The American public university in 2005 : forecasting for progress in higher education

Abstract

The primary objective of this study was to identify the issues which will have the highest probability of occurrence in higher education in the coming two decades, and to determine the level of impact of change in higher education that these significant issues will exhibit. A panel of eleven expert futurists was selected to complete an eight-part propositional inventory, which comprised 134 issues. The eight major categories of inquiry were the following: Egalitarian Movement, Changing Enrollment, Academic Reform, Manpower and the Declining Value of a College Degree, Governance, Diversity and Competition, New Faculty, and Economic Accountability. The 1985 panelists' responses were compared to those in a similar study conducted by Miloy in 1978. The issues which were rated high in probability and in impact for each year-group were identified as salient issues. When these issues were evaluated, the difference between the two year-groups for those issues which were rated high in both probability and impact was not found to be statistically significant. Higher educational planners continue to hold these same eight issues as the most important problems for educational administrators to resolve. Appendices to this study include a copy of the propositional inventory and a short biography on each of the experts who are consulted. The recommendations resulting from this study were the following: (1) because tomorrow will not be like today, administrators of higher education should seek out forecasting experts in order to effectively plan for future events, (2) the administrators should continually review their programs to insure that the use of the eight major categories of inquiry meet the changing needs of the students, (3) researchers should replicate this study at the end of this decade in order to see if the attitudes have changed.