// 30 June 2026 //

Universities Need a New Value Proposition

Higher education is at an inflection point.

Enrollment challenges, demographic shifts, rising tuition costs, and growing skepticism about the value of a four-year degree have forced colleges and universities to rethink almost every aspect of their business model. Most strategic conversations, however, continue to revolve around familiar questions. How do we recruit more students? How do we improve retention? What new academic programs should we launch? How do we distinguish ourselves from the institution down the road?

Those questions matter, but I believe they miss a much larger opportunity.

The universities that will define the next generation of higher education will not distinguish themselves simply because they enroll more students, build more residence halls, or climb higher in national rankings. They will distinguish themselves because they become indispensable to the economic future of the communities they serve.

For generations, the value proposition of higher education was relatively straightforward. Universities educated students, prepared them for successful careers, and sent them into the workforce. That model served society well, but the world has changed. Students have more educational choices than ever before. Certifications, apprenticeships, employer-sponsored training, and competency-based education have become legitimate alternatives in many professions. Employers increasingly care as much about demonstrated ability as they do about where someone earned a degree.

That does not diminish the importance of universities. It simply means the degree itself is no longer enough.

If universities are going to remain indispensable, they must create value that cannot be replicated through a certification program or an online course. They must become institutions that not only educate students but also create opportunity, attract investment, encourage entrepreneurship, and strengthen the economic future of the communities that support them.

To me, that starts by asking a different question.

Instead of measuring success primarily by enrollment, graduation rates, fundraising, research expenditures, and rankings, perhaps universities should ask whether they are making their regions more competitive than they would have been without them.

I live in Central Virginia, a region served by six colleges and universities. Every year, those institutions graduate talented students in engineering, business, healthcare, education, cybersecurity, and dozens of other disciplines. Yet many of those graduates leave because the opportunities they are looking for simply are not available here.

Regional leaders often point to manufacturing as one of Central Virginia's greatest strengths, and manufacturing remains an important part of our economy. But many graduates are looking for careers in technology, defense, advanced research, entrepreneurship, healthcare innovation, and other knowledge-based industries that continue to expand in places like Huntsville, Nashville, Northern Virginia, and Raleigh. As housing costs continue to rise, many young professionals find that local wages simply do not support the lifestyle they hoped to build after graduation.

The result is a disconnect.

We educate talented people, but we have not created enough reasons for them to stay.

That challenge extends beyond recent graduates. Not long ago, I watched it unfold in a very personal way. A senior executive from a major defense contractor relocated to Central Virginia to be closer to his daughters while they attended college. Like many parents, he hoped to make Central Virginia his home long after they graduated.

Over the next several months, he searched for opportunities throughout the region. The problem wasn't that he was looking for the perfect job. The problem was that there simply weren't opportunities. The region lacked employers that could utilize his experience, leadership background, and expertise, and there were no positions that justified leaving a successful career behind. In short, the opportunities simply did not exist in Central Virginia.

He made the difficult decision to get an apartment Northern Virginia and commute home on the weekends. It wasn't because he wanted to leave his family. It was because the regional economy could not offer a career that matched his experience or earning potential.

That story has stayed with me because it illustrates a much larger issue. Universities can successfully attract talented students and even experienced professionals to a region, but if the surrounding economy cannot provide meaningful career opportunities, those people eventually leave. The university succeeds in attracting talent. Another region ultimately benefits from it.

A few days ago, I had another conversation that reinforced the same point from a completely different perspective. I asked a young entrepreneur what she believed was missing in Central Virginia. Her answer wasn't about taxes, funding, or even talent.

She said, "There's just not much here for young professionals or entrepreneurs to get excited about."

I've thought about that conversation several times since. She wasn't describing a lack of intelligence or ambition. She was describing a lack of momentum. The most successful innovation communities create an energy that's difficult to define but easy to recognize. People gather because interesting things are happening. Entrepreneurs meet investors. Researchers collaborate with industry. Students build companies while they're still in school. Faculty work alongside government and private industry to solve meaningful problems. There is a sense that the next great company or breakthrough could emerge from the next conversation.

Those environments don't happen by accident.

They are intentionally cultivated.

History offers plenty of examples. Silicon Valley did not emerge because one university, one company, or one government program decided it should. It evolved because researchers, entrepreneurs, engineers, investors, and industry leaders repeatedly found themselves exchanging ideas, solving problems, and building relationships over decades. Informal communities like the Homebrew Computer Club demonstrated the power of bringing curious, ambitious people together long before anyone realized how profoundly those conversations would influence the future of technology.

That is the lesson universities should pay attention to.

Innovation is rarely the product of a single breakthrough. More often, it is the product of an environment where ideas collide, relationships form, and collaboration becomes part of the culture.

Higher education has spent decades talking about workforce development, and that mission remains essential. But workforce development assumes the jobs already exist. Preparing graduates for opportunities somewhere else is very different from helping create opportunities where they already are.

Universities should not simply prepare students to participate in someone else's economy.

They should help build their own.

That doesn't mean every institution should aspire to become Stanford or MIT. In fact, trying to imitate another university is probably the wrong strategy. Every region has different assets, different industries, and different opportunities. The better question is how a university can become indispensable to the future of the place it already calls home.

A university in Huntsville should naturally ask how it contributes to aerospace, defense, and space exploration. Universities in Nashville should ask how they strengthen healthcare innovation, technology, and entrepreneurship. Institutions in manufacturing regions should be helping manufacturers become more advanced and globally competitive while exploring adjacent industries that create new opportunities. Universities surrounded by nuclear, healthcare, logistics, agricultural, or defense industries should be asking similar questions.

The objective is not to chase trends.

It is to help shape the future of the regional economy.

That requires universities to think differently about research. Too often, research is viewed primarily as an academic outcome. Instead, it should also be viewed as an economic asset. The goal is not simply to publish more papers or secure more grants. The goal is to create partnerships that solve meaningful problems, attract companies, encourage entrepreneurship, commercialize new ideas, and establish the university as a place where industry wants to collaborate.

Imagine if university strategic plans reflected that philosophy. Imagine if presidents spent as much time discussing the industries their regions wanted to attract as they did enrollment targets. Imagine if boards measured success not only by graduation rates but also by research commercialization, startup formation, employer partnerships, investment attracted to the region, and the percentage of graduates who chose to remain because opportunity existed here.

That would fundamentally change the role of higher education.

Universities would no longer be viewed simply as institutions that educate students.

They would become institutions that help build regions.

I believe that is the conversation higher education, policymakers, and community leaders should be having. The question is no longer whether universities prepare students for the future. The question is whether they are willing to help create the future their students will want to be part of.