Many private institutions of higher education around the
country are in danger. Not all will be saved, and perhaps not all deserved to be
saved. There are low-quality schools just as there is low-quality business. We
have no obligation to save them simply because they exist. But
many thriving institutions that deserve to continue are threatened. They are
doing a fine job educationally, but they are caught in a financial squeeze, with
no way to reduce rising costs or increasing revenues significantly. Raising
tuition doesn’t bring in more revenues, for each time tuition goes up, the
enrollment goes down, or theamount that must be given away in student aid goes
up. Schools are businesses, whether public or private, not usually because of
mismanagement but because of the nature of the enterprise. They lose money on
every customer, and they can go bankrupt either from too few students or too
many students. Even a very good college is a very bad business.
It is such colleges, thriving but threatened, I worry about. Low
enrollment is not their chief problem. Even with full enrollment, they may go
under. Efforts to save them, and preferably to keep them private, are a national
necessity. There is no basis for arguing that private schools are inherently
better than public schools. Examples to the contrary abound. Anyone can name
state universities and colleges that rank as the finest in the nation and the
world. It is now inevitable that public institutions will be dominant, and
therefore diversity is a national necessity. Diversity in the way we support
schools tends to give us a healthy diversity in the forms of
education. In an imperfect society such as ours, uniformity of
education throughout the nation could be dangerous. In an imperfect society
diversity is a positive good. Ardent supporters of public higher education know
the importance of sustaining private higher education. Because public institutions will be dominant, diversity becomes ______.