Campaign for the Future of Higher Education

More than seventy faculty leaders met in Los Angeles in January at the invitation of the California Faculty Association to construct a positive counter-narrative in the national debate over the future of American higher education at a time when public higher education is at great risk. They identified April 13 as a national day of taking class action in support of higher education, with faculty organizing various actions at the local level.
They also established the following guiding principles for the Campaign for the Future of Higher Education, which will be formally launched May 17:

1. Higher education in the twenty-first century must be inclusive; it should be available to and affordable for all who can benefit from and want a college education.
2. The curriculum for a quality twenty-first century higher education must be broad and diverse.
3. Quality higher education in the twenty-first century will require a sufficient investment in excellent faculty who have the academic freedom, terms of employment, and institutional support needed to do state-of-the-art professional work.
4. Quality higher education in the twenty-first century should incorporate technology in ways that expand opportunity and maintain quality.
5. Quality higher education in the twenty-first century will require the pursuit of real efficiencies and the avoidance of false economies.
6. Quality higher education in the twenty-first century will require substantially more public investment over current levels.
7. Quality higher education in the twenty-first century cannot be measured by a standardized, simplistic set of metrics.