There has long been a divide between liberal arts colleges, research universities and institutes of technology.  The gap between traditional four-year colleges/universities and commercial or technical schools generally remains. 

In a fifty year period of growing enrolments, our major public universities have become larger and more complex.  They have added colleges and majors.  They have increasingly focused on winning research dollars.  They have learned to compete for students.  They have nearly all adopted the same brand strategy focused on “academic excellence”.   The college ratings game essentially focuses on the ranking of entering student SAT scores.   To succeed, universities have improved their facilities, increased financial aid packages and developed programs that attract high SAT students.

State universities secure alumni and corporate funding so that they can compete with other highly rated schools.  State universities that were once positioned as teachers colleges, normal schools, agricultural and technical or urban universities all compete for the same academic rankings, investing in research labs, notable faculty and sports teams.  Some clever universities specialize in a few niche colleges like insurance, architecture, entrepreneurship or media.  They use brand excellence in a professional school or two as a substitute for higher rankings in the more prestigious arts and sciences.

Given the business world’s strong preference for industry specialization and experience, a more satisfying strategy for their students might be to specialize in a single broad industry.   Charter and magnet schools do this at the secondary school level.  Community/technical colleges often merge industry and professional skills into technical programs.  A few older colleges like agriculture still produce ag communications, ag business and ag engineering majors.

A university could adopt a broad industry like medicine, distribution, trade, communications, government/NFP, manufacturing, agriculture or financial services.  Professional and associate/technical degrees could be offered.   In addition, degrees in support fields like business, marketing, communications, finance, IT, engineering and science could be offered.  Courses could be developed to provide an industry overview, highlight industry firms, describe international opportunities and teach industry terminology. 

If state universities want to contribute to state level economic development, they could make an immediate and lasting impact by specializing by industry.