Purpose and Function of Institutions of Higher Education

The term “higher education” refers to learning in post-secondary institutions such as universities and colleges. Its purpose is to explore the world of knowledge, foster reflective capacity, train the workforce, prepare for a career, and promote personal and regional development. Universities try to achieve this by combining applied research and educating a new generation of citizens and leaders. Another purpose of higher education is to promote personal development such as epistemological growth, tolerance of uncertainty, moral reasoning, empathy, emotional intelligence, and the capacity for reflection. However, studies of the changes in these traits during higher education have yielded mixed results. On the one hand, graduate students have been reported to have higher levels of epistemological development than undergraduate students. Moral reasoning scores increase during college, nursing, physical therapy, and pharmacy education but not in computer science and medical students. Similarly, most cross-sectional and longitudinal studies of medical students and residents found a decline in empathy test scores. A statement describing higher education institutions should include their context and function. The context refers to the academic freedom of the faculty, funding, and the stakeholders to whom it is accountable. The function of a higher education institution refers to its mission and goals. The wording of a mission statement is intentionally vague to ensure consistency between different departments. Therefore, it does not define specific teaching programs. Implementing such programs requires their translation into learning objectives that define the expectations from of the graduate. The more detailed these are, the more targeted the teaching and the assessment of its outcomes can be. By analogy, travelers in an unfamiliar country need a large-scale map to know where they are going (institutional goals) and a detailed topographical map to understand how to get there (learning objectives).