Executive Summary
I. Managing the size and composition of the student population of the University of Hawaiʻi system in the third decade requires an understanding of demographic trends—globally, nationally, and statewide.
FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS:
This section examines the growth trends in global population and the predicted declines in population growth rates and it suggests opportunities for increases in enrollment of international and non-traditional students
- Global population and educational attainment are both growing. Yet, U.S. universities have been encountering greater difficulties in recruiting internationally. Foreign student enrollment at UH is unusually low when compared to other public colleges in the Western U.S. and offers an opportunity for higher international enrollment.
- An often-overlooked effect of the Great Recession that began in 2008 was a steep drop in the birthrate in the U.S., which will lead to a decline in the number of high school graduates after 2025. In the light of this trend, it is even more significant that the volume of immigration to the U.S. is now falling.
- Rather than concentrate solely on increasing enrollment of new students, UH, like other leading institutions, should step up its investment in improving retention and graduation rates of students already recruited.
II. Globally, political trends will converge at an unprecedented pace, making governance and cooperation harder and changing the nature of power— fundamentally altering the global landscape. The growing dysfunctionality of political systems presages a more challenging environment for higher education in the coming decade.
FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS:
A major shift in geopolitics toward the Indo-Pacific region would seem to offer unprecedented long-term opportunities for Hawaiʻi, but partisan politics makes the timing of such benefits unpredictable.
- The locus of global power and the focus of U.S. policy are shifting toward Asia. Defense spending in the state will grow with the growing prominence of Indo-Pacific in U.S. foreign policy, but at the same time, there are risks associated with changing partisan control in Washington that could cause cuts to Hawaiʻi’s defense industry.
- U.S. is likely to continue to experience a hyper-partisan political climate with limited ability to undertake major policy initiatives and growing public skepticism about the value of investment in higher education. Amid stagnation in state and local budgets, higher education is often getting a lower share of public revenues. Public skepticism and partisan gridlock will require more pointed public relations and lobbying efforts for public university support.
- Populist, anti-growth resistance movements can pose challenges to desired changes at UH.
III. Global, national, and statewide economic and workforce trends are of particular significance for universities, given both the rising expectations of students and their families and the growing difficulties of preparing the student population for satisfying workforce experiences.
FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS:
Sluggish economic growth, coupled with mounting environmental and health challenges, will limit funding for education and research. At the same time, there are immense opportunities for higher education to fill current gaps in talent supply chains in fields such as healthcare, renewable energy, and information technology, and to create opportunities in the emerging “future of work”.
- Challenges to the stability of the global economy—climate change, environment, and health issues—will demand increasing public attention and threaten to diminish funds available for the education sector.
- Rates of economic growth will continue to fall in Japan and China, and this will likely have an adverse effect on the state’s economy.
- Declining U.S. economic growth and its ballooning federal budget deficits limit prospects for expanded funding for research and student aid.
- Occupations requiring postsecondary education will experience higher rates of growth than those requiring just on-the-job training. This will make college degrees more attractive. In times of adverse economic conditions, more students may seek degrees, but their financial needs are likely to be greater. On the other hand, in conditions of near-full employment, attracting students who might otherwise enter the workforce becomes more challenging.
- The current mismatch between jobs and educational attainment is evidenced not only by the large numbers of “underemployed” college graduates, but also in the large number of skilled and relatively high-paying jobs, especially in STEM-related fields, that go unfilled because of an inadequate supply of workers with proper credentials. UH must respond to the skills gap requiring such educational credentials.
IV. Anticipating when, where, and how technology will alter economic, social, political, and security dynamics is a hard game, but it seems clear that online education is here to stay.
FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS:
We examined the marketplace for online education, showing how some late entrants are able to craft successful online strategies. We also studied how artificial intelligence (AI) and other new technologies are customizing education based on individual preferences.
- There has been a profound and pervasive disconnect between employing new technologies and leveraging them to enhance quality of education. Universities need to address the tension between employment of technology and assurance of quality.
- Thousands of colleges offer online courses, but latecomers to the online marketplace are finding it difficult to compete beyond their own institutions. Unless they can offer distinctive, region-specific programs, they are not likely to prosper from their online divisions. The best chance for UH to increase online enrollment is to emphasize region- distinctive programs and courses aimed at specific job needs in the state and targeted on adult learners. Appendix A-1 describes four such programs: UCLA’s online Professional Program in Screenwriting, Tulsa’s online Master of Energy Business Management, Case Western Reserve’s Master’s in Biomedical Engineering, and Stanford’s online graduate certificate in Artificial Intelligence.
- Given adequate budgets and staffing, and augmented by new developments in artificial intelligence and big data, information and communication technology—especially in partnership with employers—will help universities to open more digital options and to make significant advances both in instruction and in the monitoring of student progress.
V. Global and national trends in higher education and new directions in higher education policies will affect the University system in the coming decade.
FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS:
We examined the globalization of education through higher education partnerships and explored higher education’s affordability crisis, in the context of the decline in the percentage of Hawaiʻi’s high-school graduates who are opting for college in Hawaiʻi.
- Transnational higher education—the delivery of higher education programs by a provider across national boundaries by physical or electronic means—is an increasing feature of global higher education. To expand its global influence and its enrollment, UH should consider additional ways of linking with colleges and students abroad (particularly in Asia).
- Undergraduate enrollment in the U.S. is projected to be relatively flat, increasing by only three percent between 2017 and 2028, and even these growth rates are subject to business cycle fluctuations.
- Reduced state support and shrinking federal student aid has shifted a greater portion of the cost of education to students and their families, through rising tuitions and fees, exacerbating the “affordability crisis” in higher education and prompting a variety of proposals for “free tuition” and relief of student debt. Recruitment and retention of low- income students are threatened by rising tuition and declining levels of Pell Grant assistance.
VI. The University of Hawaiʻi system can benefit from the study of innovative approaches at university systems across the country that address financing, community service, development of job-producing academic programs, renewal and modernization of facilities, and other ways of stimulating the economy.
FINDINGS AND IMPLICATIONS:
There is significant decline in public support for most state universities. High-quality education and research come at an ever-increasing cost to the student. In this section, we examine how higher education institutions multiply their revenue streams and add new value to the communities they serve.
- In the face of falling state appropriations and rising tuitions, both rigorous control of costs and a search for innovative ways of financing universities are needed. Options include:
- Recruiting international and out-of-state students who will pay higher rates of tuition (though this can arouse political opposition from those who believe that only in-state students should benefit from the state’s subsidy to public higher education).
- Cutting expenses by allowing students to earn credits for prior experience.
- Seeking economies by partnering with outside entities (such as Trilogy Education or Orbis Education) to deliver programs.
- Deferring students’ tuition payments until they are employed.
- Increasing accountability by changing patterns of state funding to depend more on outcomes.
- Working with corporate partners to explore income-sharing plans.
- Higher education institutions have been tailoring their offerings of academic programs to adjust to changing economic conditions. Several examples of innovative programs are described in Appendix A-2. Programs in healthcare-related occupations (such new programs as Johns Hopkins’s Nursing School and the interdisciplinary College of Health Solutions at Arizona State) are increasing, while concerns about a “skills mismatch” in computer-related fields has contributed to a move toward development of certificate-earning courses that can eventually be “stacked” into a degree (such as the digital technology certificate developed at several Washington-area universities by Capital CoLAB). UH should further develop programs in cybersecurity (such as the innovative programs at Carnegie Mellon) in partnership with NSA and explore selective expansion of certificate programs, especially in IT fields (such as Stanford’s graduate certificate in artificial intelligence), to address the skills mismatch. The growing threats of global climate change have produced rising demand for graduates in fields such as renewable energy (pioneered at Oregon Institute of Technology) and sustainability (led by Michigan’s innovative School for Environment and Sustainability). Finally, even in established occupations in the hospitality industry, new technologies are demanding new training, such as the pioneering work in “smart tourism” at Central Florida’s Roche College of Hospitality Management. Finally, UH should expand competency-based education opportunities to address needs of adult students without demand for extensive in-class time.
- Universities have also been devising new ways to serve their communities, including student “service learning” internship programs and programs for meeting lifelong learning needs of older adults. For example, University of Washington’s “Continuum College” offers a model for serving lifelong learning and career needs of the older population. UH can also take a lead in community development projects (e.g. sustainability) or expand service- learning programs as attractions for students and to enrich academic programs.
- As public funds for renewal and modernization of facilities have been cut, universities have been able to forge public-private partnerships with municipalities and private developers (P3 contracts) for designing, building, financing, operating and maintaining the facilities, or by “stretching” funds through multi-use facilities and spaces for collaborative learning.
- Innovative programs to stimulate the local economy and create high-quality jobs include creating regional “clusters” to address job shortages in critical areas through training programs or turning research programs toward “incubators” of new commercial enterprises. Another strategy is for enterprises to contract with higher education institutions to provide academic programs for their employees. UH should forge stronger partnerships with industry for collaborative planning of academic programs. UH can play a foundational role in creating regional clusters involving UH and partner enterprises (e.g., in cybersecurity). Similarly, it can develop incubators for converting research centers into entrepreneurial ventures.
VII. Implications for academic programming.
UH must refine its academic programming in light of important trends, opportunities, and challenges. From emergence of transnational programs, to the ever-growing importance of technology in education and the need to prepare students for the next generation workforce, the implications for programming in higher education are enormous. UH can seize the
opportunities presented by Hawaiʻi’s unique geography and the growing geopolitical prominence of the Indo-Pacific region.
- UH should offer programming attractive to international students and forge transnational partnerships.
- Programs can be introduced in response to the increased importance of Hawaiʻi in the nation’s defense and the changing needs of the military, for example, in the area of cybersecurity.
- Non-traditional students need flexible and continual learning opportunities. For example, the working adults interested in going back to college may need flexible scheduling and “stackable” credentials for programs, which enable career advancements.
- As a latecomer to online education, UH should be selective in its programming to focus in areas where it has a distinctive advantage or those that need Hawaiʻi-specific programming.
- By leveraging new technologies, like artificial intelligence, programs can be increasingly personalized to the individual student. This leads to better student engagement and higher graduation rates.
Future trends, especially disruptive ones, are far from foreseeable. UH needs to be agile and collaborative in experimenting with new programming and invest in those that demonstrate real promise.
Report main page | Return to Annex A table of contents | next section: Demographic Conditions