The Future of Higher Education - 7

Part 1: The Global Context
position within the labor market. So-called soft
skills, for example, are increasingly important
for jobs involving working with other human
beings, and so may take a greater place within
the curriculum. Leading service sector jobs, such
as those in mental and physical health, may also
become more salient within a given college's
offerings. Further, given the relative instability
of service jobs compared with industrial ones,
we should anticipate more graduates seeking to
return to school for reskilling than we used to.
A second major macroeconomic trend concerns
rising wealth and income inequality. We can
safely date this movement to the early 1980s.
After post-WWII economies saw less inequality,
the Reagan era launched what has turned out to
be a steadily widening spread between economic
strata. The causes are somewhat disputed
- automation, globalization, the expansion
of the financial sector, decrease in unions,
decoupling of compensation from productivity
- but the results are quite clear. Indeed, a Swiss
reinsurance firm compared our time with the late
nineteenth century, dubbing it a new Gilded Age.
What this means for higher education is
complex. To begin with, we may see wealth
donors playing a greater role in campus
finances and governance, as the 1 percent's
wealth keeps accelerating away from the rest
of the population. Individual campuses may
rethink how they position their economic
value to students, such as a launching pad to
enter the elite. Professions associated with
the highest income brackets (surgery, finance,
some computer science, athletics, business
management) may become more attractive to
students, and campuses may decide to meet
that demand with greater supply. We might also
anticipate campus politics to brew up around
this issue, either from the left (think Occupy Wall
Street) or the right (libertarianism).
Part 1: The Global Context
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The Future of Higher Education

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of The Future of Higher Education
