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Certainly, analysing the present situation, it looks like the current model of higher education is coming to an end. College graduates, especially the liberal arts students are finding themselves without a job. They come out of school saddled with a huge amount of debt and even if they find a job, they are unable to come out of the mess.

The trend shows that for-profit, technologically advanced; slimmer models will soon replace the traditional universities and colleges. The only comfort here is for centuries, predictions about the doomsday for higher education have been false and we can only hope this time around, higher education will survive.

During depression, many experts felt that higher education is going to be financially doomed. This was when more than twenty five per cent of endowments and seventy per cent benefactor gifts were lost by the private institutions and public institutions had to face reduction in funding up to forty per cent.

Stanford’s founding President David Starr Jordan forecast in 1900 that liberal arts colleges will become extinct. When the GI Bill threatened democratization, many experts proclaimed that higher education excellence will be completely wiped out. Our country has always been full of doomsayers.

Alarmists predicting doom today are even worse. Someone must show them how one third of college students complete their graduation without carrying student loan debt at all. A majority of students carry not more than $25,000 average debt. Though the debt level has to be monitored constantly, it is not as alarming as being portrayed.

An increasing number of under graduates are being enrolled by for-profit colleges. There is a steady growth in the demand for education at selective public and private universities. This is evident with the fact that there is a decline in the number of applicants they admit. The issue here is how to bring about a balance in students between abstract wisdom they require when the world changes along with them and practical skills to survive.

The focus should be on ways to help students contribute to the society by making a positive impact. They must be prepared to lead the country in the right direction after they graduate and become community leaders. Effectively addressing challenging issues faced by the society should be the aim of our institutions.

Through day and night we deal with many issues. Whenever we hear about a young person harming himself or others around him, we wonder if this could have been somehow prevented.

Another aspect that worries us is that all these doomsday predictions could actually come true if our higher education leaders decide on listening to alarmists who are up in arms determined to bring in a new model that does not include our outstanding professors, pursuit of new knowledge, research budgets, commitment to excellence and residential college experience.

These are after all factors that have ensured that our country has so far remained at the top in the field of education.