New Paper Offers Guidance for Improving Mizzou

It has been hard to watch the flagship public university of our state struggle this past year and a half.  Just recently, it was announced that after 15 years of steady growth, Mizzou’s enrollment  shrunk last year.

The tumult in Columbia has caused people around the state to ask “What can we do?” The Missouri legislature even went so far as to create its own independent review commission to examine the workings of Mizzou and the rest of the University of Missouri system.

We’re here to help.

In a new case study released today, Michael Highsmith and I present three case studies of different universities and university systems from around the country tackling the very problems that are facing Mizzou today: namely, how do we make college more affordable, relevant, and rigorous?

We travel from Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, where President Mitch Daniels has embarked on an ambitious program to keep costs down and design new majors and programs that allow students to progress at their own pace, to Texas, where then-Governor Rick Perry’s call to create a $10,000 degree spurred innovation statewide. Finally, we conclude at one of the finest universities in our nation, the University of Chicago, to show what it means to have a commitment to free speech and the open exchange of ideas.

We don’t present these stories as a paint-by-numbers guide to exactly what Mizzou should do to improve its standing in the state and region. Rather, we hope to spark a conversation about how to make Mizzou, and higher education in Missouri, stronger. We hope you’ll join us in that conversation in the coming months.

Click here to read more.