On the Brink of Precipice, Certain Colleges Form Alliances for Survival

Dylan Smith attended high Certain Colleges  school a mere two miles away from Adrian College in Michigan but initially dismissed the idea of applying to this small liberal arts institution with just over 1,600 undergraduates.

READ: Navigating Amsterdam’s Waterways: A Canal Cruise Experience

Despite appreciating the concept of a compact campus, he doubted the practicality of pursuing a liberal arts degree in securing future employment. Even when Adrian recruited him for wrestling and football, Smith maintained his preference for Michigan State University, envisioning a major in supply chain management, a field in high demand.

Certain Colleges

However, an unexpected twist occurred when Adrian introduced supply chain management courses, altering Smith’s perspective. The allure of obtaining the desired degree from a smaller school, with more personalized settings compared to a massive university lecture hall, proved irresistible. This narrative is emblematic of a broader trend observed in numerous small liberal arts colleges that are rapidly integrating career-focused programs through an inconspicuous innovation known as course sharing.

Course sharing functions like an Amazon Prime approach to higher education, allowing humanities majors to “stream” classes, often taught by renowned faculty from top universities, without leaving their home campuses. This collaborative effort utilizes technologies that advanced significantly during the pandemic, leveraging online education delivery to facilitate partnerships between institutions with surplus online class space and those seeking to introduce new programs economically and swiftly.

Adrian College, for instance, collaborates with Lasell University in Massachusetts to primarily deliver supply chain management courses. This collaboration extends to a coalition of colleges and universities, including Rutgers, Harvard, Michigan, Duke, and Yale, sharing courses with each other. For students like Smith and Ryan Boyd, course sharing at Adrian enabled them to maintain the unique experience of an Adrian degree while accessing courses from prestigious institutions like Michigan and Harvard.

This innovative approach emerges as a response to the enrollment crisis faced by small colleges, intensified competition from job-skills-focused educational providers, and growing skepticism about the return on investment in higher education. Course sharing not only enables these institutions to preserve their small, residential identity but also enhances competitiveness in terms of program selection and cost, providing an effective countermeasure against larger players in the field. For institutions like Westmont College in California, it represents a means to stay competitive while retaining the core value of residential education.

Beyond liberal arts colleges, community colleges, rural institutions, historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs), and minority-serving institutions (MSIs) are swiftly adopting course sharing for similar reasons. This trend is considered a transformative shift in the higher education business model, allowing colleges to expeditiously add desired programs, attract critical enrollment, and compensate teaching institutions offering pre-developed courses at a discounted rate.

Jeffrey Docking, the president of Adrian College, emphasizes the profound impact of course sharing, noting the institution’s success in adding majors, minors, and certificate programs in 17 fields over the past two years. However, the urgency to address enrollment challenges is particularly pronounced for private colleges with low enrollments, exemplified by Adrian, as 81 such institutions have closed in the last decade. With hundreds of schools at risk of closure, the adoption of course sharing emerges as a pivotal strategy to navigate the evolving landscape of higher education and ensure sustainability.