A new UNCF report released this month issued a warning that extends far beyond the HBCU community. Presidential instability is undercutting institutional performance, student outcomes, and long-term strategic coherence. Although the report focuses on HBCUs, its message applies across the sector. Colleges are struggling not simply because leaders are turning over, but because the presidency itself is misaligned with the problems higher education now faces.
Dr. Erin Wheeler
The presidency is still built for an earlier era
Search profiles continue to prioritize fundraising, external relations, and political fluency. These skills mattered when demographic shifts were predictable and public trust in higher education was strong. Today the greatest threats to institutional health come from failures of learning design, student support, organizational culture, and human sustainability.
Presidents are expected to stabilize budgets and inspire stakeholders, yet few are trained to understand gateway course failure patterns, first-year cognitive transitions, the emotional labor of advising, staff burnout, or the hidden curriculum that undermines first-generation students. These blind spots are not individual shortcomings. They reflect a system that selects leaders for a world that no longer exists.
The UNCF report captures the consequences, not just the causes.
Leadership turnover disrupts reform efforts, erodes trust, and forces institutions to start over every few years. At campuses serving first-generation, low-income, and Black students, this instability compounds the challenges created by resource constraints and structural inequities.
But the turnover also points to a deeper problem. Presidents are being asked to solve academic performance issues and student success challenges without the preparation to understand how learning systems function. When the role is defined incorrectly, even capable leaders will fail.
The people closest to students rarely inform presidential decisions
Across campuses the same pattern repeats.
Boards speak with presidents.
Presidents speak with vice presidents.
Vice presidents speak with deans.
Meanwhile, the people who understand student behavior and learning patterns remain structurally distant from the presidential table. These include advisors, academic coaches, faculty teaching high-DFW courses, directors of first-year experience, and early alert teams.
When those insights do not shape decisions, predictable failures follow.
Retention is framed as a matter of student effort instead of system design.
Gateway course failure becomes normalized instead of solved.
Staff burnout becomes an individual problem rather than a workload issue.
Orientation becomes information delivery instead of cognitive transition.
Support systems become optional instead of foundational.
The UNCF report helps make this visible. Leadership churn is not simply destabilizing. It signals that institutions are not aligning authority with insight.
The modern presidency must understand how learning drives revenue
This is where the conversation must shift. Student success is not a soft metric. It is the institution’s primary financial engine.
Most campuses generate more net revenue by retaining forty additional first-year students than by recruiting four hundred new ones. A one-point increase in first-year retention can produce several million dollars in tuition stability at a mid-sized institution. These gains arrive without raising tuition, expanding recruitment territory, or launching new academic programs.
Yet the areas most directly responsible for improving retention are often underfunded or treated as optional. These include high-impact advising, evidence-based teaching practices, learning centers, academic coaching, and early intervention systems.
When institutions redesign learning environments and support structures around research on cognition, belonging, and student behavior, the financial returns are consistent and quick. I have seen double-digit increases in retention within two years by aligning institutional practice with what the evidence already confirms about how students learn and how humans adapt.
This is not accidental. It is the predictable outcome of investing in the core product of higher education, which is learning.
A path forward for boards and search committees
If higher education wants leadership stability, it must redesign the presidency around the work colleges must do now. Search committees should evaluate candidates on the following competencies:
Their understanding of student success research
Their ability to analyze learning ecosystems
Their track record of organizational alignment
Their capacity to build psychologically safe environments
Their willingness to elevate those closest to students
The UNCF report provides a timely reminder that higher education can no longer rely on a presidential model built for earlier conditions. Stability alone is insufficient. Institutions must select leaders whose expertise aligns with the realities of student learning, staff capacity, and organizational design.
Leadership turnover is not simply a staffing crisis. It reflects a deeper misalignment between what presidents are chosen to do and what institutions now need to survive and thrive.
Higher education can learn. The question is whether it will choose to.
Dr. Erin Wheeler is the Founder & CEO of Holistic Higher Education Solutions.
