Abstract
Higher education is changing even as it stays the same. What has stayed the same is the immense value of a completed college degree on both societal and personal levels. For society, increasing the percentage of the population with advanced educational credentials is associated with increased work skills, a stable economy, stable national, state, and local tax revenue streams, decreased needs for a range of social services, increased citizen participation, and perhaps most importantly, an informed citizenry capable of understanding and synthesizing complex information and critically thinking about important social issues. On a personal level, increasing the percentage of individuals with completed college degrees should be associated with higher standards of living, better health, and higher levels of feelings of self-efficacy and self-worth for a greater number/ percentage of Americans.
Highlights
Higher education is changing even as it stays the same
Non-traditional student groups increasing their share of the total college population in this period include:
A 2016 Center on Budget and Policy Priorities report, “Funding Down, Tuition Up,” noted that, even after adjusting for inflation, funding for public two and four-year colleges is nearly $10 billion below what it was just prior to the 2008 recession (Mitchell, Leachmen & Masterson, 2016). These changes in state-level funding have resulted in a combination of cuts in academic offerings and the number of professional student support workers
Summary
Higher education is changing even as it stays the same. What has stayed the same is the immense value of a completed college degree on both societal and personal levels. Colleges and universities are faced with a conundrum that is difficult to address, at least initially: how to support students—who share some common issues and bring with them group-specific issues—and help them succeed academically and feel connected socially to their school, while lacking sufficient external resources to support all students through staff/facultybased programs. Peer mentoring is a resource that college and university administrators and student affairs professionals can use to help address this issue.
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