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research  Understanding Inc. Toktela Institute

Understanding Inc.

Client:        Understanding Inc., a not-for-profit corporation
Business:    Education
Objective:   In direct response to objectives set forth by the President's Council on Aging (Reagan), Understanding Inc. was founded to research and aggressively pursue a prototype program to address aging as a public education issue, focusing on the crisis in long-term care for America's older citizens. Understanding's long-term goal was to change existing stereotypical attitudes and prejudices on aging, death and dying in the United States and re-educate all age groups on ways to assure security and dignity in the retirement years.
Initial Audience:  Local, state and Federal elected officials, senior executives at Aetna Insurance, Inc. and the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society, Sioux Falls, SD

Project Report Table of Contents for 85-page report:

Project Synopsis
Problem Identification
Analysis/Impact on Project Participants:
        Good Samaritan Society
        Private Insurance Industry
        Understanding, Inc.
Solutions
Aging:  An Issue Overview  (excerpts below)
Understanding: Aging in America
        Long-Term Goals
        Short-Term Goals
Pilot Program for Prototype Community Care Center
Reduce the Medi-Gap
Increase CNA wages
Increase Activities Budget
Student Intern Programs
Multi-Media Educational Package
Funding Projections

Aging: An Issue Overview (excerpts)

America is experiencing a subtle but irreversible transformation that already has challenged its popular notion of being a "youth culture." The long-range consequences of this revolutionary change will be dramatic. The short-term consequences have been, and continue to be, traumatic.

Growing old in a nation which places a premium on youth is a fearful prospect, particularly for many segments of our society where cultural traditions and religious beliefs prevent an open dialogue on death and dying. For too many people, aging is considered a one-dimensional problem: the slow deterioration of one's physical capabilities. But aging in America presents more than just a physiological challenge. It raises critical economic, political and social issues as well, challenges that have massive implications for all generations, not just the elderly.

Consider the following:

• As the United States moves into its third century, its citizens will be getting older too. The median age will approach 40 by the year 2030, according to the United States Census Bureau. Today there are more than 31 million Americans age 65 or older; in three more decades, that number is expected to grow to 52 million - one out of every six Americans.

•  The principal force behind this transformation is the post-war baby boom (1947-1957) when nearly 43 million children were born, one-fifth of the country's current population.  Over the next 20 years, they will create a middle-aged bulge in population statistics boosting the 25- to 44-year-old group by 80 percent.

• This baby boom was followed by an equally important demographic event - a baby bust - a colossal drop in the number of babies born since 1957. This means a staggering shortage of workers employed who will be responsible for supporting the huge baby boom population when it reaches retirement age early next century.

• According to the Brookings Institution, in 1998, 2.3 million elderly Americans were living in nursing homes. Three decades from now, that number will nearly double to exceed 4.0 million. Today the average annual cost for nursing home care is $22,000; by the year 2018, that annual cost will rise to $55,000 if inflation stays at recent moderate rates.

• In 1997, the total cost of nursing home care in America was $42.6 billion, according to the Health Care Financing Administration. Of that amount, 52.4 percent was paid by individuals and families; 41 percent by Medicaid (available only to those who meet its prerequisite - spousal impoverishment), and 6.8 percent by Medicare, private insurance and other sources. What happens in another 30 years when nursing home care costs are estimated to be in excess of $100 billion?

• According to actuarial statistics from four major insurance companies, one of every two people who reaches age 65 will eventually be in a nursing home.  The average length of stay is 456 days. Medicare's new catastrophic illness benefits offer coverage, in a skilled nursing home only, for a maximum 150 days - but only if the patient needs daily skilled nursing care or rehabilitation services for that long. Assuming a patient meets all Medicare's prerequisites, that leaves 306 days unaccounted for under any Federal assistance program ...

Beyond all these facts and figures on aging in America, one indelible reality stands above all others:  It may not be fair and it will not be easy, but young, middle-aged and older Americans must learn how to rely more on their own initiatives and less on governments and institutions in order to assure their security in their post-retirement years.

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Toktela Institute, Inc.

Client:         Toktela Institute For Human Environmental Studies, Inc.
Business:     Education 501(c)3
Objectives:  1)  Write a business plan/prospectus (25 pages) for a new alternative
educational center whose three-year courses and community outreach programs represent a paradigm shift in the attitudes and methodologies currently defining a college education in the United States. 2)  Research each course and write course descriptions as part of the Institute's course catalogue.
Audience:  All potential public and private sources for funding

Prospectus Table of Contents:

          Toktela's Purpose
          Toktela's Market
          Programs and Services
          Courses of Study
          Management Team
          Financials

Toktela's Market (excerpts)

Toktela Institute's three-year academic program addresses a very selective niche in the existing higher education marketplace currently served by nearly 2,000 four-year colleges and universities in the United States.

The Institute seeks students within an approximate age range of 18 - 25 ... students who are either currently in college or recently graduated and have a job or are attempting to find employment.

According to Barron's Profile of American Colleges, there were 14 million graduate and undergraduate students in four-year colleges in 1995.  Approximately half of those students were in two-year or specialized colleges.  In that same year, there were 2.3 million seniors in U.S. high schools.

Enrollment for the beginning year of Toktela's three-year academic program is, by design, limited to 15 students.  Each year, another 15 students are selected to begin their first year.  Within three years, Toktela will be at a maximum enrollment of 45 students.

Based on the above numbers, Toktela serves less than one percent of the existing higher education academic market. Yet within that less than one percent of the market is the potential of hundreds of thousands of students who possess the hunger, self-discipline and maturity that will draw them to Toktela and allow them to succeed.

Please be aware, the entrance process into Toktela's program is extremely selective. There are students who think this course of study is what they want, but do not demonstrate the self-discipline and self-responsibility needed to exist and grow in this kind of academic environment.  And there are students with personal expectations and life work ambitions who would be better served by traditional two-year or four-year colleges.

Toktela exists for that growing number of students who seek greater experiential depth and relativity from their educational experience.  These students intuitively know they are inheriting a world that no longer guarantees certainty or rewards complacency.

The following is a composite profile of a Toktela student created from the backgrounds of students who have studied at the Institute:

• High academic achievers or possess that potential; frequently high grades or extremely high SAT scores with low academic achievement;

• More street-wise or worldly-wise than their contemporaries; more willing to take risks and assume responsibility for the results;

• Possess a hunger to have an impact on the course of human events and a vision of how they want to do that, a vision that frequently is contrary to what their parents expect them to do or become;

• Frequently mislabeled by parents or authority figures as "difficult," "over- or under-achiever," or "aloof;"

• Demonstrate more maturity than their contemporaries but not the seasoned life skills to focus and amplify that maturity ...