Higher Ed and the Zombie Apocalypse
“Mommy?” asked a tiny voice, clutching the knee of her mother in front of me in the checkout line at Festival, “Is that a zombie?”
“It’s not nice to point, dear,” her mother corrected.
“But he has eyes like a zombie, mommy!”
I snapped out of my blank stare, realizing the little girl, with a mix of wonder and concern on her face, was pointing at me.
“Leave the nice man alone, sweetie,” offered her mother, more for me than her daughter, “He looks like he has a lot on his mind.”
She’s right.
(I’ll pause here to offer this tip to fellow chief enrollment officers: Exercise caution when pondering in public places whether the higher education landscape is, in fact, like the landscape in a zombie apocalypse movie. You might start to look like one of the characters.)
The truth is, I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whether we are in the pre- or post-cataclysm part of the higher ed zombie apocalypse movie.
We’ve seen the news stories that suggest the four-year residential higher ed model is in decline, because many things associated with it are also in decline, like…
…the population of so-called “traditional students”…
…the number of students going to college…
…family ability (or willingness) to pay the high cost of college…
…net tuition revenue…
…public faith in the value of a college degree…
…the number of colleges…
…and let’s not forget the number of Hollywood celebrities not in jail for defrauding colleges in the admissions process…
So maybe we’re already there. In which case, it’s time to stock up on supplies and head for the high seas, because, you know, zombies aren’t great swimmers.
But I don’t think we are there… at least not yet. In fact, we may be at the point right before the cataclysmic event that changes everything.
The Department of Justice’s investigation into the National Association for College Admissions Counseling’s code of ethics — and the resulting changes in how colleges may recruit students — is just the latest new ingredient. Combine that with the coming rapid drop in traditional college-age students in 2026 and the likelihood that an economic recession is on the horizon sometime before then, and we have the components for a significant industry shift.
But even without these newer forces looming, we’ve been heading toward the kind of reckoning for which a zombie apocalypse may be an apt — if extreme — metaphor.
How did we get here in the first place?
More important, can we change anything now to change the future?
It’s time to ask some big questions, and by “big questions” I mean the ones for which there are not clear answers, the ones that lead to other, deeper questions. The kinds of questions that groups like NACAC and Hack the Gates and authors like Paul Tough are taking up with vigor.
We could start with questions about college price, like “What would have to happen for the high price/high discount model to change?”
If it did change, what would be the impact on student choice behavior — about career and college? On merit scholarships? On student access? On student debt? On the economy?
Likewise, what would be the impact on college budgets? On decisions about what programs to offer and how to offer them?
But maybe even before we go there, we should ask questions about how colleges recruit, admit, fund and enroll students, starting with a big question: “If we scrapped the whole system — grades, essays, test scores, letters of recommendation, even applications themselves — and started over, what would we do?”
And if we did start from scratch and build a new system, what would be the impact on secondary school curricula? On student assessment? On student stress and anxiety? On student choice behavior — about how they spend their resources of time and energy before college? On college marketing and recruitment budgets? On college rankings? On institutional priorities?
We could also ask a bunch of questions about the structure of a college education — such as how, where and when it is offered — and for that we will need to engage our colleagues in academic and student life administration (and, of course, our presidents).
The time to start asking these questions — and to consider bold, new answers — is now.
The zombies are coming.
Ken Anselment is the Vice President for Enrollment & Communications | Dean of Admissions at Lawrence University in Appleton, Wis.