.
