Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

John R. Thelin
combined with a declining rate of financial support. To
compound the problem, demographers pointed out that
the number of high school graduates was declining—and
graduating seniors were showing less inclination to go to
college than their predecessors.
Just as they had done in the wake of World War
II, many colleges and universities initially responded by
adopting severe measures to reduce operating expenses and
keep tuition from soaring. Thrift, in the various forms of
energy conservation, deferred plant maintenance, hiring
freezes, and salary reductions, seemed to work from 1975 to
1979, as increases in the price of attending college remained
below the nation’s generic consumer price index (CPI).
These measures eventually proved insufficient and sometimes
counterproductive. The failure to maintain campus buildings
and grounds, for example, could not continue indefinitely
without leading to problems of health, security, and
obsolescence—and thus declining appeal to prospective
students and their parents.
In place of piecemeal measures, by 1980 the
presidents and other administrators at independent colleges
were reading—and heeding—books about strategic planning
and other approaches to management that encouraged
rethinking how colleges work. The influential books included
Lewis Mayhew’s Surviving the Eighties (1980) and George
Lesley University
in Massachusetts
extended its
curriculum to
include a variety of
innovative, flexible
master’s programs
that supplemented
its traditional
bachelor’s degree
offerings in
education and
related fields—with
favorable results
both for the
institution and the
community.
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