researching the aims, goals, and purposes for the bachelors degree

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 *DRAFT: NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION* What is the purpose of higher education?: Comparing student and institutional perspectives for completing a bachelor’s degree Roy Y. Chan, Gavin T. L. Brown, and Larry H. Ludlow  Abstract: Society expects that degree-granting institutions will ensure that college students develop discipline-specific competences (e.g., knowledge, attribute, responsibility) as well as generic skills (e.g., communication, written, oral) and dispositions (e.g., attitudes, beliefs, curiosity) at the completion o f a bachelor’s degree. Current research suggests that undergraduate education is not just about discipline specific knowledge or applied skills; instead, dispositions and generic skills that enable graduates to be effective citizens are also valued outcomes for students completing a college degree in the 21 st  century. Utilizing Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS), this paper reviews and synthesizes the purposes and aims of undergraduate education from the perspective of (a) higher education institutions and (b) undergraduate students. More specifically, this article aims to address two research questions: (a) What are the differences between students’ and institutional aims, expectations, goals, outcomes, and purposes with regards to generic skills and dispositional outcomes of a college degree and (b) Is there a consensus as to what the goals of a college degree are in terms of core competencies. To answer such questions, a comprehensive search of the literature identified approximately 30 peer-reviewed articles, twelve books, five magazines/ne wspaper articles, and three policy briefs published between 2000 and 2014. Nine domains of the purposes and goals were found and while there was some agreement between institutions and students on the “non -economic” benefits of higher education, especially concerning intellectual cognitive attainment, the review was characterized by a significant misalignme nt. Our findings suggest that student expectations for completing an undergraduate education tend to be very instrumental and personal, while higher education institutional goals and purposes of u ndergraduate educat ion tend towards highly ideal life- and society- changing consequences. This paper calls for significant “Tuning” in higher education to define what a college student should know and be able to do at the completion of higher education. Keywords: purposes and goals of higher education; learning outcomes; generic competences; graduate attributes; transferable skills; dispositions; global skills; value of a college degree; institutional research I.  Introduction Over the last half-century, new pressures have challenged the traditional purpose of higher education. 1  On one hand, the purpose of higher education 1  Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), A crucial moment:

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What is the purpose of higher education?: Comparing student and

institutional perspectives for completing a bachelor’s degree 

Roy Y. Chan, Gavin T. L. Brown, and Larry H. Ludlow  

Abstract: Society expects that degree-granting institutions will ensure that college

students develop discipline-specific competences (e.g., knowledge, attribute, responsibility)

as well as generic skills (e.g., communication, written, oral) and dispositions (e.g., attitudes,

beliefs, curiosity) at the completion of a bachelor’s degree. Current research suggests that

undergraduate education is not just about discipline specific knowledge or applied skills;

instead, dispositions and generic skills that enable graduates to be effective citizens are also

valued outcomes for students completing a college degree in the 21st  century. Utilizing

Critical Interpretive Synthesis (CIS), this paper reviews and synthesizes the purposes and

aims of undergraduate education from the perspective of (a) higher education institutions and

(b) undergraduate students. More specifically, this article aims to address two research

questions: (a) What are the differences between students’ and institutional aims, expectations,

goals, outcomes, and purposes with regards to generic skills and dispositional outcomes of a

college degree and (b) Is there a consensus as to what the goals of a college degree are in

terms of core competencies. To answer such questions, a comprehensive search of the

literature identified approximately 30 peer-reviewed articles, twelve books, five

magazines/newspaper articles, and three policy briefs published between 2000 and 2014. Nine

domains of the purposes and goals were found and while there was some agreement between

institutions and students on the “non-economic” benefits of higher education, especially

concerning intellectual cognitive attainment, the review was characterized by a significant

misalignment. Our findings suggest that student expectations for completing an undergraduate

education tend to be very instrumental and personal, while higher education institutional goals

and purposes of undergraduate education tend towards highly ideal life- and society-changing

consequences. This paper calls for significant “Tuning” in higher education to define what a

college student should know and be able to do at the completion of higher education.

Keywords: purposes and goals of higher education; learning outcomes; generic

competences; graduate attributes; transferable skills; dispositions; global skills; value of a

college degree; institutional research

I. Introduction

Over the last half-century, new pressures have challenged the traditional

purpose of higher education.1 On one hand, the purpose of higher education

1 Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), A crucial moment:

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tends to reproduce what the larger society is expecting of them. On the other

hand, one would also argue that they should be aiming for more ideal

contributions to the commonwealth society. That conundrum has posed

persistent dilemmas about the goals and aims of higher education.2 

Notably, private, nonprofit colleges and universities across the worldface unprecedented challenges on a wide number of issues including support

for student aid, scrutiny over student access and completion, and the value of

a college degree.3 Generally, higher education exist to create, advance,

absorb, and disseminate knowledge through teaching and learning; help

rapid industrialization of the economy; contribute to the development and

improvement of education; and develop higher order cognitive and

communicative skills in young people, such as, the ability to think logically,the capacity to challenge the status quo, and the desire to develop

sophisticated values.4 However, today’s society has also viewed higher

education as a training ground for advanced vocational and professional

skills. This agenda has often created tensions between higher education as a

public good and higher education as a private benefit5, where the growth in

market forces have become increasingly diverse and political within which

they are located.6 This has all resulted in the rise of corporatization and

College learning and democracy’s future, edited by National Task Force on Civic

Learning and Democratic Engagement (Washington, D.C.: Global Perspective

Institute, Inc. (GPI), 2012).2 Joseph L. DeVitis, Contemporary colleges and universities (New York: Peter

Lang Publishing, Inc., 2013).3 Sandy Baum, Jennifer Ma, and Kathleen Payea, Education pays 2013: The benefits

of higher education for individuals and society, (New York: The CollegeBoard,2013), 5-47.4 John Brennan, Niccolo Durazzi, and Tanguy Sene, Things we know and don’t

know `about the Wider Benefits of Higher Education: A review of the recent

literature, (London, UK: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2013).5 Jandhyala B. G. Tilak, “Higher education: A public good or a commodity for

trade?,” Prospects, 38, (2008): 449-466. 6 Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus, Higher education? How colleges are

wasting our money and failing our kids and what we can do about it. (New York: St.Martin’s Griffin, 2011). 

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managerialization of higher education processes7, as well as the increasing

political polarization and plutocracy of public policies8, which is often seen

as a contradiction to the traditional academic, scholarly goals of

contemplating important ideas.9

 In other words, institutions of higher

education are not only under pressure to develop students’ soft and hardskills but to also enhance their discipline core competencies and dispositions

such as knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs for entry into the global

knowledge-based economy.10

 

Today’s knowledge economy requires highly skilled personnel at all

levels to deal with rapid technological changes.11

 To meet current societal

needs, higher education institutions worldwide are striving to reconstruct

curriculum, pedagogy, and assessment policies to ensure that all studentshave the desired attributes and competencies at the completion of a college

degree.12

 Statistically speaking, young college graduates entering in the U.S.

labor force today have substantially declined since the 1990s, and are now at

an all time low since 1972.13

 While many jobs posted online requires at least

a bachelor’s degree - approximately 80 and 90 percent14

  - limited research

7 Jennifer Washburn, University Inc.: The corporate corruption of American higher

education (New York, NY: Basic Books, 2005). 8 Suzanne Mettler, Degrees of inequality: How the politics of higher education

sabotaged the American dream. (New York: Basic Books, 2014), 1-19.9 Kim Watty “Addressing the basics: academics' view of the purpose of

higher education,” Australian Educational Researcher, 33:1, (2006): 23-39. 10 Martin Haigh and Valerie A. Clifford, “Integral vision: A multi-perspective

approach to the recognition of graduate attributes,” Higher Education Research and

Development, 30:5, (2011): 573-584. 11 Simon Marginson, Markets in education, (Australia: Allen & Unwin, 1997). 12 Robert Wagenaar, “Competences and learning outcomes: A panacea for

understanding the (new) role of higher education?,” Tuning Journal for Higher

Education, 1:2, (2014): 279-302. 13 Anthony P. Carnevale, Andrew R. Hanson, and Arlem Gulish, Failure to launch:

Structural shift and the new lost generation (Washington, D.C.: Center on Education

and the Workforce, Georgetown University, 2013).14

 Anthony P. Carnevale, A., Tamara Jayasundera, and Dmitri Repnikov, The onlinecollege labor market: Where the jobs are (Washington, D.C.: Center on Education

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has explored the primary goals and purposes of undergraduate education and

to what extent college students develop skills-specific and higher-level

learning outcomes, such as, critical thinking, communication, and problem

solving at the completion of higher education.15

 

This knowledge gap stands in stark contrast to the large number of recentstudies, which have examined the significant “economic benefits” arising

from completing a bachelor’s degree.161718

 For instance, Benson, Esteva, and

Levy19

  suggest that a  bachelor’s degree program from California’s higher

education system still remains a good investment for individuals and society.

Similarly, Delbanco20

 stated that a bachelor’s degree  is both “good for the

economic health of the nation and that going to college is good for the

economic competitiveness of society”. Comparatively, Hout21

 concluded thatindividuals who complete higher education are twice as more likely to earn

more money, live healthier lives, and contribute more to the socio-economic

and well-being of society. In other words, given the well-established

financial and career benefits of a bachelor’s degree,22

 it is plausible to

and the Workforce, Georgetown University, 2014), 1-12.

15 Richard P. Keeling, Richard H. Hersh, We’re losing our minds: Rethinking

American higher education (New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).16 Jan McArthur, “Reconsidering the social and economic purposes of higher

education,” Higher Education Research & Development, 30:6, (2011): 737-749. 17 Anthony H. Psacharapoulos and George Patrinos, “Returns to investment in

education: A further update,” Education Economics, 12:2, (2004): 111 – 134.18 Christopher Avery and Sarah Turner, “Student loans: Do college students borrow

too much - or not enough,” Journal of Economic Perspectives, 26:1, (2012): 165 –  

192.19 Alan Benson, Raimundo Esteva, and Frank S. Levy, The economics of B.A.

ambivalence: The case of California higher education (September 13, 2013). doi:

10.2139/ssrn.2325657 20 Andrew Delbanco, College: What it was, is, and should be (Princeton, NJ:

Princeton University Press, 2012), 25.21 Michael Hout, “Social and economic returns to college education in the United

States,” Annual Review of Sociology, 38:1, (2012): 379-400.22

 Katie Zaback, Andy Carlson, and Matt Crellin, The economic benefit ofpostsecondary degrees: A state and national level analysis (Boulder, CO: State

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suggest that a significant motivator for entry into and completion of

undergraduate education for parents and students is access to such economic

and social benefits. While not an inappropriate motivation, research that

focuses solely on the economic instrumentality of higher education may not

produce the best learning outcomes and competencies.For instance, Arum and Roksa’s

2324  book claims that four years of

undergraduate education make little difference in students’ ability to

synthesize new knowledge and put complex ideas in writing. They argued

that 45 percent of students made no gains in their writing, complex

reasoning, or critical-thinking skills during their first two years of college

and 36 percent failed to show any improvement over the four years of

college.25

 The authors of the book concluded that “drifting through collegewithout a clear sense of purpose is readily a pparent for undergraduates”.

Similarly, past research into the learning effects of motivation has suggested

that students with strongly instrumental motives (e.g., I’m doing this so I can

make a lot of money) or who use ‘minimax’ strategies (i.e., getting the

greatest return for the least effort) tend not to achieve as well as those with

‘deep’ (e.g., learning for its own sake) learning intentions.2627

 Despite the

fact that many colleges and universities are beginning to re-assess a broader

range of instruments and approaches to document students learning progress,

Higher Education Executive Officers, 2012), 1-23. 23 Richard Arum and Jospina Roksa, Academically adrift: Limited learning on

college campuses. (Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 2011).24 Richard Arum and Jospina Roksa, Aspiring Adults Adrift: Tentative Transitions

of College Graduates. (Chicago, IL: University Of Chicago Press, 2014). 25 Lydia O. Liu, Brent Bridgeman, and Rachel M. Adler, “Measuring learning

outcomes in higher education: Motivation matters,” Educational Researcher, 41:9,

(2012): 352-362.26 Noel J. Entwistle and Elizabeth R. Peterson,, “Conceptions of learning and

knowledge in higher education: Relationships with study behaviour and influences

of learning environments,” International Journal of Educational Research, 41,

(2004): 407-428.27 Barry J. Zimmerman, Sabastian Bonner, and Robert Kovach, Developing self-

regulated learners: Beyond achievement to self-efficacy (Washington, DC:American Psychological Association, 1996).

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limited information about how the data is being used significantly lags

behind in the worldwide landscape of higher education today.28

 Nevertheless,

examining and comparing both institutional and student purposes for

completing a bachelor’s degree may be relevant to higher education

policymakers and institutional researchers seeking to enhance studentlearning outcomes in higher education.

Just as Watty’s29

  study helped us appreciate the tension between how

academics and government policies view higher education, an analysis that

compares and contrasts the goals and purposes of higher education may help

us better understand the current disconnection between higher education

institutions and employers or college graduates.30 If research institutions and

students do not have highly aligned goals and aims for completing a bachelor’s degree in the 21

st  century, then there is likely to be

disappointment on both sides. On the one hand, academics and staff may be

disappointed if students do not go beyond the minimum requirements in

their engagement with learning tasks. On the other hand, students may balk

at learning things that have little apparent connection with vocations.

Consequently, formal research that makes a thorough comparison between

institutional and student perspectives on the goals and purposes of

completing higher education may “add-value” for institutions seeking to

position themselves for success in the 21st century.

It is important to note that the focus of this paper is on the “non-

economic” benefits of higher education, such as, core competences, skills,

capabilities, and dispositions and is specifically restricted to the North

American context. However, given the global nature of the higher education

28 George D. Kuh, Natasha Jankowski, Stanley O. Ikenberry, and Jillian Kinzie,

Knowing what students know and can do: The current state of student learning

outcomes assessment in US colleges and universities (Urbana, IL: University of

Illinois and Indiana University, National Institute for Learning Outcomes

Assessment, 2014), 1-50.29 Kim Watty, “Addressing the basics: academics' view of the purpose of higher

education,” Australian Educational Researcher, 33:1, (2006): 23-39. 30

 World Bank, Putting higher education to work: Skills and research for growth inEast Asia (Washington, D.C.: The World Bank, 2012). 

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industry, it is expected that this literature review analysis will have

applicability and pertinence beyond the United States and to all types of

universities (e.g., public, private, research, liberal, Catholic, non-Catholic).

The ultimate goal of this paper is to answer three sets of research questions:

1) what do current literature suggests to be the goals and purposes of highereducation, 2) how do students and institutions make sense of undergraduate

education in the 21st century, and 3) in what ways does a bachelor’s degree

fulfill higher education ambitions for advanced skills, general competencies,

and high-ideals by the time students graduate from university? In the end,

we offer several recommendations (i.e., notably the “Tuning” initiative) as to

how those differences in aims and goals could be further evaluated in the

hope of resolving potential misalignments surrounding the purpose of highereducation in the 21

st century.

II. Methods

To examine the aims or goals for pursuing higher education, a

comprehensive search of the literature was conducted between September

2012 and June 2014 to identify relevant publications that explored suchthemes. Specifically, this study incorporated Critical Interpretive Synthesis

(CIS) to compare institutional and student perspectives on the goals and

purposes of completing a college degree. CIS, a method derived by Dixon-

Woods et al. 31

, aims to establish theories and concepts from diverse bodies

of existing literatures through systematic review and meta-ethnography

methodologies. Additionally, CIS seeks to question the ways in which the

problems, assumptions, and solutions are constructed in the literature. Inother words, the primary purpose of CIS is to generate theory in discrete

stages of the literature review.

31 Mary Dixon-Woods, Debbie Cavers, Shona Agarwal, Ellen Annandale, Antony

Arthur, and Janet Harvey, “Conducting a critical interpretive synthesis of the

literature on access to healthcare by vulnerable groups,” BMC Medical ResearchMethodology, 6:35, (2006): 6-35.

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Through the use of CIS, seven databases were utilized to search for

relevant literature on the goals and purposes of higher education: 1)

Education Resources Information Center (ERIC), 2) Education Research

Complete (EBSCO), 3) Academic Search Premier, 4) ProQuest, 5) Scopus,

6) Google Scholar, and 7) Amazon.com. A hand search of newspaper andmagazine articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education and Inside Higher

Ed published between 2000 and 2014 was also conducted. The two main

foci were ‘purposes of higher education’, ‘bachelor’s degree,’ and ‘college

degree.’ Preference was given to peer -reviewed journal articles and books.

Synonyms and alternative terms like ‘expectations’, ‘aims’, ‘goals’,

‘aspirations’, and ‘motivations’ were also highlighted to help narrow down

the scope of the research. Journal articles that examined the economic oremployment advantage of completing a college degree were not considered

relevant for this study because they typically do not address the discipline-

specific competence and disposition outcomes gained by undergraduate

students. Additionally, working papers and policy-brief reports published

outside the peer-reviewed context were omitted.

The ERIC, EBSCO, Academic Search Premier, ProQuest, and Scopus

database search utilized the following key terms and combinations:

 

all("purpose") AND all(higher education);

  all("expectations") AND all(students) AND all(degree);

  all("purpose") AND all(students) AND all(higher education);

 

all("goals") AND all(students) AND all(degree);

  all("aims") AND all(students) AND all(higher education);

 

all("aspirations") AND all(students) AND all(degree);

  all("expectations") AND all(university) AND all(degree);

 

all("expectations") AND all(students) AND all(degree).Each of the above bulleted searches provided over 1,000 results. To

narrow the search, ‘Education Level’ (e.g., ‘Higher Education’) and

‘Publication Date’ (e.g., ‘2000-2014’) filters were selected. This restriction

produced approximately 40 relevant articles of which were reduced to 18

peer-reviewed articles concerning the aspirations and outcomes of a

 bachelor’s degree relative to generic skills and dispositional outcomes. The

Amazon.com search engine was used to select published books on the

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purposes and goals of higher education in the 21st century. The search terms

consisted of:

  ‘purpose higher education’;

 

‘goals university education’;

 

‘student motivation college’;  ‘student expectation education’.

To narrow the search process, the ‘Customers who bought this item also

 bought’ option was selected to explore books of similar topics or themes. A

total of 15-20 books were found that appeared relevant to this study;

however, only twelve books were deemed appropriate for this particular

study based on the chapter themes discussed by the author(s).

An additional search was performed on Google Scholar to identify other

published peer-reviewed articles or scholarly books that may not have been

found via ERIC or Amazon.com. Those search terms, included:

  ‘purpose of higher education’;

 

‘aims of higher education’ 

  ‘goals of higher education’;

 

‘university expectations of university degree’;

  ‘student expectations of higher education’. 

This search resulted in a further 16 published articles and 11magazine/newspaper articles, of which only eight peer-reviewed articles and

three magazine/newspaper articles were considered to be closely relevant to

the goals and purposes of a college degree.

In total, approximately 30 peer-reviewed articles, eleven books, three

magazine or newspaper articles, and five policy briefs were considered

relevant to the study. Before examining the various goals and purposes of a

 bachelor’s degree, this paper provides a comprehensive literature review

between institutional and student perspectives on the purposes and goals for

completing higher education relative to discipline-specific competence and

disposition outcomes. To enhance the quality of the literature review search

process, quantitative descriptive data on student purposes and goals of

completing higher education was further analyzed through the UCLA

Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) annual “Freshman

Survey” published between 1967 and 2013. Such analysis assisted the

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authors to understand the five historical decades of freshmen student

 behaviors for pursing a bachelor’s degree in American society. 

III.1. Defining the “non-economic” benefits of higher education 

Our critical interpretive synthesis revealed nine major themes that

mutually examined the “non-economic” benefits of completing a college

degree. Notably, we identified the “synthetic constructs” of both internal

purposes and external purposes, and the complex interplay between them.

We explore each contributing synthetic constructs by synthesizing and

comparing institutional purposes and goals of the bachelor’s degree,

followed by student aims of completing higher education in the 21

st

 century.We conclude with an analytic comparison of the two syntheses in the

discussion section. Table 1 was developed to summarize the main themes

from the literatura review.

III.1.1. Institutional purposes and goals of a college degree 

It has long been advocated that higher education providers should teach

undergraduate students with a wide range of competency and general skills

of which includes but are not limited to communication skills, problem-

solving skills, self-directed learning skills, the ability to integrate ideas and

concepts, and the capacity to work in teams and group environments. These

goals do not seem greatly different to the original purpose of higher

education when the Puritans founded Harvard College in 1636 to produce “a

learned clergy and a lettered people.”32  Bill Readings 33   once stated that

colleges had served “as producer, protector, and inculcator of an idea ofnational culture.” Today, however, most higher education institutions often

do not have a single, unifying purpose or mission statement in higher

32 Frederick Rudolph, The American college and university (Atlanta, GA: The

University of Georgia Press, 1962), 6.33 Bill Readings, The university in ruins (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,

1997), 3. 

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education. The bachelor’s degree –   often the symbol of success and the

ticket to the middle class –  is now viewed as the new high school diploma to

 produce highly skilled workers or ‘citizens of the world’ in the 21st century.

For example, the Time/Carnegie Corporation of New York 34

 recent survey

reported that 40 percent of undergraduate students believe that the purposeof higher education is to gain new knowledge and skills for a career while 36

percent of college leaders believe that a bachelor’s degree should teach

undergraduates how to think critically. The Association of American

Universities (AAU) 35

  identified three goals college students should develop

at the completion of higher education: (1) to be informed by knowledge

about the natural and social worlds, (2) to be empowered through the

mastery of intellectual and practical skills, and (3) to be responsible for theirpersonal actions and for civic values. While the demand for higher education

continues to increase in both the United States and across the world,

institutional leaders and upper-level administrators are beginning to question

the enterprise of modern higher education organizations in the 21st century.

36 

For instance, Lagemann and Lewis37

 have suggested that the public

purpose for attending higher education has less to do with the pursuit of

economic or employment benefits and much more about preparing young

adults with general skills and civic education such as, civic values, ideals,

and virtues. They argued that undergraduates must “develop generic skills

and dispositions to listen intently and empathetically to other people; …

analyze rationally what is said, read, and observed; … present thoughts

clearly; … confront unsupported assertions; and … identify reasonable

34 Time/Carnegie Corporation of New York, “Higher education poll,”

(New York: Times Magazine, October 18, 2012),35 Association of American Universities (AAU), AAU survey on undergraduate

student objectives and assessment (Washington, DC: Author, 2013).36 Derek C. Bok, Higher education in America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University

Press, 2013). 37 Ellen C. Lagemann and Harry Lewis, “Renewing the civic mission of American

higher education,” What is college for? The public purpose of higher education,(New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2012), 9-45.

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strategies to take necessary action” (p. 12). In other words, the authors

 believe that a bachelor’s degree should provide undergraduates with new

knowledge, competencies, and applied skills, such as, problem solving,

communication, critical thinking, and creativity that are necessary for

success in the 21st  century. Like Lagemann and Lewis, Kiziltepe38 claimedthat students should develop five dispositional outcomes at the completion of

higher education: (1) interpersonal competence, (2) multi-cultural

understanding, (3) skills in problem identification and problem solving, (4) a

sense of purpose, and (5) the confidence to act in ways that make a

difference. Similarly, Nussbaum39

 recommended that higher education

should provide students with several general skills and dispositions, such as,

“the ability to think critically; the ability to transcend local loyalties and toapproach world problems as a ‘citizen of the world’; and, finally, the ability

to imagine sympathetically the predicament of another person”. Nonetheless,

many scholars claim that the goals and purposes of higher education are to

develop individuals and the society by inculcating general capabilities and

dispositional outcomes.

Historically, there is ample empirical evidence from Pascarella and

Terenzini to claim that colleges and universities prepare individuals for

longer, fuller, and more productive lives. For instance, Astin et al.  40

 

summarized five areas on the effects of higher education: (1) learning and

cognitive changes, (2) psychosocial changes, (3) attitudes and values, (4)

moral reasoning, and (5) career and economic impacts. Similarly, Palmer et

al. 41 stressed that undergraduate education “address issues that are central to

38 Zeynep Kiziltepe, “Purposes and identities of higher education institutions, and

relatedly the role of the faculty,” Egitim Arastirmalari - Eurasian Journal of

Educational Research, 40, (2010):114-132. 39 Marth C. Nussbaum, Not for profit: Why democracy needs the humanities

(Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2012), 7-8.40 Alexander W. Astin, Four critical years (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass

Publishers, 1977). 41 Parker J. Palmer, Arthur Zajonc, Megan Scribner, and Mark Nepo, The heart of

higher education: A call to renewal (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publications,2010), 15-16.

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the life of young adults concerning purpose, core values, and direction in

life”. Equally, Polanyi42

 stressed that higher education’s purpose is to help

students “learn who they are, to search for a larger purpose for their lives,

and to leave college as better human beings”. In a s imilar a fashion,

Chickering’s 43  seven vectors of identity development indicate that thepurpose of higher education is to prepare undergraduates to develop

personally and interpersonally during their four critical years in college.

These seven vectors are: (1) develop intellectual, physical, manual, and

interpersonal competence; (2) manage emotions (e.g., self-control, self-

expression, self-awareness); (3) develop emotional and instrumental

autonomy along with interdependence; (4) develop mature interpersonal

relations (e.g., tolerance, appreciation, intimacy); (5) establish identity (e.g.,body, appearance, gender, sexual orientation, self-acceptance); (6) develop

purpose (e.g., vocational plans, personal interests, family commitments); and

(7) develop integrity (e.g., humanizing, personalizing values, and

congruence). In other words, the goals and purposes of higher education is to

not only create and disseminate new knowledge for the common good but to

also develop students well being and their own emotional, interpersonal,

ethical, and intellectual development.44 

To enumerate, Pascarella and Terenzini45

  concluded that roughly two-

thirds consider it “essential” or “very important” that their college enhance

their cognitive, social, and affective development (i.e., critical thinking skills

d=.50, self-understanding d=.69, responsible citizenship d=.67, personal

values d=.67, emotional development d=.63, reflective judgment thinking

d=.90, and epistemological sophistication or maturity d=2.00). While the

42 Michael Polanyi, Personal knowledge: Towards a post-critical philosophy

(Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1974).43 Athur W. Chickering and Linda Reisser, Education and identity (San Francisco,

CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 1993).44 Nicholas Maxwell, “From knowledge to wisdom ,” London Review of Education,

5, (2007): 97-115. 45

 Ernest T. Pascarella and Patrick T. Terenzini, How college affects students: Threedecades of research (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publishers, 2005), . 

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limited college learning reported by Arum and Roksa is quite likely an

underestimation of students’ true college learning, their study  warns that

higher education institutions may not be the place for developing students’

generic competencies in favor of meaning, purpose, authenticity, and

spirituality. Typically, ‘generic skills’ are described as the set of skills thatcan be broadly applied across different contexts beyond disciplinary content

knowledge.46

 A good example is the “Degree Qualifications Profile (DQP)”

by the Lumina Foundation which attempts to define what a college student

should learn, understand, and know at the completion of a U.S. bachelor’s

degree. The DQP identifies five general domains of knowledge and general

skills that higher education institutions should focus within undergraduate

education: (1) civic learning, (2) applied learning, (3) intellectual skills, (4)integrative knowledge, and (5) specialized knowledge.

47 In other words, one

can argue that the most widely valued general or discipline-specific

competencies are critical thinking; problem solving; interpersonal skills;

logical and independent thought; communication and information

management skills; intellectual curiosity; creativity; ethical awareness;

integrity; and tolerance.48

 

To extend the argument, Brennan, Durazii, and Sene 49  highlight six

benefits of higher education: (1) citizenship, (2) civic engagement, (3) crime,

(4) health, (5) well-being, and (6) the effects of the student experience. In a

46 Richie Moalosi, M. Tunde Oladiran, and Jacek Uziak, “Students’ perspective on

the attainment of graduate attributes through a design Project,” Global Journal of

Engineering Education, 14:1, (2012): 40-46. 47 Lumina Foundation USA, The degree qualifications profile (Indianapolis, IN:

Lumina Foundation for Education, Inc., 2011). 48 Debra Bath, Calvin Smith, Sarah Stein, and Richard Swann, “Beyond mapping

and embedding graduate attributes: bringing together quality assurance and action

learning to create a validated and living curriculum,” Higher Education Research

and Development, 23:3, (2004): 313-328.49 John Brennan, Niccolo Durazzi, and Tanguy Sene, Things we know and don’t

know about the Wider Benefits of Higher Education: A review of the recentliterature. (London, UK: London School of Economics and Political Science, 2013).

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similar fashion, Haigh and Clifford50

 suggested that the purposes and goals

of higher education are to develop students’ moral values and core

competencies. Specifically, they emphasized that higher education

institutions should produce a ‘new generation of citizens’ who will care

about the world through personal, social, and environmental responsibility.Comparatively, Hansen51  argued that the purpose of higher education is to

teach students’ general skills in civic courage, moral judgment, critical

thinking, and scientific and global awareness in order to prepare them for a

democratic, civilized, and global society. Furthermore, Sullivan52

 asserted

that the ultimate goal of higher education is to give student’s complex

knowledge, capacity in skillful practices, and a commitment to the purposes

espoused by their community. In other words, higher education should prepare students “for lives of significance and responsibility”.

 53 

Thereby, it can be concluded that the purpose of higher education are: (a)

to serve a democratic-centered civic engagement based on addressing

pressing real-world problems and (b) the development of a fully rounded

intellectually sophisticated and caring person.54

 While personal and social

development is advocated, a more balanced view of the purpose of higher

education can be seen in other arguments within the bachelor’s degree.55 For

50 Martin Haigh and Valerie Clifford, “Integral vision: A multi-perspective

approach to the recognition of graduate attributes,” Higher Education Research and

Development, 30:5, (2011): 573-584.51 Elaine T. Hansen, “Liberated consumers and the liberal arts college,” In Ellen C.

Lagemann & Harry Lewis, What is college for? The public purpose of higher

education (New York, NY: Teachers College Press, 2011), 63-85.

52 William M. Sullivan, Matthew S. Rossin, and Lee S. Shulman, A new agenda for

higher education (New York: Jossey-Bass, 2008) xvi.53 William M. Sullivan, “Professional education: Aligning knowledge, expertise,

and public purpose,” In Ellen C. Lagemann and Harry Lewis, What is college for?

The public purpose of higher education (New York, NY: Teachers College Press,

2011), 104-131.54 John Saltmarsh and Matthew Harley, “To serve a larger purpose”: Engagement

for democracy and the transformation of higher education (Philadelphia, PA:

Temple University Press, 2012).55 Jeffrey J. Selingo, College unbound: The future of higher education, and what it

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III.1.1.1. Student’s purposes and goals of completing a college degree 

Today’s traditional-age college students enter higher education under the

weight of tremendous social and economic pressures. Nowadays,

undergraduates have often seen higher education as a place to developeconomic and social benefits, such as, enhanced careers and greater earning

potential, as well as knowledge and expertise in a disciplinary or

professional area. For instance, the Lumina Foundation and the Gallop Poll62 

concluded that 95 percent of Americans expected the purpose of higher

education is to “get a good job.” Similarly, Astin et al. 63

 claimed that first-

year students expect their institutions to play an instrumental role in

preparing them for employment (94%) and graduate or advanced education(81%). Though this ambition has been increasingly focused on jobs and

money, this altruistic and possibly romantic view of student motivation is

not the complete picture. Notably, many scholars have often reported that

undergraduate students expect universities to give them the necessary tools

they need to find a job, to better understand themselves as people, and to

gain multiple opportunities to make the world a better place in our society.64

 

Historically, the Yale Report of 182865

 emphasized that the predominant

reasons a student should attend higher education is to develop “the discipline

and furniture of the mind”. Today, however, there is substantial evidence to

claim that student expectations or goals have changed, and that

undergraduate students are being more motivated by personal or social

development concerns as well as by instrumental, materialistic ambitions.

62 Lumina Foundation and Gallup, “What America needs to know about

higher education redesign,” (Washington, D.C.: Lumina Foundation, 2014). 63 Alexander W. Astin, Helen S. Astin, and Jennifer A. Lindholm, Cultivating the

 spirit: How college can enhance students’ inner lives (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-

Bass, 2011).64 Donna Henderson-King and Michelle N. Smith, “Meanings of education for

university students: academic motivation and personal values as predictors,” Social

Psychology of Education, 9, (2006): 195-221.65 Yale Report, Yale Report of 1828 (New Haven, CT: Yale College, 1828), 7.

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For example, Barber, Donnelly, and Rizvi66

 noted that student’s primary

decision to pursue a bachelor’s degree is to have the “college experience”

(i.e., meeting students, being inspired by new ideas and/or leading academics,

opportunity to socialize or to lead an organization, and make friends).

Similarly, Levine and Dean67  claimed that students purpose for attendinghigher education are: (a) to make them feel secure, (b) to be autonomous

grown-ups, (c) to seek intimacy, and (d) to live in an Internet world.

Likewise, Bui68

 highlighted 11 reasons undergraduate students pursue a

 bachelor’s degree: (1) their friends were going to college, (2) their parents

expected them to go to college, (3) their high school teachers/counselor

persuaded them to go, (4) they wanted a college degree to achieve their

career goals, (5) they wanted a better income with a college degree, (6) theyliked to learn, (7) they wanted to provide a better life for their own children,

(8) they wanted to gain their independence, (9) they wanted to acquire skills

to function effectively in society, (10) they wanted to get out of their parents'

neighborhood, and (11) they did not want to work immediately after high

school. Nevertheless, some college students view higher education as a place

to acquire a job and to be well off financially, while others view it as an

opportunity to obtain new knowledge and expertise in a disciplinary or

professional area.

To enumerate, the UCLA CIRP annual “Freshman Survey” has

significantly shown that money is the primary motivation incoming students

 pursue a bachelor’s degree in the 21st century. To illustrate, between 1967

and 2013, there was a 40 percent increase in undergraduates expecting

66 Michael Barber, Katelyn Donnelly, and Saad Rizvi, An avalanche is coming:

Higher education and the revolution ahead (London, UK: Institute for Public Policy

Research, 2013): 1-16. 67 Athur Levine and Diane R. Dean, Generation on a tightrope: A portrait of

today’s college student  (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass Publications, 2012).68 Khanh Van T. Bui, “First-generation college students at a four-year university:

background characteristics, reasons for pursuing higher education, and first-yearexperiences,” College Student Journal, 36:1, (2002): 3-11.

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higher education institutions to help them become “very well off financially”

as shown in Table I. 

Table I: Percentage of Freshman Students “Being Very Well off

Financially” is essential (Public vs. Private Universities) 

* Data generated by Roy Y. Chan on SPSS using UCLA CIRP Freshman Survey reports.

Specifically, in 1967, only 42 percent of U.S. public universities and 44

percent of U.S. private universities believe that money was essential.However, in 2013, that percentage increased to 82 percent and 80 percent

respectively. While some students pursue higher education based on

extrinsic factors (e.g., to attend graduate school, to secure and/or to prepare

for a future career), others are often motivated by intrinsic or personal

reasons (e.g., to experience self-growth, to meet new friends). This in other

words suggest that despite students intrinsic reasoning for attending higher

education, an increasingly number of freshman students expect that a

 bachelor’s degree will help them to acquire a better job and to earn a higher

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salary after college. This result is not surprising when McArthur69

 found that

undergraduate students view higher education as a means to increase their

annual salary and job opportunities, to accelerate their career paths, and to

enhance their marketability in the globally competitive knowledge-based

economy. Similarly, Kennett, Reed, and Lam 70  concluded that students’goals of pursuing undergraduate education included mostly external reasons,

such as, self-improvement, achieving life goals, and societal contributions

along with career, money, and family. Indeed, while numerous past studies

have shown that the primary purpose of higher education is the economic

and social benefits of the individual, current research suggests that higher

education also serves as a means to an end, the end being high paying jobs.

Stephens71

 once argued that there are “three main reasons students go touniversity: (1) for the social experience, (2) to get a job, and (3) to learn for

learning’s sake”. Thus, student goals for higher education have been

increasingly motivated by personal and economic benefits, rather than the

intellectual or social good of society.

In summary, college students in the 21st century have multiple aims and

purposes for higher education, including both extrinsic goals (e.g., to secure

and/or to prepare for a future career) and intrinsic or personal reasons (e.g.,

to experience self-growth). Though students have often become motivated

by the instrumental, materialistic ambitions of higher education,

undergraduate education has also been highly driven by the intellectual,

 personal, and economic ambitions of a bachelor’s degree. Therefore, student

goals for attending higher education will continue to be motivated by various

financial reasons in order for individuals to contribute to the economic and

social welfare of society.

69 Jan McArthur, “Reconsidering the social and economic purposes of higher

education,” Higher Education Research & Development, 30:6, (2011): 737-749. 70 Deborah J. Kennett, Maureen J. Reed, and Dianne Lam, “The importance of

directly asking students their reasons for attending higher education,” Issues in

Educational Research, 21:1, (2011): 65-74.71 Dale J. Stephens, Hacking your education: Ditch the lectures, save tens of

thousands, and learn more than your peers ever will (New York, NY: Perigee Trade,2013), 1-2.

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IV.1. Core themes

Comparing student and institutional goals and purposes for a bachelor’s

degree

Publications in the area of “non-economic” benefits of higher education

are widely dispersed across academic journals and policy briefs rather than

 being clustered in a specialist outlet. This is partly because “non-economic”

benefits do not represent a mature sub-field of enquiry in the same way as

the “economic” benefits or the value of a college degree. Hence, as outlined

above, there is a wide range of literature that compares student and

institutional goals for completing a bachelor’s degree in the 21st century.

Articles from 42 different journals were accessed as part of the literature

review, ranging from sources closely associated with higher education

research (e.g., Review of Higher Education, The Journal of Higher

Education), discipline-specific educational outlets (e.g., Sociology of

Education), and journals representing various fields, such as, business,

philosophy, psychology, sociology, and information science. From the

review, nine themes were identified reflecting the various aims or goals of

completing a bachelor’s degree in the 21st century. These were:

1.  Social democratic values and action; civic engagement. This theme

relates to the intention that upon graduation students will take an

active role in society, service, and co-curricular activities, with

active concern for involvement in civic concerns.

2.  Advanced intellectual skills. This theme relates to high-level

cognitive and intellectual skills such as problem solving, analyticand critical thinking, and creativity.

3.  Advanced communication skills. This theme relates to sophisticated

abilities to communicate orally, in writing, and through ICT-

supported media so as to effectively transmit information, persuade,

argue, and so on.

4.  Interpersonal skills. This theme focuses on students gaining

competence around relationships with others. This includes leading

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in conditions of complex social diversity, exercising tolerance,

curiosity, ingenuity, and imagination.

5.  Vocational & employment preparedness. This theme has to do with

using a bachelor’s degree education as a means of gaining a highly

remunerative job and/or career or having the skills that permit entryinto a desirable future career.

6.  Personal life quality enhancement. This theme has to do with

developing a personal sense of purpose, perspective, and identity

such that the quality of one’s own life is improved. 

7.  Personal integrity. This theme relates to becoming aware of

dissonance and resonance and having the competence to make

decisions in accordance with personal morality and values.8.  Graduate school education preparedness. This theme focuses on

the skills, knowledge, and competencies required when entering

graduate programs in a specific discipline.

9.  Family expectations/reasons. This theme relates to fulfilling

obligations to, expectations of, and aspirations of one’s family as the

prime motivation for completing a university degree.

To make further comparison between institutions and undergraduate students,

Table II was developed to categorize the literature by the most commonly

occurring themes.

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While Table II simply reflects the number of sources found in the review

and gives no weighting to the size or generalizability of the study, much of

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the literature tends to focus on the value of a college degree. Despite the fact

that almost all categories are reflected in studies carried out with students

and institutions, the impression one is left with is that institutions of higher

education have often placed heavy emphasis on much larger and grander

objectives with reforming society, and the classic individual cognitive andcommunicative agendas. In contrast, undergraduate students appear to focus

much more on personal economic, family, and personal development goals.

In other words, our research suggests that the internal and external

challenges on the goals and purposes of higher education had interacted to

produce a misalignment between students and institutions.

V.1. Findings and discussion

After conducting a CIS of the relevant literature, our findings have

presented both changes and continuities between institutional and student

goals for completing higher education in the 21st  century. Notably, our

research findings suggest that there is a partial misalignment between

institutional and student expectations for completing a bachelor’s degree.

From Table II, current and past literature claims that student expectations

and aims for completing undergraduate education tend to be very

instrumental and personal, while higher education institution goals and

purposes of undergraduate education tend towards highly ideal life- and

society-changing consequences.

To clarify, the ambition of higher education often tends to be global,

long-term, and high-minded, while student ambitions, on the other hand,

tend to be much more personal, short-termed, and economically rational.

Specifically, student motivations and aims seem to be quite mixed in whichsome of the life goals and societal contributions, for example, do not seem

incompatible with the more ethereal objectivities identified by scholars and

institutions. Nowadays, the outlook of a university, given current ranking

and comparison systems (e.g., U.S. News & World Report, QS World

University Rankings, Academic Rankings of World Universities, Times

Higher Education, Top American Research Universities, Forbes America's

Best Colleges), is both global and long-term. These rankings are especiallyseductive since they appear to offer clear-cut evidence of an institution’s

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quality and purpose both global and long-term. It may well be that in the

life-course of an adult a similar perspective might be developed in

individuals once they reach middle age, rather than being present during late

adolescence or early adulthood. Perhaps college graduates would then see

the purpose of higher education more like institutions if they were asked 20-30 years after completing their degrees. Nonetheless, we imagine that

colleges and universities might be pleased to see that student motivation

included the intellectual and societal contribution goals, and are not solely

defined in economic or personal gain terms. There is some overlap, however,

between institutional and student goals around the classic ‘ivory tower’ aims

and goals of higher education. To some extent, students do share an interest

in institutional ambitions to deliver academic and scholarly debates, todevelop knowledge and to share new ideas. However, in other contexts,

there seems to be a misalignment of goals and purposes in higher education

that may have some positive and negative consequences for society.

To enumerate, pursuing several purposes and goals in higher education

has proved especially advantageous because the different aims often meet

one another to produce a whole greater than the sum of its parts. For instance,

Baker, Baldwin, and Makker72  has suggested that this misalignment on the

purposes and goals of higher education have contributed to the curricular

change being seen in several liberal arts colleges in the United States, where

institutions are diversifying their curriculum by adding vocational and

professional degree programs. Similarly, Rybak 73

 advocates for greater

differentiation of universities with respect to the purpose of higher education

so that students can pursue a college degree that best matches with their

career needs and interests. In other words, the rise of liberal arts colleges can

help keep vocational programs from becoming excessively practical that

many employers consider important for success in their personal, career, and

72 Vicki L. Baker, Roger G. Baldwin, and Sumedha Makker, “Where are they now?

Revisiting Breneman’s study of liberal arts colleges,” Liberal Education, 98:3,

(2012): 48-53.73

 Jeff Rybak, What’s wrong with university? And how to make it work for youanyway (Toronto, Ontario, Canada: ECW Press, 2007).

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community lives.74

 However, the desire to pursue several goals and purposes

may create conflict with one another where institutions become less

intellectually driven and culturally oriented and instead model themselves on

businesses and commercial ventures, which perhaps may be detrimental to

the original aims and purposes of higher education. For instance, the demandfor students to receive practical training at research universities may in fact

marginalize the humanities and undermine liberal education. As a result,

pursuing multiple goals and purposes would become necessary university

leaders. However, the relative misalignment between institutions and

students of completing a college degree may ultimately suggest that higher

education institutions have a significant challenge in front of them.

For example, the UNESCO’s International Institute for EducationalPlanning

75 volume in The Diversification of Post-secondary Education

concludes that students from non-university technical programs in South

Korea, Malaysia, and India are more likely to acquire employment than

students from traditional university degree programs. Indeed, if modern

universities in the United States are serious about encouraging students to

embrace the lofty ambitions of undergraduate studies, then they will need to

take seriously the differences in student goals. While not discounting the

importance of the economic and “non-economic” benefits arising from a

 bachelor’s degree, much career and vocational training does not require or

take place in traditional higher education. Rather, it takes place in

polytechnic or for-profit institutions (i.e., University of Phoenix, Kaplan

University), gap-year programs, as well as on-the-job apprenticeship

industry training or non-traditional higher education programs (i.e.,

UnCollege, Minerva Schools at KGI).76  As long as students and families

74 Debra Humphreys and Patrick Kelly, How the liberal arts and sciences majors

fair in employment: A report on earnings and long-term career paths (Washington,

D.C.: AACU and NCHEMS, 2014).75 UNESCO’s International Institute for Educational Planning, The diversification

of post-secondary education (Paris, France: International Institute for Educational

Planning (IIEP), 2014).76 Joseph O’Shea, Gap year: How delaying college changes people in ways the

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perceive undergraduate education as being primarily about access to

economic and social rewards, then the grand ambitions of higher education

will continue to be undermined by instrumental motivations. Thus, many

colleges and universities in the 21st  century may continue to experience

challenges in making non-instrumental aspects of undergraduate educationas powerfully evident to today’s students. Notwithstanding the apparent

consensus across institutions concerning the purposes and goals of higher

education, it may be that colleges and universities do little, if anything, to

foreground their objectives and, thus, view college students as customers or

products for their degree programs. However, if undergraduates were to

actively encounter these ambitions in every course and see the connection

 between their current study and the institution’s lofty ideals, then perhapsmisalignment between institutions and students would diminish overtime.

VI.1. Recommendations

There are several recommendations that we propose to address the

misalignment gap between institutions and students for completing a

 bachelor’s degree in the 21st century. Notably, one recommendation we offer

is for colleges and universities to create institutional degree profiles to define

exactly what a college student should know and be able to do in a chosen

discipline at the completion of a bachelor’s degree. Often referred to as the

“Tuning” initiative, higher education institutions can create institutional

degree-specific profiles to ensure that the knowledge and coursework

completed aligns with civic, societal and workforce needs.77

 The Tuning

 project, first developed in 2000 as the “Tuning Educational Structures in

Europe Project,” serves two primary aims: 1) to contribute to thedevelopment of easily readable and comparable degrees and 2) to develop a

bottom-up approach for modernizing existing and new degree programs.78

 

world needs (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2013).77 Julia Gonzalez and Maria Yarosh, “Building degree profiles: The tuning

approach,” Tuning Journal for Higher Education, 1, (2013): 37-69.78 Tuning USA, Tuning American Higher Education: The Process (Encinitas, CA:

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has often been criticized for its use of terminology, the Tuning methodology

has helped faculty members to develop meaningful teaching practices

oriented to enhancing sudents’ competencies besides the subject specific

ones. This in turn has helped institutions of higher education to increase the

relevance, recognition, and quality of their degree programs; to emphasizelifelong learning and undervalued skills (soft skills); to and develop

transparency among different countries and within countries.81

 

As noted fron our literature review, producing college graduates with

relevant skills (e.g., communication, written, oral, tolerance, compassion)

and dispositions (e.g., attitudes, beliefs, curiosity) to meet the demands of

industries and the professions has become essential for entry into the global

knowledge-based economy. To address the misalignment gap betweeninstitutions and students, faculty members could create a ‘Degree

Specification Template’ as illustrated below to define exactly what a student

should know and be able to do at the completion of a college degree.

81

 Paul D. Ryan, “Editorial,” Tuning Journal for Higher Education, 1:2, (2014):273-275. 

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Figure I. Degree Specification Template82

 

In Figure I, colleges and universities could collaborate with their

institutional research office to outline the purpose, characteristics, career

pathways, education style, and program outcomes of a particular major.

Because the Tuning methodology is a bottom-up approach, the“Tuning”

 initiative can help colleges and universities highlight the distinctiveness of

their degree program; align the goals and purposes of a college degree;

differentiate between foreign and local academic degrees; facilitate student

mobility and student success; emphasize lifelong learning and undervalued

82 Tuning, USA, Tuning American Higher Education: The Process (Encinitas, CA:

Institute for Evidence-Based Change, 2014). 

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skills (soft skills); and simplify the process for students transferring credits

between institutions.83

 Ultimately, the Tuning methodology can assist

academics, institutes and governments to formulate institutional degree

programs in terms of competence-based learning and assessment of learning

outcomes to curriculum. Additionally, such approach can help facultymembers to identify how a student would gain the employability skills,

attributes, and/or dispositions at the completion of a college degree. An

example of a Tuning structure is shown below in Figure II: 

Figure II. The Structure of “Tuning” Higher Education84

 

83 Frans van Vught and Jeroen Huisman, “Institutional profiles: Some strategic

topics,” Tuning Journal for Higher Education, 1:1, (2013): 21-36. 84 Tuning USA, Tuning American Higher Education: The Process (Encinitas, CA:

Institute for Evidence-Based Change, 2014). 

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From Figure II, the structure of “Tuning” is divided into five categories: 1)

define discipline core, 2) map career pathways, 3) consult stakeholders, 4)

home discipline core, and 5) implement locally. From the five base models,

faculty members can work with colleagues and their students to identify a

roadmap of competences and learning outcomes to define precisely what thedegree tries to connect and develop in a “learning society.” Such a strategy

would help undergraduate students to recognize the purposes and goals of

higher education, and to address any potential misalignment between

institutions and students as well as employers and college graduates on the

structures, programs, and actual teaching of an institutional degree program.

Aside from “Tuning” methodology, a further recommendation we

suggest is for higher education institutions to assess the student body fortheir learning outcomes as part of institutional self-review — similar to the

processes of institutional review carried out at James Madison University.85

 

Specifically, higher education providers could obtain institutional

evaluations of the attributes noted by employers or graduate schools when

students are selected for employment or entry to a position. Furthermore,

higher education institutions could integrate the European Qualifications

Framework for Lifelong Learning (EQF) to help make qualifications more

reasable and understandable across different countries.86

 Such analyses

might reveal that graduate attributes are not being achieved over the students’ 

four critical years in college and thus, higher education institutions would be

forced to revise their curricular offerings in order to make their goals and

purposes more explicit and attainable. In addition to institutions,

undergraduate students could also undergo a comprehensive self-assessment

85 Anna Zilberberg, Allison R. Brown, J. Christine Harmes, and Robin D. Anderson,

“How can we increase student motivation during low-stakes testing? Understanding

the student perspective,” In Daniel M. McInerney, Gavin T. L. Brown, and Gregory

Arief D. Liem (Eds.), Student perspectives on assessment: What students can tell us

about assessment for learning (Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing, 2009),

255-278.86 Bastiaan L. Aardema and Cristina Churruca Muguruza, “The humanititarian

action qualifications framework: A quality assurance tool for the HumanitarianSector,” Tuning Journal for Higher Education, 1:2, (2014): 429-462. 

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and operational plan, but also demonstrate that highly-valued outcomes and

benefits are in fact achieved by students in their degree programs within the

school or department. In other words, students would have an added value

for completing a college degree and that the ideas higher education

institutions have proposed have some substantive value for contemporarysociety. The long-term benefits of this action would help liberal arts colleges

resist the pressure to vocationalize curriculum, so that providers can

continue to play an important role in developing a socially responsible and

global-minded citizen in the 21st century.

VII.1. Conclusion

In summary, there is now pressing need for greater understanding on the

goals and purposes of higher education in the 21st century. Notably, leaders

of higher education must connect undergraduate students with discipline-

specific competences and dispositions for the labor market, and assist faculty

members to work with students in designing and mapping out institutional

degree profiles that could help colleges and universtieis benchmark their

higher education degree programs. Implementing such agenda into

professional practice is both empirically and methodologically challenging.

However, such investment could help institutions to predict social, economic,

cultural and political changes in higher education of which is essential to

address the growing misalignment gap between institutional and

undergraduate students as well as employers and college graduates.

As McArthur once concluded, “higher education therefore has a social,

an economic, and an educative role that extends well beyond its walls and its

own students”.90 We have documented that higher education institutions doshare some goals and purposes with undergraduate students. Yet, we have

also demonstrated that there are contrasting emphases between institutions

and undergraduate students. Thus, this article is an attempt to revitalize the

interest and research into the goals and purposes of completing a bachelor’s

90

 Jan McArthur, “Reconsidering the social and economic purposes of highereducation,” Higher Education Research & Development, 30:6, (2011): 746.

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degree, and the importance of “Tuning” higher education in the 21st century.

Though some elements of higher education purposes and goals do align well

with student aims and expectations, we argue that there is a significant

mismatch between the lofty and, possibly unattainable, ideals advocated by

institutions and the somewhat pragmatic, instrumental goals ofundergraduate students.

Therefore, this study has pointed to an important, yet unfulfilled,

research agenda in higher education. If students today are graduating from

college having learned very little, then what is the purpose of higher

education? Do bachelor degrees fulfill the institutional ambitions of

advanced skills, general competencies, and high-ideals by the time students’

graduate from college? Providing an answer would require operationalizingthe institutional purposes, collecting data about the value-added impact on

student skills and dispositions, and using such data to consider modifications

to pedagogy, curriculum, and faculty development. Indeed, approaching this

evolving issue may appear to be one of the most important and crucial self-

evaluation tasks a university must undergo if colleges and universities seek

to avoid “an avalanche”91

 that is coming in the revolution ahead.

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Biographical Note:

ROY Y. CHAN ([email protected]) is a PhD candidate in the Department

of Educational Leadership and Higher Education at the Lynch School of

Education of Boston College. His research focuses on the economic andnon-economic benefits of a bachelor’s degree, the globalization and

internationalization of higher education, and the role of philanthropy in

U.S. public higher education. He holds a MEd in Higher Education from the

University of Hong Kong and a BA from the University of California, Irvine.

GAVIN T. L. BROWN ([email protected]) is Associate Professor in

the Faculty of Education and Director of the Faculty Quantitative DataAnalysis and Research Unit at the University of Auckland. Prior to

Auckland, he was Associate Head of the Department of Psychological

Studies at the Hong Kong Institute of Education and Senior Project Manager

of the Assessment Tools for Teaching and Learning standardised test system

developed in New Zealand schools by the Ministry of Education. His

research focuses on cross-cultural differences in teacher and student

responses to and understandings of educational assessment. He holds a PhD

in Education from the University of Auckland.

LARRY H. LUDLOW ([email protected]) is Chair and Professor in the

Department of Educational Research, Measurement and Evaluation at the

Lynch School of Education of Boston College. He is a past recipient of the

“2013 American Educational Research Association (AERA) Fellow” in

recognition of his exceptional scientific or scholarly contributions to

education research. His research interests include teacher testing, facultyevaluations, applied psychometrics, and the history of statistics. He holds a

PhD in Measurement, Evaluation and Statistical Analysis from the

University of Chicago.