The American public university in 1998 : a scenario

Abstract

The research involves the development of a propositional inventory of circumstances or events which could occur in American higher education during the coming twenty-year period. Following a modified version of the scenario-generating method developed by Vanston, the research employs the judgment of a panel of experts in forecasting methods to ascertain the probability of occurrence and impact of such occurrence on higher education for each of 134 items included in the propositional inventory. Based on the circumstances chosen by consensus of the experts as being both highly probable (60 percent or greater chance of occurrence) and having high impact value, a narrative scenario describing the American public university in the year 1998 is constructed. The scenario is written as future history and follows the style of Turoff and Ehrlich. Graduate Advisory Committee members evaluated the scenario on four elements: utility, information reproducibility, plausibility and value explicitness. Based on the evaluation returns, the scenario was modified and is presented in Chapter VI of the paper. The scenario points out the impact of the egalitarian movement on higher education and suggests that by 1998 anyone who wants to attend college may do so, making universal higher education an attainable goal by the year 2000. The effects of enrollment declines, in the 1980's and increasing financial austerity are also elements of the university in the future. A unionized faculty and a reformed curriculum pose problems for the coming years. University governance has become more fragmented and the public continues to expect greater accountability from higher education. In particular, the federal presence has become significant. For students the value of a college degree in the job market has deteriorated since the 1970's...