CRITICAL ISSUES FACING COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES TODAY
Higher education issues are often taken into account less frequently than they should be. Problems facing colleges and universities are debated exclusively between direct participants of educational process and those, who some obligations concerning it (government bodies, higher education institution administration and members of student families).
Unfortunately, typical representative of society rarely cares about higher education issues, having graduated from university. In fact, such neglecting scarcely has positive results, as the process and quality of contemporary higher education do matter for modern world. Indeed, graduates reflect the future of our tomorrow society, representing upcoming employees, parents and leaders. Therefore, the issues facing higher education are to be discussed and solved hand in hand, even at international level.
In addition, common alternative for providing educational institution financially – regional and state budget – is also not a panacea. State funds, usually received due to taxation, cannot always be the way out, as their amount is limited – taxes cannot be excessively high. In addition, many other areas do need state financial support; hence, state costs cannot be directed solely to the field of higher education.
On the other hand, such logical explanation of reasons of growing tuition fees does not justify the fact that numerous families cannot afford entrance in desired educational institution. So many family budgets are too limited in order to provide children with an outstanding possibility to continue education. Obviously, many students work on their own in order to get what they want, however, hundreds of nuances often lead to the growth of student debts.
What is more, enrollment in colleges and universities is slowly decreasing, which shows how many people find themselves impossible to afford paying demanded costs. What is notorious, such situation is common for different parts of world – from America to Europe. Contemporary surveys show that high tuition fees are preventing many high-school graduates from studying at university, as even loans and grant system are insufficient to cover all costs (Kompf, Denicolo, 2013, p. 259).
The second issue to be debated is the discrepancy between existing and demanded professional qualities of those, who hold responsible administration posts in universities and colleges. In other words, the leadership crisis affects the system of higher education in an adverse way.
There are different types of inappropriate heads of higher education institutions. The most common example is illustrated with extremely smart lecturers and professors, who just are not able to manage the team effectively. They are appointed due to their great accomplishments and even usually are understood in positive way by both students and lecturers, but responsibilities of administrator are merely not for them. People of science are rarely attentive towards common everyday issues; their minds are too busy with making up new groundbreaking ideas.
Furthermore, higher education institutions will not always win if they are headed with leaders, advanced in years. Of course, many such people are great in sharing their maturity and experience, but perhaps it is more wisely to grant them with some honorable posts, giving honorific advisory right, whereas person, open for estimating all the benefits of innovations, will held an office of main leader.
In addition, too little attention is paid to psychological readiness of those, who belong to higher education administration. For instance, researches suggest that transformational leadership is the most appropriate model for examining institutional climate (Kompf, Denicolo, 2013, p. 72). However, contemporary representatives of administration even do not differ transformational from transactional leadership, which obviously plays negative role in all the system of higher education.
The last but not least critical issue refers to so-called “skills gap”, which unfortunately takes place nowadays. No doubt, university education is usually distinguished by its broad character, which includes rich theoretical doctrine and wide range of subjects, aimed at transforming a student into well-educated and broad-minded person. Nevertheless, curriculum is often too replete with subjects, not necessary in professional career, or very narrow subjects, important for limited circle of students.
In other words, it is not an easy task to include all knowledge in curriculum, so perhaps it is more wisely to teach student how to learn rather than replete their schedules. It is important to combine cognitive apprenticeship, simulations and reality with higher order thinking skills or problem solving skills, co-operative, communication, creativity and meta-cognition skills, related to domain of occupation (Nijhof, Brandsma, 2013, p. 156). Unfortunately, such practice is still not successful in modern higher education, therefore, employers proceed complaining on skills gap, which makes applicants as very unattractive perspective.
References
1. Kompf, M., Denicolo, P.M. (2013). Critical Issues in Higher Education. Rotterdam: Sense Publishers.
2. Sandeen, A., Barr, M. J. (2014). Critical Issues for Student Affairs: Challenges and Opportunities. San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.
3. Nijhof, W.J., Brandsma, J. (2013). Bridging the Skills Gap between Work and Education. Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
