Future of Higher Ed: VOA features Three Leaders

Voice of America's Learning English published an interesting audio segment and transcript "Experts Debate Financial Future of American Higher Education," on February 24, 2018.  Pete Musto and Dorothy Gundy conducted interviews with Teresa Tomlinson, board chair of Sweet Briar College, Valerie Calderon, senior researcher with Gallup, and Richard Ekman, president for the Council of Independent Colleges.

Tomlinson described accomplishments over recent years as Sweet Briar has reduced expenses and paid off debt.  Calderon summarizes results of a recent Gallup survey of chief business officers from 400 institutions of higher education.  Through CIC, Eckman works with 650 independent colleges and he reports that they have been successfully adapting to meet changing needs of students and society.  He notes that, "…recent media reports of a higher education crisis are untrue. He adds that, historically, few colleges have closed permanently. Schools that come close to closing are often bought by or combined with other similar or larger schools."

The VOA post is also accompanied by a short 4-question survey to assess key points in the article.