Larry D. Lauer

I imagine a world where a large number of innovative small colleges become the “boutique agencies” of higher education. They will use the advantage of their size to become quite nimble and highly innovative as they design totally new approaches to address the competitive realities of the future.

Such small, lean and highly creative boutique groups have emerged in the advertising and public relations industry to compete head-to-head with the well established, large, high-priced, high overhead  and cumbersome agencies. In response, small teams of professionals and creatives have come together  with little or no overhead to produce very innovative project and branding solutions, make compelling use of digital media, and serve clients with a price that makes sense.

The boutique college idea came to me at a recent conference as one president reported how she was able to align her tuition price directly with what it actually costs to deliver her college’s special kind of undergraduate education experience. Thus, she refreshingly will no longer be stating a higher tuition in order to maintain a high discount rate.

Discounting is the common practice in all of higher education that has enabled significant financial aid for some… which really amounts to a discount on the price. But the practice has evolved to where it confuses virtually everyone about what an education actually costs to deliver. Now there is at least one small college that is creatively addressing the problem.

Diversity of institutional type has been the hallmark of American higher education. Even so, in this age of intense competition and economic hardships, many have predicted the decline and fall of small colleges. “Boutique colleges,” however, with talented leaders who maximize the creative possibilities of their size, just might be able to show the rest of the world that American institutional diversity can and will  continue to lead higher education into the future.