Higher Education in Difficult Times: Its Mitigation on Empowerment, Meaningfulness, Agility and Sustainability
Angel Damayanti
Faculty of Social and Political Sciences (FISIPOL), Universitas Kristen Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Hendri Jayadi
Faculty of Law, Universitas Kristen Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Riwandari Juniasti
Faculty of Vocational Studies, Universitas Kristen Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
Forman Erwin Siagian *
Faculty of Medicine, Universitas Kristen Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia.
*Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Abstract
Background: Higher education faces a turbulent global transition—driven by participatory learning shifts, financial and geopolitical pressures, technological disruption, and mental health challenges—requiring adaptive, student-centered, and sustainable strategies for resilience.
Aims: to reveal the mitigation plan against difficult times that the higher institution face which consist of empowerment, meaningful, agility and sustainability.
Results: We conduct a deep literature analysis regarding the fact that nowadays, higher education is facing a multi-dimensional deprecatory age, internally and externally, e.g., declining enrollment, financial sustainability, severe affordability issues for students of urban institution, discrepancy in educational materials, rapid changing in regulation, and also gap between the requirements of the professional in the job market. Fortunately, those problem may also create a favorable or necessary environment for creating new institutions or expanding existing ones or even go international. This concept is heavily influenced by the interplay between wisdom, local context and global pressures using key concepts, consist of empowerment, meaningful, agility and sustainability. Empowerment shows collective responsibility among all of institution’s stake holder, including alumnies. Meaningful reveals noble values of purposeful, righteous-driven culture. Agility implements flexible, adaptive strategies and management practices to respond swiftly to the dynamic and changing world while sustainability comprise the ‘practical how to’ for resilience and longevity of the institution’s survivabibility and align it with the future of education. Limitation of Strategies designed to tackle difficulties in higher education often fall short due to complexity of structural, financial, and pedagogical limitations.
Conclusion: During difficult times, higher education also suffer from challenge. The struggle must dynamically incorporates all stake holder to concisely accomodate empowerment, meaningfulness, agility and sustainability into holistic higher education management—spanning operational, academic, and financial armamentarium—to tackle complex global challenges.
Keywords: Adaptive, flexible, participatory learning, good university governance, education, sustainable development