Honoring the Trust: Quality and Cost Containment in Higher Education

Citation

Krause, K. (2006), "Honoring the Trust: Quality and Cost Containment in Higher Education", Quality Assurance in Education, Vol. 14 No. 3, pp. 290-292. https://doi.org/10.1108/09684880610678603

The provocative title of this book, Honoring the Trust, may well take some higher education administrators and scholars by surprise. The author, a former Vice‐President for Business and Finance at Stanford University, challenges readers to honour the trust placed in academe by the broader society. In an age where the dominant institutional preoccupations revolve around the perpetual challenge of doing more with less, and intense competition for status, students, and dwindling higher education funding, it is refreshing to pick up a book that raises critical questions about the ethics behind the academic endeavour.

Massy's extensive business experience, particularly in the USA higher education sector, informs the book throughout. He draws extensively on financial management and planning tools and models that he has developed, though the discussion also draws on the input of other experts in the field. In this way the book is a useful resource for scholars and administrators with a particular interest in the financial and quality dimensions of the sector.

The book is divided into two parts. The first comprises five chapters that present the case for change in higher education, while the second takes a practical approach to providing tools and strategies for improving practice. In arguing the case for change, Massy contends that, while USA higher education has not yet reached crisis stage, this will soon be the case unless issues of quality and resourcing are addressed as a matter of urgency. Arguably, similar contentions apply to international higher education, most notably in OECD nations. The historical overview and most of the examples given in this book are USA‐centric. Nevertheless, Massy's argument locates the USA higher education market within a global economy and in so doing, raises issues that are internationally pertinent. The author's wide experience outside the USA, too, informs his use of selected international examples and case studies that help to extend the potential appeal of this book beyond the USA audience.

The author's expertise and working knowledge of the extensive literature pertaining to universities as economic enterprises comes to the fore in the second chapter. The conceptual framework for this chapter is based on Gordon Winston's use of two intriguing analogies – “university as church” versus “university as car dealer” – as a way of illustrating the juxtaposition of academic values and market forces in higher education. This is a most informative chapter for scholars with an interest in higher education financing and market realities. However, from time to time, Massy descends to the level of generalisation in comments such as: “The ever‐rising costs erode the public's trust in higher education” (p. 39). In fact, the public's trust may be eroded by a complex combination of factors, including a perceived erosion of quality in pedagogy and the student experience. While many of these factors may be related to costs, it is important to acknowledge the public trust issue as a complex and dynamic one that is well worth monitoring and managing.

In the third chapter, Massy tackles the complex issue of subsidies and cross‐subsidies in higher education. Here, the financial aid examples are uniquely North American, though the principles of how and where institutional funding flows within universities work together with the appendix example to make this a chapter with a practical focus, despite its conceptual complexity.

A strength of this book is its use of empirical data, including findings of a field research study on how academic faculty view productivity, the teaching‐research balance, incentives and rewards and other pertinent issues. Massy makes good use of these data in his fourth chapter on the topical issue of the role of research‐led teaching in promoting quality in education. For those interested in the practical implications of Massy's argument, this chapter brings a welcome change from the relatively theoretical chapters preceding it.

One of the weaker chapters in this book is the final chapter of part one, focussing on technology. Massy is clearly interested in the dramatic transformations brought about by information and communication technology (ICT) in higher education. However, there is little in this chapter on the substantive link between ICT and the central focus of the book – the public's trust in higher education and its demise. The chapter includes some instructive case studies but fails to adequately acknowledge the ethical and pedagogical responsibility of institutions to shape and proactively manage the use of ICT across the institution.

The second half of the book gives the author an opportunity to demonstrate his expertise in drawing practical applications from the theory covered earlier. Once again, Massy provides empirical evidence on perceptions of quality among a range of stakeholders. Practical guidance is provided on the subject of processes for quality improvement, including the use of peer evaluation of teaching and a series of questions to guide quality processes pertaining to student learning outcomes, curricula, assessment and pedagogy.

Chapter seven follows with a number of practical pointers for university administrators and those responsible for guiding and improving quality processes. Importantly, there are also useful suggestions here for faculty and those responsible for curriculum development and review. Unfortunately, it is doubtful that these practitioners would be drawn to such a book in which practical strategies and “tricks of the trade” for faculty are integrated with those more appropriate for policy makers and administrators. In this chapter Massy makes a lucid distinction between students as clients and students as customers. This is a very significant point, yet surprisingly, it leaves out of account the importance of institutional responsibilities for shaping student expectations.

Massy proceeds to synthesise various approaches to external quality evaluation, and unashamedly advocates the academic audit as particularly effective. This chapter has a more international flavour than many others, given its delineation of the international history of quality processes. The models presented in this chapter are some of the best examples of Massy's obvious capacity to provide practical resources to enhance quality processes and practices in higher education.

In “Balancing cost and quality”, Massy argues that quality can be improved without spending more – a very comforting message that challenges conventional wisdom in these times. The ethical underpinning of Massy's argument comes to the fore in chapter nine where he proposes pragmatic strategies for enhancing quality while containing costs.

The penultimate chapter focuses on resource allocation in universities, providing strategies for allocating money across the institution with a view to supporting the cost‐containment‐quality‐optimisation principle. Practical exemplars, including one from Hong Kong, along with step‐by‐step guidelines for building a balanced institutional scorecard, heighten the practical value of this chapter.

By way of conclusion, Massy continues in the practical vein characterising the second half of the book. He concedes that his steps are presented in the language of presidents, provosts and deans and that they do not guarantee success. He further acknowledges that the journey toward improvement will be a contentious one, requiring persuasion, patience and persistence. This honest conclusion is appealing and in harmony with the “trust” theme infusing Massy's argument throughout. In a world where the tension between cost and value is ever‐present, administrators and policy researchers, in particular, will find in this book some challenging insights along with practical approaches to assist them in protecting academic values and ethical approaches to the scholarly endeavour, while operating within the realities of the market environment.