It seems that everytime I read a newspaper or a blog alert, or even watch TV (note Colbert show) that Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, the Lumina Foundation, US Ed Secretary Arne Duncan, or Wal-mart are featured talking about the money and effort they are putting into changing higher education. When Bill Gates and Lumina first went public with their money and ideas, there appeared to be much rejoicing in higher education circles. As time has gone on, however, there is some question about motives and less excitement; in higher ed parlance, how come they can't just give us the money and let us figure out what to do with it?
In the article referenced in the URL, the relatively new concept of philanthrocapitalism is discussed. Apparently this is a budding concern and mantra of many corporations. Not surprising; the heads of corporations world wide are increasingly the babyboomers, those who were caught in the maelstrom of the 1960s and 1970s where doing good for the world seemed to be the first priority. Of course, most of the group grew up and embraced capitalism, if only to fund their own lifestyle or that of their children. Many members of the group are now the stalwart heads of national, international and local charity or service organizations.
The most successful of these financially, say Gates, Bezos, and the Walmart children, not only have the values of the baby boom generation, but are committed to attention to bottom line results, those that helped reap the staggering financial rewards of those companies. At the same time, researchers in many fields have focused their energy on analytics, meta-analysis and other processes which show which treatment works best based on overarching analyses. The use of analytics not only more quickly point to program efforts that work, but also are more efficient, therefore assuring (hopefully) that funds and human capital will be parsed out in a meaningful manner. The health care industry has for some time been in the thick of this milieu using the banner of informatics to garner evidence-based medicine, the latter which can more efficiently guide practitioners in decision trees of care, as well as producing more nuanced results in the reporting of medical care research and public health information.
Gates (and to some extent Lumina and Walmart) have focused on access, retention and completion of students in college, particularly with an emphasis on those who have some academic or social/cultural deficits upon entering. Research published by the Gates Foundation on the issues of access et al., are consistent and conversant with the concerns, discussions and findings of most of the higher education academics and practitioners. Melinda Gates is heading a sub-category of research and practice that will focus on how to speed up the time spent and successful completion of so-called gateway courses (i.e., pre-college math) that often stymie students from ever entering regular college coursework.
So where's the beef, as the old saying goes? The President and other government leaders seem to be on board with the new philanthropists, and the accreditation groups have signed on in terms of new accountability measures particularly in terms of outcomes, sometimes reluctantly. Well, the field of higher education has been loathe to change quickly and certainly does not enjoy 'outsiders' calling the shots as far as issues are concerned, particularly when those outsiders (including President Obama) indicate the bottom lines. Now, there have not been any calls for colleges to do things a certain way to reach these outcomes, nor have colleges been told that they have to be involved. But it does appear that money available for program initiatives will be determined largely based on agreement with the end goals. Perhaps this is a time period when all of the stars are aligned and higher education needs to dig in and work with others for the great good?
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