Value Entrepreneurs – Driven by Mission
For tuition-driven schools living in the shadow of elite institutions, the way forward must include recognizing they are not alone – that their similarities are greater than their differences.
Consider these beginnings: a formerly enslaved educator purchases a plantation to build a school from the ground up for freed persons; a group of monks arrives by foot at an immigrant community in the throes of poverty, malnutrition, and illiteracy to develop a network of social services; and Tribal leaders sheltering from windswept plains plan to combat the disillusionment of their reservation’s youth through education.
What may sound like plots ripped from Hollywood scripts are actual founding stories of three tuition-driven universities. Motivated by mission, most tuition-driven schools boast similar stories of innovation that carry on from their founding to the present day. While the specific mission and identity differ across schools, these institutions share similar forward-thinking cultures with a cause. They are what I call “value entrepreneurs.”
As I traveled from campus to campus interviewing university leaders for my book, Capitalizing on College, I discovered their stories of value entrepreneurialism were similar. “The founders came here on an ox-pulled cart and developed all this,” one professor told me, pointing across the campus. “You don’t think that was innovation? You don’t think they were looking forward and responding to a need? I think we are still continuing that!” At another school, a dean explained a blend of purpose and innovation influenced how its leaders envisioned themselves and their institution: “We see ourselves as being individuals that are innovative—individuals that like to think and dream outside the box.”
Time and again, leaders told me that in the face of shifting landscapes and financial pressures, they rejected the “best practices” of elites and embraced entrepreneurial strategies in pursuit of non-traditional enrollment growth for the sake of sustaining their mission. Yet these schools’ mission-centric innovation goes beyond merely expanding access. As one department chair put it,
I do not like the term access. I prefer opportunity, because access just means you open the doors and let people in. Any institution can do that, and that is just a question of money. Opportunity, on the other hand, is your commitment to see them to graduation. Are you providing the support services…are you recognizing the needs of that person?
When it comes to providing genuine educational opportunity, it’s the tuition-driven institutions who innovate, while elites trail in their wake and timidly legitimate.
A Shared Vision Among Differences
The tuition-driven sector is as diverse as the American population it serves. From historically Black colleges & universities (HBCUs) and predominantly Black institutions (PBIs) that engender Black identity and women’s colleges that foster empowerment, to Tribal colleges and universities (TCUs) that pass on Native American cultures and religious schools that exist to develop faith, these tuition-driven institutions exist to provide educational access and opportunity to students that elite universities overlook.
Who are the unseen? They are students who go to minority-serving institutions (MSIs) committed to serving underrepresented populations. They matriculate at Hispanic serving institutions (HSIs) and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs) driven to expand opportunities and reduce barriers. They are the graduates of regional colleges and universities (RCUs) – known as “people’s universities” for their commitment to teaching. And at these schools they encounter teachers, staff, and administrators dedicated to a common cause, driven by a mission to impart particular cultures and values, and committed to preparing students for lives of service.
What these schools aren’t interested in is climbing the U.S. News and World Report ranking ladder. Being viewed as “elite” is antithetical to their DNA. As the president of one tuition-driven university told me:
One of the bad words around here that the board does not like and faculty do not like is being elite. This is a place that would never say, “We want to be an elite.” They would consider that to be countercultural for us. Anything you do that starts to smack of that, the defenses go up… it’s a place that prides itself on being open to people who want a higher education but maybe could not get access because of finances or other things in any other place.
Whether focused on ethnic/racial identity, religious beliefs, vocational goals, gender equality, or educational opportunity, tuition-driven institutions share a similar drive to sustain their mission in innovative ways as value entrepreneurs amid the (very real) pressure of remaining competitive in a tightening enrollment market.
Value-Focused Innovation
As value entrepreneurs, leaders of tuition-driven institutions are constantly trying to balance mission and margins: “At the end of the day you cannot have a mission without the resources to fulfill it,” explained one provost in Capitalizing on College I spoke to. Another vice president put it this way:
You want to have those values and keep that culture, but at the same time, from a business perspective, you need to make decisions that allow the university to continue. It’s the old saying: ‘No money, no mission.’
Whereas the resources of elites mean they can easily compartmentalize innovation and investments, these schools look to their foundational spirit of innovation to carry their vision forward – not just in terms of the mission, but financially as well.
In attempting to explain how innovation was at the core of their tuition-driven university, one vice president drew an informative comparison between her institution and Stanford – her alma mater. As she explained, “I think they [Stanford] are a lot more resourced on all levels. And I’m not just talking about the billions in endowments and buildings…they get to draw the best minds of the world. And then they get to come up and incubate them. And they’re set up like ‘the land of anything is possible.’” The result was a focus on “innovation for the sake of innovation itself.”
As she was quick to point out, innovation had a different focus at her tuition-driven school: “I think the students and faculty have that sense of higher calling…to make a difference and have an impact like creating the common good…they are just not as resourced in the same way.” At her college, innovation aimed to serve the critically important relational component manifested in “making a difference” and the “common good.”
The relational emphasis is a fundamental component of the value entrepreneurialism found at these schools, where words like “community” and “family” are essential in the approach they take to developing students. The president of another tuition-driven school stressed that when it comes to innovation, “relationships are at the center.” Instead of innovation being pursued as an end in itself like at elite institutions, at tuition-driven colleges and universities innovation was valued for how it allowed the school to meet its entrepreneurial vision of nurturing relationships: “The culture for us has always been innovation—to keep looking at where we need to be and how to serve our students,” a professor at the same school explained to me.
A Call for Cooperation
The diversity across the tuition-driven sector might suggest disparity on the surface. But in reality, born in and sustained by the spirit of mission-focused innovation, the religious college has more in common with the HBCU than the Ivy League, and the Hispanic serving institution more shared approaches with a women’s college than an elite university. For the many different schools in this sector, their commitment to the “common good” and value entrepreneurialism demonstrate a commonality in valuing relationships that invites increased cooperation, as their commitment to innovation is inseparable from their mission.
What might this cooperation look like in practice? I envision three promising paths forward.
First, tuition-driven institutions should explore forming shared resource consortia across institutional boundaries. While each campus maintains its distinct mission and culture, neighboring mission-aligned schools could combine purchasing power for essential services, share specialized faculty appointments, or develop joint academic offerings in high-cost disciplines. Such partnerships would allow schools to honor their individual missions while acknowledging that not every institution needs to build every program from scratch. These consortia represent value entrepreneurialism in action—preserving mission through innovative resource stewardship.
Second, cross-institutional innovation hubs could become powerful engines for collective problem-solving. Rather than each campus struggling alone with enrollment challenges, student support systems, or technological adaptation, dedicated centers could bring together creative minds across tuition-driven institutions. The simple truth is that tuition-driven schools are responding to similar pressures with similar values. There’s no reason why they shouldn’t innovate together as well. These hubs would mirror the relational emphasis that distinguishes tuition-driven schools, creating communities of practice centered on shared values rather than competition.
Finally, tuition-driven institutions should collectively reframe the narrative around higher education excellence. Instead of pursuing the prestige metrics that favor elite institutions, these schools could collaborate to develop alternative rankings and public messaging that showcase their distinctive strengths—educational access, community impact, and mission fulfillment. As administrator after administrator in Capitalizing on College told me, the traditional rankings weren't designed for schools like theirs. Tuition-driven schools need to stop apologizing for who they aren’t and start championing what they are. By speaking with a unified voice, these diverse institutions can challenge the assumption that elite schools offer the only path to excellence.
For too long, tuition-driven schools have operated in isolation from one another, perhaps not recognizing their fundamental kinship across differences of region, religion, and focus. But in this challenging moment for higher education, their shared identity as value entrepreneurs offers a powerful foundation for cooperation. After all, their founding stories share a common theme. Why shouldn’t their future stories of innovation in service of mission be written with one another?
Extra Edge
Issue Soundtrack: “An Entreprenuer” by Christopher Nicholas Bangs, from the WeCrashed Official Soundtrack.
Starting to Cooperate: Here’s a brief list of resources to begin reading across the tuition-driven sector:
Becoming Hispanic Serving Institutions – Gina Garcia
Unlocking Opportunity through Broadly Accessible Institutions – Gloria Crisp, Kevin McClure, and Cecilia Orphan
The Fearless Christian University – John Hawthorne
Why Historically Black Colleges and Universities Matter – Marybeth Gasman
AANAPISIs in Context and Practice – Mike Hoa Nguyen
Women’s Colleges & Universities in a Global Context – Kristen Renn
Developments Beyond the Asterisk: New Scholarship and Frameworks for Understanding Native Students in Higher Education – Heather Shotton, Stephanie Waterman, Natalie Youngbull, and Shelly Lowe
The Small College Imperative – Mary Marcy
Let’s Connect: Please drop me a note on Substack, LinkedIn, X, or my website if you are interested in the “other 99%” of colleges and universities, or to tell me what you are reading and why. I would love to hear. You may see your name/suggestion here in a future issue.
Join the Launch Team: Have you ever been curious about what it takes to launch a book, or how to promote your own work? Here’s your chance to be part of the process! I’m assembling a book launch team where participants will receive early access to the book and, in turn, contribute an Amazon/Goodreads review, engage in weekly social media efforts in April, and join a Zoom debrief to discuss PR takeaways. If you’re interested, please reach out via Substack, LinkedIn, X, or my website.