Education by Chance or by Choice: Challenges and Options Facing Colorado Postsecondary Education as It Prepares To Enter the Twenty-First Century. Colorado Commission on Higher Education Master Plan Background Paper.

This paper looks at current trends in higher education nationally and in Colorado. It offers projections for the future to assist the development of possible strategies and directions for higher education in the early 21st Century. Opening sections look at higher education broadly noting the Colorado vision statement for postsecondary education, the current public crisis of confidence in higher education, the slow economy, projected increasing demands on the higher education system, and changes in labor market expectations. A central section argues that Colorado citizens' desires for higher education will increase significantly by the turn of the century but that the state is not in a good position to meet the financial obligation involved in such an increased demand. The paper argues that, in order to sustain the state's vitality, the state must consider ways to provide for increased needs within the given financial constraints and that decision-makers will be forced to decide among competing values. The balance of the paper discusses six possible strategies for solving this dilemma: (1) sustain public funding for increased postsecondary education demand; (2) prioritize access to postsecondary education; (3) constrain convenience to postsecondary education; (4) allow the quality of postsecondary education to decline; (5) improve the productivity of postsecondary education; and (6) consider new ways of subsidizing postsecondary education. (JB)