Will Higher Education Have a Higher Mortality Rate?

Posted on by David C. Brake

This topic came up briefly while talking to a few college students the other night at Startup Houston roundtable about whether they felt they were getting their money’s worth, so I thought I’d throw in my two cents.  While historically, higher education in America led the way in terms of global leadership and turning a profit, there are some who believe that paradigm may be changing. Colleges are contending now not only with the chaotic bursting of the credit bubble, but also with a growing population of disillusioned potential students.

These young men and women have watched the months go by as literally millions of people throw up their hands and leave the workforce; many of whom already have accredited four year diplomas. Additionally, their parents are strapped for cash, most likely unemployed/underemployed themselves, and have also lost faith in the educational system in general.  Let’s look at some financial aspects and social variables which may determine which Universities are likely to survive.

Appealing to a Changing Social Dynamic

The traditional “well rounded” education may be losing its perceived luster. The workforce of the 21st century is telling people they need well defined schooling, niche curriculums, and technologically dense programs. Fewer people want to study French literature, while drastically more feel that they need to sit behind a computer screen and get an edge on modernity.

Students are drawn by the potential to make money once they graduate, rather than simply being able to tell someone they have a degree. The millennial generation cares very little for paper diplomas and tassels anymore. They want to believe that they’re going into debt with better chances of well paying careers.

During the credit bubble of the last thirty years, families were more than happy to send their children, most of whom were first generation attendees, to school under the pretense that paying off loans would be a cinch with a prestigious certificate. These days, those who already have them are churning out horror stories of debt serfdom to what is sometimes perceived as a profit driven franchise that sold them a fairytale.

The universities that will make it through the next decade may well be those that can adequately demonstrate both the importance of the experience and that their graduates move on to jobs in thriving sectors of real economies.

Finances Determine Everything Moving Forward

Like the US government drowning in deficit spending, over a third of US colleges look like major banking and investment firms. Their books are riddled with overleveraged debts, and dwindling incomes/investors. Their expenditures are through the roof, while their attendance is less than spectacular and doesn’t always cover basic operational costs.

This research put together by www.thesustainableuniversity.com suggests that the landscape of higher education may look like the banking sector soon, with more and more going bankrupt and disappearing.  They would suggest that liquidity is the name of the game, and only those that can get their books in order are going to weather the fiscal storm.  They state the following: “Institutions have more liabilities, higher debt service and increasing expense without the revenue or the cash reserves to back them up.”

Simply raising tuition isn’t going to work. Exponentially inflating costs of living, commodities, and basic necessities will see to that. Instead, the lion’s share of success is going to go to (of those without huge endowments) those that can find ways to lower costs, while also giving students new services and options that they see as relevant today.

The old dynamic of spending more and more into success quite frankly looks insane even from a freshmen accounting major’s perspective these days.

Determining Risk Factors for Universities

Are those colleges that spend more and more without specifying their curriculum to suit new demands in extreme danger? It seems that for nearly any institution that isn’t currently considered cream of the crop, the downward pressure is immense.

With potential hyperinflation right around the corner, millions in endowment money is becoming chump change, and serious reorganizing is in order for those that don’t fall into the billions category.

US assets aren’t the only thing being downgraded. If the books are in complete agony, and tuition becomes a crutch, bond downgrades are likely to take a chunk out of survivability.

Colleges that have, out of necessity, had to turn to drastic measures like lowering standards, laying off faculty, or poignant tuition hikes will be perceived to have a short shelf life.

Digital Salvation & Outsourcing

From strategically putting money where the innovation is, the growth of ecommerce, and outsourcing data center and IT work, universities are scrambling for digital salvation. At the end of the day, even if they get their books completely in order, get their real estate values in line with reality, and cut down on a plethora of unnecessary expenditures – without adequate numbers of students, obviously failure is inevitable.

And so they say, the challenge facing higher education has never been greater; the risks have never been sharper; and the incoming tsunami of the higher education bubble has already pulled out the tide by a mile. Here are four things in my view that set apart those that are likely to succeed from those that are staring down the barrel of a financial gun:

  1. Colleges with a concise, and well defined strategy of change and evolution, coupled with a stringent focus on providing value and a higher job placement rate.
  2. Institutions that incrementally cut down on both support and administrative costs, while still managing to give students access to modernizing research and development.
  3. Determined and smart investment in innovation that is perceived by students as both valuable and constructive.
  4. Universities that legitimately conjure up free capital in non-essential assets.

It would seem that only the universities that take the time to regularly examine positive and negative perceptions of their perceived value and react accordingly will stand the best chance to leverage what they need to compete with the likes of Stanford or Harvard.  I doubt this is any longer an optional exercise, as students increasingly begin to view their tuition and time as an investment rather than a requirement of the status quo.

How Did We Get To Be So Fat?

Posted on by David C. Brake

Ok this is off topic and I may be going out on a limb here, but my wife and I recently went “day care shopping” for our daughter, and I couldn’t help notice the difference between what the kids were eating at the day care schools and the way we eat at home.  Not to hold myself up as any pillar of virtue, mind you.  I’ve been known to woof down the occasional twinkie, and recently hurt myself this summer touring the Bluebell Ice Cream Factory by sampling four complete scoops of varied flavors consecutively–but the key word here is “occasional.” (To me, that means not every day.)  Anyway, I remembered an article I read recently about how the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a new report indicating that an estimated 42% of Americans will be obese by the year 2030—and I got to thinking, how did we get to be so fat?  Then came the day care connection, and the thought entered my mind that maybe it’s a tough habit to break because we pick it up earlier than we think.

School Meals

Childhood obesity is a growing problem in the United States. Today, around 20% of children aged 6-11 in public schools are obese, up from just 7% in the early 80’s. The problem among teens isn’t much better. 18% of students aged 12-19 are obese, nearly four times the low 5% we enjoyed thirty years ago. The causes are diverse, from popular high-calorie options in school meals to the abolition of many physical education programs to a general lack of nutritional education classes in our public schools. The solutions are likely just as diverse, and while we may be on the right track with some of them, there is still a lot of work ahead of us in improving the quality of the meals in our public schools.

Meal Composition

First, one of our biggest problems may be a cultural lack of education and understanding about the composition of a healthy meal. Many people seem to believe that fat is the only cause of obesity, and that cutting fat is progress. This is not true; fats often take more energy (in calories) to transform into body fat as simple carbohydrates do. Simple carbohydrates are also vastly more prevalent, thanks to the refining process we use to produce corn syrup and other corn derivatives. In our crusade against fat, we have also prejudiced ourselves against some healthy foods, like fish, ham, lean beef, and poultry. Proteins are among the most filling foods in part because it takes more energy to digest and incorporate their caloric content into our bodies. Simple carbohydrates are among the least filling for an inverse reason; they’re second only to alcohol in the ease with which our bodies metabolize them into body fat. Saturated fat is a true problem, but we have largely lumped the good with the bad and demonized fats altogether.

While we may limit our serving sizes for French fries or our fat content for chocolate milk, as a nation we are still unconvinced that a carbohydrate heavy diet is part of the problem. When we do limit the density of simple carbohydrates in our school meals, students often find them elsewhere, and usually they find them in the ubiquitous vending machines in public schools all over our nation. From candy to chips to corn syrup-based carbonated drinks, students everywhere are supplementing or even replacing their healthy school meal options with junk food. The problem here is often money. Schools have come to rely on vending machines and the corporate entities that push those products for a portion of their funding, and they cannot easily rid themselves of the machines without making serious cuts to their badly strained budgets.

Swapping a Negative for a Positive

School meals also are often high in sodium and low in fiber. Heavily processed or commercially prepared foods, such as pizzas, breaded chicken fingers or nuggets, burritos, and beef patties make up as much as 40% of school lunch entrée options. These are heavy contributors to the high sodium, low fiber content in our public school meals.

The result of all this is that America’s children are increasingly obese. They are developing myriad physical and psychological problems. Many have glucose levels indicative of prediabetes, a serious risk factor for adult type II diabetes. They are developing sleep apnea and joint problems. Obese children are at serious risk of adult onset heart disease and osteoarthritis. Furthermore, these children are at higher risk for a broad variety of cancers, from heart to kidney to breast and prostate, Hodgekin’s lymphoma and multiple myeloma.

Learning to be Lightweight

These are dark tidings for our children indeed, but I am told there are solutions on the horizon. The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 calls for big improvements to school lunch nutrition. Under the Act, many of the problems with school meals are addressed directly and requirements are now in place to bring healthier meals to the classrooms of America. Time will tell whether this strategy will be effective, but many have high hopes in this regard.

Of the problems that need to be addressed foremost, vending machines top the list. From elementary to high school, the percentage of children consuming these high energy, low nutrition snack foods with their school meals weighs in at 17% to around 40% respectively. If we have to pay a little more to make up for the funds that schools would lose by eliminating these machines, we may very well make up for the expense with reduced medical costs for these children later in life.

Next in importance is the need for nutritional education. I have to ask myself and our country, seriously:  if we want to reduce healthcare costs, why isn’t this a priority curriculum?  Very few schools have dedicated classes on nutrition and wellness, and a little education can go a long way toward better health. “Health” classes in schools normally focus either on exercise alone or on sex education (an equally important but separate issue). While these are important topics, there is little said about macronutrient balance, caloric intake, or the importance of a diet that includes natural raw fruits and vegetables.

Education on caloric intake is vital, as is the need to measure the fat & sugar/corn syrup calories our children consume in public schools. While exercise is a necessary component of cardiovascular, muscular, and skeletal health, it is not the most important factor for obesity. That problem is all wrapped up in our intake. Our children need to learn that skipping the cheese on a burger can do as much to lower their bodyweight as twenty minutes of brisk walking. Our school administration needs to know how many (and more importantly what kind) of calories are in their meals and what effect that can have when weighed against the students’ basal metabolic rate and activity level. More focus on lean proteins and unsaturated fats will improve school meals markedly.

Though they say change is coming for America’s school meal programs, the plan is not complete, nor is the mission accomplished.  Of course I’m no expert, but I was thinking that maybe if we start asking the tough questions about how it happened, perhaps with a little effort we will all be able to look forward to a healthier America in 2030 rather than 50% of us rolling around like Weebles from vending machine to vending machine across the countryside.

Want to weigh in on this topic?  (Ooh, that one hurt!)  Please leave comments.

Clash of the Titans: Online vs Classroom Learning

Posted on by David C. Brake

Welcome, my name is David C. Brake.  I consider myself one of those people who feels like they have lived “many lives.”  I have been a musician, recording artist, entertainer comedian, manager, teacher, business owner, startup founder, husband and father–and a smart-aleck throughout.  However self assessments are always biased, so here are some examples for you to draw your own conclusions:

The Smart-Aleck

At one point in grade school, my math teacher noticed that one of my test scores was not up with the rest of my subjects.  She pulled me aside, and asked what I wanted to be when I grew up.  Although I appreciated that she was concerned, I also knew what she was trying to do.  I told her I wanted to be an astronaut, and she replied that I would need to know a lot of math for that vocation, so I should put forth more effort in my studies moving forward to reach that goal.  I replied that if that was the case, I no longer wish to be an astronaut, and I would appreciate if she could let me know what other occupations were math intensive so that I could make sure to avoid them in the future.  (She called my parents.)

Fast forward to the smart-aleck adult.  Continuing to make my case, below are some self-quotes that I found amusing, but the recipients at the time did not:

“I am considered an expert on most things that I’m not qualified to talk about.”

“If you look around and see you are the only one working for free, reassess the priorities of your co-workers.”

“If you knew what he really thought, he wouldn’t be a politician.”

“If you don’t believe in Jesus, I will kill you.  Does anyone else find this statement ironic?”

And last but not least:

“People who get their degrees while they sit around in their underwear are either really smart, or not worth hiring.”

And it’s this one that I want to talk about.

When I said that, it was in reference to online learning.  Unfortunately, the proponent of online learning to whom I was speaking did not find it amusing, and for some reason his response brought back memories of my “astronaut talk” in grade school.  He came back with, “Is the guy who pays a quarter of a million dollars for his degree smarter than the guy who makes a quarter of a million dollars without one?”  I thought about this.  Was I smarter to avoid something I didn’t enjoy, or would it have been more intelligent to put more time and effort into grade school math?  Everything, including the consequences involved, really depends on the objective.

There was a time in my life when all I wanted was to make a great salary going on stage and playing music for three hours a night.  After actually doing it for a while, that objective changed and I had new goals, but at the time I felt that it would have been foolish to obtain a degree which would not have brought me any closer to that objective.

While I can see arguments (and even agree sometimes) that online learning is alienating or closer to research https://chronicle.com/article/article-content/133177/ or that classroom learning kills creativity https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson, I think maybe the battle should be less of a battle and more of a conversation about objectives.  If you throw in all variables, I believe often times it really is what you make of it.  The best classroom teachers don’t stifle creativity with a curriculum, they try to find a way to inspire it (albeit sometimes in spite of the system)—and let’s not forget that in its quintessence, students in a school can also interact and inspire each other to create. Unfortunately, Sir Ken Robinson (see the link above) is also right that too often that quintessence is left unrealized.

As for online learning, while it may not be optimum in some situations, in others it can be very effective—and  in areas where nothing else is available, one could easily argue it is much better than the alternative of having no one to turn to for guidance.  Yes, proponents of online learning will say there are many who have benefitted, and there is no doubt that there are also many who stand to benefit.  Let’s hear what Bill Gates has to say on the subject. https://www.dailytech.com/Bill+Gates (Haha–how’s that for a segue?  I actually agree with much of his argument though, and even though he is selling software, projects like Khan Academy and DotLRN are a brilliant success thanks in no small part to his help.)

Maybe what’s really interesting now at this time in history is the fact that soon online vs classroom learning may not need to be a choice.  Enter Coursera: now you can even take Ivy League classes while you sit around in your underwear—at no cost to you.  https://www.thedailybeast.com/newsweek/2012/05/06/cheaper-than-harvard-ivy-league Interestingly (and not coincidentally), although it is the same coursework given and graded by the same professors, the classes are apparently not accredited.  This is a point of contention raised by some of the students.  (“What do you expect for free?” says the University… “Not much in this country,” says the world traveler…)

The point is that no one method of learning is “better” than another, but rather that learning should be judged by what is most effective and what is available for each individual at any given time.  And that’s where LRNGO.com comes in, with an idea that’s been floating around in one form or another as far back as 1971. en.wikipedia.org/Deschooling_Society  At the end of the day, the truth of the matter is that classroom and individual learning do not need to be mutually exclusive any more than online and physical, or instruction and research.  Rather, there will (and should) be more choices available for each and everyone’s needs and applications.  In short, it is what you make of it, and that’s probably something we can all agree on—even if you’re a smart-aleck.