Mar 21, 2023
Rural-serving institutions (RSIs) face many more unique
challenges than most urban schools and persist, comprising more
than 25% of all U.S. colleges and universities. Although inherently
different, every higher ed institution can learn from the
innovative best practices RSIs have been forced to adopt to help
positively impact their enrollment and more.
To understand what RSIs can teach higher ed as a whole,
Dr. Drumm McNaughton discusses the misconceptions and essential
roles these institutions have in their communities with Executive
Director Dr. Andrew Koricich of the Alliance for Research on
Regional Colleges, a research collaborative and resource hub that
has completed the insurmountable task of defining what
rural-serving institutions are.
Andrew explains how RSIs’ unique experiences can help:
- Identify the role higher ed should adopt instead of becoming a
for-profit organization.
- The types of prospective students higher ed needs to
target.
- How board members should be appointed.
- Why higher ed must avoid pursuing growth for the sake of
growth.
- How to subset rising costs with remote learning and course
selection.
- The type of mindset that boards should look for when appointing
a president or chancellor.
#HigherEducation #RuralServingInstitutions #HigherEdPodcast
Podcast Highlights
- RSIs are their communities’ primary or only post-secondary
education access point and are their most critical employer by
launching businesses and consuming most of their goods and
services. Therefore, RSIs are tied to their community’s focused
industry and must remain targeted.
- Public RSIs are more dependent on state appropriations but
receive fewer appropriations per student because state funding
metrics focus on enrollment growth, which is more constrained. In
addition, RSIs receive fewer donations and competitive federal
grants because reviewers from federal agencies don't understand
them.
- Systems or legislatures usually choose to close or merge RSIs
because they carry less political weight and serve fewer students
even though fewer people are in their community.
- These structural deficits realize that higher ed appoints board
members incorrectly. Appointing too many alumni members complicates
the board’s ability to view the institution objectively. Meanwhile,
political appointees only view their schools as political tools.
Boards must also have more financial oversight by alerting
presidents or chancellors to financial problems before they reach
the legislature.
- Higher ed needs to move away from the mentality of getting the
maximum return possible since many RSIs usually can’t meet these
conditions because they enroll fewer students.
- RSIs’ mission of providing more accessibility to underserved
students proves that higher ed needs to rethink which students they
should serve, like underrepresented minorities and adults who never
started post-secondary education or who started but dropped
out.
- Higher ed cannot adopt the mentality of bigger is better since
RSIs are at the mercy of the rise and fall of their populations.
Instead, higher ed needs to identify what’s sustainable for each
institution rather than penalizing RSIs for something out of their
control.
- To help reduce costs, a significant role of boards and
administrators includes identifying what programs are no longer by
realizing if they align with local industries, for example. But
they must stay proactive and transparent. Also, don’t fully
disregard liberal arts education since students still need a
well-rounded education.
- Boards can’t be proactive if they appoint presidents who view
their institution as a stepping stone. Instead, appoint presidents
who value their mission, their students, and what they’re capable
of.
Visit our website to read the full transcript of this
podcast
About Our Podcast Guest Dr.
Andrew Koricich
Dr. Andrew
Koricich is the Executive Director of the Alliance for Research
on Regional Colleges (ARRC) and an Associate Professor of Higher
Education at Appalachian State University. Influenced by his
experiences growing up in a rural Pennsylvania town, Dr. Koricich’s
research interests focus primarily on rural issues in postsecondary
education, with a particular emphasis on rural-serving
postsecondary institutions and the communities they serve. His work
has been published in numerous journal articles, book chapters, and
research reports and featured in a range of media outlets,
including Politico, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Inside
Higher Ed, and The Daily Yonder.
Dr. Koricich and his team have received generous funding from The
Joyce Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and Ascendium Education Group.
He recently led a project to develop a data-driven metric for
identifying rural-serving institutions (RSIs), and he has been
invited to speak by a number of organizations, including the
American Association of State Colleges & Universities, National
Scholarship Providers Association, and the Oregon Community College
Association.
Dr. Koricich earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education and a B.S. in
Information Sciences & Technology from Pennsylvania State
University, and an M.B.A. from Johns Hopkins University. Before
joining the faculty at ASU, he was a faculty member at Texas Tech,
and prior to working in academia, Dr. Koricich spent several years
as a software development manager at a large insurance company
prior to his career in academia.
About Our Podcast Host
Dr. Drumm McNaughton, host, and consultant to higher ed
institutions. To learn more about his services and other thought
leadership pieces, visit his firm’s website, https://changinghighered.com/.
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