NIC Blog
Trends: The College of 2020: Students
THE TREND BLOG
News, Developments, and Trends in Higher Education
Robert L. Burns
This executive summary of a research report by The Chronicle of Higher Education (click here to download) provides insights into what is seen as the nature of American higher education by the year 2020. As stated, this section of the report deals with what we can expect of the nature of students at that point, outlining anticipated demographics and changes on college campuses that will attempt to deal with those elements.
Some of the interesting survey responses indicate that the nature of the typical student body will shift in many cases from traditional full-time 18 to 25 year-olds to a more part-time, older population, many of whom will take 60 percent of their courses online. The four-year residential model will fade. The profile of students in the most elite schools will not change as much as will those of regional state universities or smaller private liberal arts schools. The rapidly growing cost of college will have a major impact on the kinds of students enrolled and what those students will require of their schools.
The importance of this material is that it gives us a look ahead to the nature of our host institutions and their student bodies in 2020-just a decade ahead--their expectations and demands, and what our host institutions are likely to do in response to it all. Of course, these are the same students we will be working to bring into our fraternities. So it is important that we stay aware of expected shifts in the campus environment for students, their typical activities on campus at that time, and the nature of the host campuses our members will be living on.
We need this kind of information as we plan ahead for what is out there less than ten years from now. An older, more part-time, more online student body will have different expectations of their campuses in 2020, and also of us.
As noted in the executive summary, the full report can be purchased from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
