By Timothy Law Snyder
A sense of crisis is in the air: the presumed irrelevance of higher education, particularly of the liberal arts, with declarations that higher education is a bubble about to burst. Stories of humanities degrees landing indebted students into barista smocks at Starbucks stoke fear and evoke thought pieces that inhibit learners from pursuing the major of their dreams and talents. Parental worry about return on investment is amplified by surveys and analyses that use starting salaries and student debt as surrogates for measuring educational value. Reports on declining birth rates, the rise of artificial intelligence (AI), automation, and online learning stretch stories of higher ed’s pending demise. Harvard Business Professor Clayton Christensen has divined that half of American universities will be out of operation in 10 years; his claims comprise splathered headlines.
While I acknowledge the necessity of addressing these worries, I reject the seemingly ubiquitous framing of this sense of crisis. Genuine threats to traditional models of higher education exist, but Jesuit higher education is uniquely poised to meet and overcome those challenges.
Since the establishment of the first Jesuit college in 1548, Jesuits and their apostolates have been “meeting people where they are” or, as I would widen it, “meeting reality.” We encounter rather than react. Adapting selectively to our social reality accords with the nature of the liberal arts. For example, eloquentia perfecta, a pillar of the Jesuit liberal arts core curriculum, rests on a conceptual framework that encourages us to understand and adapt to emerging communications technologies and social habitats. This ability to adapt has strengthened Jesuit education and ensured that our schools’ offerings retain their value amid changing circumstances. This is counter to the notion that we are living apart from reality; fairly stated, we have helped evolve reality.
Some of the expressed concerns about higher education can be addressed through mission. For instance, at Loyola Marymount University we have responded to parents’ legitimate concerns about return on investment: Within six months of graduation, 99 percent of undergraduate students in the Class of 2018 were employed, in graduate school, pursuing post-grad service, or in the military. Their success, however, results not from career-centered curriculum focused only on a first job but, rather, from a mission-driven curriculum that shapes leaders who transform the world. If we have been true to our mission, our students should be well prepared to meet society and its needs where they are. And we can expect that meeting those needs will happen through fulfilling jobs with good pay. Our students—because of our core curriculum grounded in the liberal arts and our methods of educating, and not despite them—possess the very skills and virtues employers seek. Jesuit-educated students are nimble-minded citizens who can change with the times and context. They problem-solve in diverse group settings, thinking critically and creatively, and communicating effectively. Further, our graduates elevate the world’s expectations, for they understand more deeply than their peers how concerns of ethics, faith, and justice inevitably pervade all aspects of economic and professional life.
George Quiter, an alumnus of Loyola Marymount University (LMU), converses with students about post-graduate job possibilities during a San Francisco Bay Area alumni reception. Photo courtesy of the LMU Alumni Association.
Some of our AJCU schools are challenged, and we have witnessed unexpected closures and mergers. But are these signs of a coming collapse, or are they adjustments on the way to something else? Jesuit higher education grew magnificently over the past century, adapting to new realities along the way. We may be experiencing a period of adjustment or realignment as our schools once again embrace that spirit to envision innovative responses to enrollment hurdles driven by demographic and social shifts beyond our control.
We must assure that the cost structure of higher education matches and supports its value. We cannot do so without observing budget-driving realities that do not appear on our spreadsheets: first, a clientele that continues to demand all things from all institutions of choice; and second, our inability to differentiate our institutions and offerings into specialized areas of strength where, for example, one institution boasts superior film facilities while another prioritizes psychological services available to students. At present, when any institution innovates, all have to follow suit, then we scramble to keep up. Eventually, when our budgets expand, we have to keep up with ourselves by fulfilling enrollment expectations that have grown with many of our budgets, with tuition increases to match. (We are the proverbial Joneses!)
We decipher this conundrum by calling on our foundation in mission and recognizing the source of our value. Our Jesuit edge comprises academic rigor, innovation, change, adaptability, interdisciplinarity, and resonant foci on justice and the common good. We must tell our story better about the distinctive and enduring significance of a liberal arts-grounded, mission-centric education. We must examine how we promote ourselves, keeping ourselves true to mission, and engaging in continual cura personalis— part of which requires that we make clear to others what our universities can do for those here, those to come, and for the Earth.
Discernment can help us realize we cannot be or do everything. Each institution must own a distinctive contribution to the common good. We must meet prospective students and parents where they are, even if that means greater flexibility toward new educational approaches such as less-traditional degrees, more certificate programs or content delivered online. Even if that means we recognize the worthy intent of parents’ utilitarian tendencies and encounter them appropriately and lovingly. Even if that means we embrace the opportunities created by AI and automation and partner with their possibilities, while maintaining vigilance over the attendant human costs they may invoke. We are differentiated from the remaining educational landscape more than any other sector or category of higher ed.
This is not a time to be bashful. We must assure that people know who we are, what we do, why we do it, and what it can mean for them and for all. We have achieved a distinctiveness that can protect us—one that not only keeps us alive and strong, but one that helps us help others, thereby bringing forth the very soul of St. Ignatius’s stunning and beautiful fire.
Timothy Law Snyder is president of Loyola Marymount University.
The featured cover photo is courtesy of LMU Marketing and Communications.