10/12/99

Marilyn Grantham
Accountability and Reporting Specialist
University of Minnesota Extension Service

(A brief summary of a major paper examining the issue of accountability in higher education which included the historical context and some policy options and recommendations. A copy of the paper is available on request from the author.)

The context for accountability in higher education:

• The growing demand for accountability in higher education began in the 1980s. Several factors were behind the demand—(1) "Reaganomics," the general effort by the Reagan administration to reduce federal domestic spending, especially for education and other "social" programs; (2) the concurrent "devolution" of responsibility for education to the states—at a time when they were in the midst of an economic recession due to increasing international economic competition, high unemployment, demographic and technological changes, reductions in federal aid, and revenue shortfalls; and (3) skyrocketing costs of higher education which were increasing much faster than inflation.
• The continuing historically-rooted tension in higher education between the "public function" of higher education—the preparation of students to assume professional roles and the connection to societal issues--and public funding/accountability versus academic freedom and institutional autonomy.

Three possible accountability policy options:

1. Maintain current accountability policies.

This option offers policymakers the path of least resistance. They don’t incur any apparent out-of-pocket costs for policy implementation and no immediate negative consequences are evident. However, there is some limited evidence that there are negative consequences in that faculty and staff resources and institutional funding must be used to develop performance measures, gather data, prepare reports, etc., in order to continue to receive state and federal funds. This need diverts time and funds away from other public and policymaker desired activities, such as improving the quality of instruction and student services, upgrading libraries and technology capabilities, developing and implementing better management systems, etc. The longer-term net effect of accountability compliance is likely to be a negative impact on institutional performance and productivity, rather than improvement, although little has been done to look at the cost/benefit of accountability in higher education.

In an era of stable or decreasing public funding, higher education institutions and systems have four choices in terms of increasing or maintaining funding at levels consistent with inflation—they can either (1) continue to increase tuition and fees, (2) eliminate programs and close some institutions, (3) reorganize or restructure to gain efficiencies, or (4) redesign educational delivery systems to achieve economies of scale. Some of these choices mitigate against other public policy objectives institutions are attempting to meet, e.g., increasing tuition and eliminating programs/closing institutions tend to limit public access to higher education and deny entry to diverse student populations, especially racial minorities and persons with low incomes. Options (3) and (4) are often one-time responses—once implemented they likely can’t be exercised again, at least in the near future, so as a cost-saving measures their effect may be limited.

Another funding option of increasing interest to higher education institutions is entrepreneurship. The "enterprise model" as advocates call it, encourages faculty and staff to actively seek more outside funding, through grants and contracts and partnerships with business and industry, and to develop "products," educational programs and materials with sales value. In some instances, these efforts are successful, but in other cases, they divert faculty and staff effort away from improving instructional quality and providing public service. In addition, time and often additional expertise is needed to search for grant and contract opportunities and to write grant proposals or to seek profitable external relationships.

Another longer-term impact that has not been widely discussed or researched is the impact of accountability on faculty and staff morale. The one research study on this topic indicated that the impact is substantial and the result is a greater tendency for faculty and staff to resist change even more.

Another accountability issue of concern to institutional researchers and evaluators is whether the outcomes of higher education and faculty performance can be reliably measured. This difficulty stems in part from a general lack of agreement on goals for teaching and learning in higher education and the difficulty of measuring something as elusive as faculty and staff "productivity."

While this option is certainly one that many higher education administrators and faculty would like to see happen, in the current political climate it is highly unlikely. Higher education is both "part of the problem, as well as part of the solution." Accountability literature in public administration indicates that the American political system has a long-standing, fundamental cultural norm of distrust of government and other public sector institutions. As a result, Americans and their political representatives are preoccupied with accountability and continually seek new control mechanisms to achieve it. So, the notion that accountability might just "go away" doesn’t appear very likely, especially when higher education didn’t appear to "stay tuned" to the concerns of its stakeholders and rapidly escalated tuition and other fees in the 1980s. Many of the criticisms of higher education unfortunately have some validity and the voices of the critics should be heard and actions taken to deal with them.

For example, former Governor Jim Guy Tucker of Arkansas noted in 1996 that "The future of higher education in public institutions rests not only in the hands of the Academy but also in the political arena and with the public from whom policy and legislation mandating directions and funding necessarily come. … It is accountability, not accreditation alone, on which higher education must focus." Tucker also indicated the kinds of issues that he and other political leaders are facing and want assistance in addressing: Reducing violence and crime; funding and improving public education; providing adequate health care; achieving economic competitiveness and nuturing job growth; and maintaining the physical infrastructure of the state.

Tucker also cited a strategic planning process undertaken by a university in Arkansas where the public was involved. The message the public gave the university and its faculty, in priority order, was that they wanted them to

• Collaborate (or form partnerships) with community groups to solve community problems.
• Serve as a forum and conference convener for public policy and economic debate.
• Emphasize public and professional service for faculty and students.
• Ensure better community access to the university.
• Provide excellent teacher education and relationships between the university and the public schools.
• Reach non-traditional, at-risk, and minority students.
• Directly assist business and industry.
• Develop faculty and staff expertise on issues that confront government and disseminate the results of applied research to the public.
• Collaborate with other universities.

These issues are very similar to the results of another research study which examined the sources of information legislators use in making higher education budget and policy decisions and their priorities for higher education. The priorities cited included (1) teacher education, (2) undergraduate instruction and advising, (3) elementary and secondary education improvement, (4) job training and continuing education, (5) graduate and professional programs, (6) research directed toward solving social problems, (7) remedial education for underprepared students, and (8) basic research.

Numerous public institutions have attempted to proactively deal with the issue of accountability in higher education. Examples of responses range from "legislative report cards" to extensive long-range planning and internal reviews to new performance measurement schemes and outcomes-based budgeting and multi-part funding systems. Clearly higher education has attempted to address the accountability issue, but is the response adequate to address the real issue?

Accountability in higher education can be seen as a symptom—the lack of public and policymaker trust in higher education institutions, especially public institutions. If this is the case, then the challenge, particularly to public higher education, is to regain that trust, i.e., to redress the imbalance between responsibility to society and the issues of wide public concern and institutional autonomy/academic freedom. In 1994, Peter Ewell addressed this issue in an article in Change entitled "A Matter of Integrity: Accountability and the Future of Self-Regulation." In this article, he said

… [there is] substantial and growing evidence that the rules of
the accountability game have changed, as well as the ground
on which it must be played. These changes, in turn, are the\
product of some structural and fiscal realignments in American
higher education that have been in the making for at least a
decade. … credible self-regulation marks the essence of what
society recognizes as a profession. … the perception of integrity
is not a variable commodity that can be influenced by politics or
persuasion. When we have lost it, it is gone—only to be earned
back again by example and right action.

Ewell also noted that "the roots of higher education’s current accountability problem … [reach back] to the early 1980s with a strong and visible resurgence of discussions about the public purposes of higher education." He went on to say that we are, in effect, "a product of our own lobbying efforts." Our leaders have long argued before legislatures that investments in higher education would pay off in an array of public benefits—an argument that policy makers found appealing and acted on in terms of funding. But we neglected to notice that they perceived they had made a "bargain" and now they are holding us to it. The net result is a new kind of accountability for higher education that views public funding for it as a "strategic investment." Viewed in this way, it becomes obvious why legislators and the public they represent increasingly expect a demonstrable return on their investment.

Ewell further argued that if his analysis is correct, "we need to re-fashion self-regulation [in higher education] for the long haul, not just to ride out the current storm." He said that demands to be "efficient" without sacrificing quality need collective solutions, therefore, "re-visioning a credible self-regulation function for higher education … is not just ours to define, but society’s … [we] must make certain that ‘collective responsibility’ includes listening to the voices of our principle clients—students, employers, and society’s representatives. At the same time, we must increasingly think not just of public disclosure as an element of future self-regulation, but of a large measure of public consultation and involvement as well."

More recently (February 1999), the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land Grant Universities published an "action plan" for proceeding with the idea of civic engagement and public discourse as a means of re-connecting with the public regarding the issues they think are paramount for higher education. This report is aptly titled Returning to Our Roots: The Engaged Institution. The focus of this report, intended as an open letter to the presidents and chancellors of state universities and land grant colleges, is embodied in the opening statement:

In the end, the clear evidence is that, with the resources and
superbly qualified professors and staff on our campuses, we can
organize our institutions to serve both local and national needs
in a more coherent and effective way. We can and we must do
better.

The Kellogg Commission defines "engaged institutions" as those colleges and universities "that have redesigned their teaching, research, and extension and service functions to become even more sympathetically and productively involved with their communities." They also indicated that an engaged institution must accomplish at least three things: (1) It must be organized to respond to the needs of today’s students and tomorrow’s, not yesterday’s; (2) it must enrich students’ experiences by bringing research and engagement into the curriculum and offering practical opportunities for students to prepare for the world they will enter; and (3) it must put its critical resources (knowledge and expertise) to work on the problems the communities it serves face.

A great many voices have been heard (and published) on the issue of accountability in higher education. Some have advocated attempting to go around it, others through it by diligent attempts to develop performance measures and the like, but a few are seeing that accountability is a symptom of a deeper problem—the need for higher education to truly re-think its role in society and re-invent itself to more fully engage in that role now and in the future. The risks of taking that course of action are substantial, but the risks of not taking it are even greater. Those who are afraid to step forward might do well to remember what the late Winston Churchill once said …

We must take change by the hand, or it will take us by the throat.