Re-organizing higher education in RI

While a proposal to increase the cost of tuition at the state’s three public colleges got a lot of attention last week, another plan that will impact the future of higher education in Rhode Island was released. 

The state’s Director of Administration released a series of recommendations to streamline higher education and help the schools meet the demand for highly skilled workers in the state. 

Peter Kerwin from the Rhode Island Higher Education Assistance Authority , joined The Rhode Show to talk more about.

What brought about this report?

Last spring, there was a proposal put forward in the legislature to combine the Office of Higher Education (OHE) and the Rhode Island Department of Education (RIDE).  As its name implies, OHE oversees the operation of the state’s higher education system while RIDE is focused on the elementary and secondary education system.  

There was considerable concern that merging those two agencies would lead to a loss of focus on the higher education arena, because the political process tends to concentrate attention on those local elementary and secondary schools.  So instead of moving forward with that proposal, the General Assembly directed Richard Licht, the Director of Administration for the Chafee administration, to conduct a study of the higher education system and report back with his recommendations by November 1st.  He brought together a number of education officials to talk about the different options and last week, he released his findings.

What were his recommendations?

He proposed a return to the model of having a full-time Higher Education Commissioner and suggested that having the Board of Governors for Higher Education and the Office of Higher Education provides the ideal model for providing a streamlined governance structure that can focus on high-level policy development.  The idea is to have these entities formulating long-term approaches on such issues as online learning, meeting the state’s workforce development needs and the adoption of Common Core standards.

He also proposed the establishment of a joint PreK-20+ Advisory Committee between the Board of Governors for Higher Education and the Board of Regents for Elementary and Secondary Education.  The idea is to have a body that is looking at education from the pre-kindergarten level to meeting the needs of adult learners.  There are also proposals to centralize the administration of the three public colleges in the state and to move RIHEAA into the Office of Higher Education.

Taken together, these proposals recognize the essential role higher education plays in building a competitive workforce and promoting economic development in the state.  The idea is to make the most of limited resources by implementing a strategic and coordinated approach dealing with the transformation of higher education.