Seas continue to be rough and challenges continue to mount for much of US higher education. 2024 was a year of political pressures, public scrutiny, and forceful backlash for higher ed. Impacts of the ongoing multi-crisis (enrollments, finances, perceived value and even relevance, and the mismatch between rate of change in the world and that taking place – or able to take place – within higher ed institutions) continue to challenge boards, leaders, and campuses. A new administration is coming into Washington with promises of swift and significant changes that may significantly impact everything from financial aid to accreditation to federally sponsored research and even curriculum. 2025 promises to be a challenging year for many of higher ed’s cherished models and core values. And failure to respond and adapt will hasten irrelevance. University leaders and governance groups will need to decide whether to dig-in and accept the consequences (whether decline in public trust and confidence, or decline in enrollments and federal support), or lean-in and take this opportunity to make changes, many of which have been needed for years.
I have used this article at the start of each year to offer hopeful, specific, actionable, and achievable actions – what we hope to see from higher ed in the coming year – with confidence that at least some institutions will deliver, serving not only as exemplars but as guiding lights others might follow. I write these each year cognizant of the most pressing challenges, in the current political and social context, and with an eye toward how higher ed can help itself. There are some common threads from one year to the next, but each year’s list includes new takes on ongoing and expected future challenges AND opportunities.
You will notice I make no mention of AI in this year’s list, or the certainly transformative effects AI will have on higher ed. I leave that to others (many others), far more knowledgeable, who have written on the topic. Theirs are important observations, insights, expectations, and cautions.
This year’s wish-list has 8 items, a few more than in previous years but there is a lot to hope to see in 2025:
1. We hope that colleges and universities lead with distinctiveness, not just rankings and ROI. (One is irrelevant and the other not being heard.) We hope they lean-in and lead in ways that align best with their mission, stakeholders, and audience (students, communities, states), rather than just copy others. We hope they make their values matter by aligning their curricula, student experiences, institutional priorities and investments. We hope they break the pattern of homogenization that has diminished higher ed’s accessibility, reputation, and most importantly value.
2. We hope colleges and universities will reposition themselves and, in doing so, the broader perception of higher ed. Institutions and their leaders need to “read the room.” They must be much more attuned to all that’s happening outside their walls, demonstrating greater humility and more willingness to change. We hope colleges and universities – their boards, leaders, and faculty – choose to ride the wave, rather than buck the system, recognizing that the world will not bow to them. Real and rapid change is needed to remain relevant, continue to attract students and support, and best serve their students and the nation.
3. We hope colleges and universities will adopt mutual leveraging strategies:
3a. Internally, mutual leveraging may be a new and more productive (and respectful, successful, and even satisfying) way of thinking about shared governance. Members of the governance triad – the faculty, administration, and board – should leverage one another’s experience and talents in order to most efficiently (and effectively) manage the institution. This means building and sustaining mutual trust, mutual confidence, and above all, mutual respect. Swim lanes and understanding of responsibilities have blurred over decades, for many reasons. The result has been institutional paralysis is some cases, dysfunctional and even destructive governance dynamics in others. After all, the CFO deciding what majors to offer is just as absurd as the athletics director deciding the enrollment strategy or the faculty deciding the budget of physical plant.
3b. Externally, mutual leveraging opportunities should be sought across institutions AND institutional types. Regional cooperation and leveraging of faculty expertise, program offerings, and facilities can save money while also expanding opportunities for students. Stronger leveraging across institutional types (e.g., public flagship and land-grant research universities, private research institutions, regional publics, liberal arts colleges, community and technical colleges) can also lead to new degree pairings and create new educational pathways for students.
4. We hope colleges and universities will seek to serve the public good, meet the greatest societal needs, drive economic growth, and contribute to our national security. By committing to these overarching goals, colleges and universities can make clear their value, their relevance, and their importance at a time of great challenges and great change. (See 2 above.) There are several national commissions comprising university leaders, CEOs, politicians and philanthropists focused on repositioning higher ed as a strategic asset and critical partner in solving the greatest challenges facing society and the planet, including: (1) the Council on Higher Education as a Strategic Asset (HESA), and (2) the Presidents and Chancellors Council on Public Impact Research, being convened by the Pew Charitable Trusts. We hope colleges and universities will consider their expected recommendations and place a priority on positioning their institutions to serve and contribute in these critical ways.
5. We hope colleges and universities return to immutable core values and not simply adopt (or respond to) social movements. We hope they replace “gen ed requirements” with a “core curriculum,” one that reflects their core mission. The term “gen ed” has been coopted by those having agendas from inside or outside the institution, and the concept has therefore become highly politicized and certainly not well understood. The word “requirement” carries its own baggage. A core curriculum can show alignment with the institution’s core mission and distinctiveness (see 1 above), and sends a clear message about the knowledge they expect their students to posses upon graduation. A core curriculum can be as unique as the institution, thereby contributing to its distinctiveness. We hope colleges and universities make it theirs and not just copy what others are doing, that they align their core curriculum with their mission and not just what’s in vogue in the current socio-political context. Finally, we hope that colleges and universities use the opportunity to design a core curriculum to revisit the original intent of liberal education, creating a curriculum that provides substantive learning opportunities across a spectrum of disciplines.
6. We hope that faculty will support their institution’s leaders. We hope that they will root for them to succeed rather than wait for them to fail (or at least wait for the “a-ha” or “gotcha” moment). We hope they will work with them and not against them. We hope they will offer to help rather than threaten to derail. We hope faculty will join with the administration to reform shared governance and affirm its value and importance, and that both groups will commit to a respectful, productive, and effective shared governance dynamic. We hope to see more “confidence” votes.
7. We hope that faculty reappointment, promotion, and tenure (RPT) criteria are expanded to recognize faculty innovation and contributions not only in research, discovery, and scholarship, but in intellectual property development, entrepreneurship, creative work, community engagement, policy development, and public service. We hope to see colleges and universities supporting, enabling, recognizing, and celebrating all these as valued forms of scholarship that provide valuable contributions to society as well as valuable opportunities for student learning.
8. We hope colleges and universities will commit to exposing and eliminating wasteful spending within their institutions, whether due to lack of financial oversight or accountability, or due to pressures by special interest groups, alumni, politicians, or others. While it will be tempting (and even appropriate) to use some of those recovered funds to close budget gaps or make overdue salary adjustments, we hope that colleges and universities will use a portion of those resources to create a “permanent investment fund” that enables the institution to make strategic investments, address highest priorities, and respond to areas of greatest need. Even if such a fund is modest, it provides presidents and chancellors with one tool (that many have lacked for years) to promote innovation and drive change. After years of cutting around the edges and never having any money to invest, the creation of a permanent investment fund sends a new signal: “We will always have some modest amount of funding we can invest strategically and will (a) not be using it to close budget gaps, and (b) not be taking it away from your budgets year after year.”
2025 will be a challenging year for much of higher ed, just as surely as it will be a year of opportunities. Beyond the multi-crisis, the confluence of crises that if not started with than exacerbated by the global pandemic, there is the uncertainty of the new administration in Washington. The key for higher ed leaders, boards, and governance groups will be to stay vigilant and attentive, be responsive and strategic, be honest in acknowledging where change is needed and commit to making it, and ride the wave (and not just buck the system) to craft a sustainable future for their institution.
All eyes are on higher education, more so than any other time in history. Very much an inflection point, there will be those colleges and universities that thrive and those that just hang on (for now). There will be those that survive and those that do not. Some will be held up as exemplars of how higher education can be a valuable and valued public good. Others will be mocked, marginalized, and even vilified. The world is watching higher ed in 2025. There will be changes.
Previous years’ lists: 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024