Last month the President of Harvard University announced that the college will offer free attendance for students from families with annual incomes of  less than $100,000 and tuition-free for students from families with annual incomes of less than $200,000.

This is a significant step in the transformation of higher education in line with the ‘radical’ new model I suggested in my book ‘SLINGSHOT’ (first published in 2010). It will be interesting to see which university will be the first to embrace the full model I put forth:

Leading universities have amassed billions of dollars in endowment. Rather than trying to outcompete each other in endowment ratios and levels, why not tap the returns these funds generate as the basis of a new model. Use a portion of the endowment’s yearly investment income to do away with tuition fees altogether and offer free attendance to all students. In return, once students graduate, they would contribute a predetermined percentage of their annual earnings to the school for a set number of years, or until a specified threshold is reached.

For universities with suitable resources, the cost of this program would be relatively low, as they would only have to invest a portion of their yearly investment income from their endowment, and not principal. To illustrate, here is the rough calculation for Amherst College, with rounded figures for 2024: 5 % of its $3.5 billion endowment would yield $97,000 for each of its 1,800 students per year, more than sufficient to cover the full cost of attendance.

The returns would be tantalizing. Universities could select students purely on future potential from an expanded talent pool and receive far greater levels of alumni contributions than they do currently (they could even account for a portion of students not pursuing commercial careers with their degrees). For students, this model would eliminate the biggest burden of higher education altogether, that of being saddled with suffocating debt. It would also better prepare them for the postgraduation marketplace, as universities would be more motivated to offer pragmatic learning, and it would liberate them to take charge of their future with much greater flexibility. In short, there would be a close alignment of interests between students and universities.

#lifelonglearning #education #transformation #harvarduniversity #leadership #amherstcollege