Deep Knowledge: A Strategy For University Budgetary Cuts

Abstract

During and after the Financial Crisis of 2008, many institutions of higher learning have had revenue and budgetary reductions, forcing them to make severe university budget cuts and university reductions in force. Often the university cuts are preceded by a process of evaluation of academic programs where institutions determine what they stand for and value. One option, when forced to downsize, is to use a business model, such as Sullivan (2004) explains, where high-value, low-cost programs are kept and low-value, high-cost programs are cut. However, a business model of education does not reflect the true social value of education or the importance of arts, sciences and humanities, where students learn how to struggle with, write about and understand the world. John Henry Cardinal Newman’s (1852) treatise, The Idea of a University, suggests an alternative strategy of cost cutting that has to do with deep knowledge, i.e. keep the oldest programs in existence on a given university. Using the deep knowledge concept, a university will cut young (junior programs) first and retain old (senior) programs until the very last, rather than deciding cuts based on a business model. The deep knowledge concept emphasizes a Socratic ideal where professors and students wrestle over concepts, such as the meaning of “beauty.”