Our Master Plan series continues with Professor Nancy Shulock of the California State University at Sacramento where she is Executive Director of the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy. Her specialties are public policy, higher education policy, public budgeting, and public management.
The Master Plan
by Nancy Shulock
Executive Director, Institute for Higher education Leadership and Policy
Professor, California State University, Sacramento
I worry that the effort to review the Master Plan will not yield the results that California so sorely needs. We face a huge problem of declining educational attainment in the state. Our younger generations are less-well educated than our older ones. As older Californians retire, the shortage of workers with college credentials grows ever larger. Our ranking among states in the percent of the population with college degrees is falling rapidly because we are not educating our younger generations as well as other states are.
We need a review that yields a set of statewide educational goals and targets and identifies the policies and investments needed to accomplish those goals. This kind of planning produces what other states are calling “a public agenda” for higher education. It guides efforts to enhance a state’s social and economic well-being. The Master Plan that we have is a fine declaration of enduring values and principles but it does not provide guidance for moving forward in a dynamic environment. The Master Plan that we have is a blueprint for the maintenance of three sets of institutions. It does not provide the foundation for addressing statewide concerns that depend deeply on inter-institutional actions or even on new kinds of institutions not envisioned in the Master Plan’s configuration.
The shortcoming of this static approach in today’s world may be best illustrated with reference to one of the enduring Master Plan principles – “access.” The Master Plan calls for universal access and specifies who gains access into which set of institutions. When the Master Plan was adopted in 1960, guaranteeing access was enough. Only a small, elite portion of high school graduates went to college. As they were generally well-prepared by well-funded schools, it could safely be assumed that by providing access, California provided for success. Today, the vast majority of high school graduates attend college and many are seriously under-prepared. Appropriately, the national conversation has changed from who gets in to who successfully gets out. Increasing student success is now the rightful preoccupation of postsecondary education across the country. I fear that by framing this latest effort as another review of the Master Plan, we will continue to focus on principles and institutions and who gets access, rather than on actions, statewide needs, and who succeeds. If we are going to meet California’s needs for an educated populace, we need a public agenda with specific goals and strategies, not only a statement of values and principles, however laudable they may be.
About the author: Nancy Shulock is Executive Director for the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and Policy and a Professor at the California State University Sacramento (CSUS). She served for 17 years as an academic administrator at CSUS responsible for planning and budgeting.
