RSS Feed MenuCalifornia students organized protests this week to demand more public money for education.
Not such a good idea, argues Kevin Carey in the left-tilting magazine Democracy:
[T]he biggest problem with American higher education isn’t that too many students can’t afford to enroll. It’s that too many of the students who do enroll aren’t learning very much and aren’t earning degrees. For the average student, college isn’t nearly as good a deal as colleges would have us believe
In America’s less selective colleges, graduation rates average below 45%. And those who manage to graduate have not learned much:
A 2006 study from the American Institutes for Research found that only 31 percent of adults with bachelor’s degrees are proficient in “prose literacy”–being able to compare and contrast two newspaper editorials, for example. More than a quarter have math skills so feeble that they can’t calculate the cost of ordering supplies from a catalogue.
Americans are shocked by the cost, waste and inefficiency of the healthcare system. No such shocks with higher education – because the information is all carefully concealed from the public. While the systems and data exist to allow students and parents to do rational comparisons of costs and benefits, that information is secreted by universities with the connivance of government.
The most reactionary education lobby in Washington, D.C., isn’t located at the 16th Street headquarters of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union. It’s less than a mile away, at 1 Dupont Circle. That’s where the American Council on Education (ACE), the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), and a host of other alphabet-soup organizations conspire to maintain higher education secrecy at all costs. Long-established colleges that enjoy the benefits of the existing, information-starved reputation market dominate 1 Dupont.
Three recent examples illustrate the lengths to which they’ll go. To get colleges to participate in their surveys and tests, NSSE and the CLA had to strike a bargain. Colleges would control the results–the data would remain secret unless colleges chose otherwise. Then, in 2006, Mark Schneider, the commissioner of the Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics, proposed adding some new questions to the annual survey all colleges are required to fill out in exchange for federal funds. Colleges would be asked if they participated in surveys and tests like NSSE and the CLA. If the college answered “yes,” and had already chosen to make the data public, it would be asked to provide a link to the appropriate Web address. It would not be required to participate in any test or survey not of its choosing, or disclose any new information. It would just have to tell people where to find the information it had already, voluntarily, disclosed. One Dupont Circle rose up in anger and the proposal was summarily squashed. For his temerity, Schneider was nearly fired.
That same year, Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings convened a high-profile “Commission on the Future of Higher Education.” In the course of its deliberations, the bipartisan commission bemoaned
a lack of clear, reliable information about the cost and quality of postsecondary institutions, along with a remarkable absence of accountability mechanisms to ensure that colleges succeed in educating students. The result is that students, parents, and policymakers are often left scratching their heads over the answers to basic questions, [including] which institutions do a better job than others not only of graduating students but of teaching them what they need to learn.
The commission went on to recommend upgrading an archaic federal data collection system to take advantage of newly developed IT systems, including electronic student records, under the aegis of existing federal privacy laws that prohibit the release of any personal student information. When the topic was broached in mid-summer, the president of NAICU issued a press release denouncing it as “Orwellian” and “an assault on Americans’ privacy and security in the shadow of the Fourth of July.” When the Commission persisted, 1 Dupont Circle ran to Congress, which obligingly passed a law making the new information system illegal.
sinz54 // Mar 10, 2010 at 9:25 am
Many professors believe that their main job is to do their own research, not educate students. In the university I went to, professors often delegated the job of teaching freshmen and sophomores to Teaching Assistants (TAs). Professors taught juniors and seniors, because by then these students were beginning to assist the professors in their own research.
This dual role drives up tuition costs, because tuition has to subsidize research, which can be very expensive.
But I don’t blame colleges for the poor quality of their graduates. Those graduates were doomed by poor quality primary and secondary school education.
LFC // Mar 10, 2010 at 11:46 am
Kevin Carey was quoted… “For the average student, college isn’t nearly as good a deal as colleges would have us believe”
I’m not sure how that squares with unemployment data by education level. I’m sure there are multiple reasons for why this might be, but it does show that the lower your education level, the more likely you are to have taken it in the shorts in this recession.
Independent // Mar 10, 2010 at 2:03 pm
sinz54: “But I don’t blame colleges for the poor quality of their graduates. Those graduates were doomed by poor quality primary and secondary school education.”
Kind of blaming the rape victim for getting raped.
The problem isn’t poor quality from k-12 education. The problem is the lowered standards of colleges in accepting sub-par candidates who can pay their freight –either with taxpayer subsidized loans, their parents’ money or other peoples’ funds.
Remember, the people responsible for teaching those poor quality K-12 students were teachers who were trained in those colleges.
Colleges are the single greatest misappropriation in society. The public colleges should be forced to trim staff, cut faculty, limit research to something other than how cocaine affects monkeys. The global warming hoax comes straight out of the college-research boondoggle and there are millions of similar examples that await prudent exposition by those truly interested in reforming society.
But blaming k-12 education for failed college graduates is like blaming a rape victim for getting raped… it’s another item that just doesn’t pass even the sniff test.
Cforchange // Mar 10, 2010 at 2:19 pm
Quality and more important the COST of higher education need a real shakedown. The current state of this industry is as absurd as the blown housing market. Without student government programs and corresponding bank loans, this situation would and should implode.
No argument w/ Sinz – large institutions cater to research and graduate students – that is an accepted norm of the industry and has been for many decades. A student needs to be very self motivated to learn on their own and self determined to finish if they attend a huge university. Plus, check out the most recent trend of student social texting, web surfing trend that is being tolerated in class on the college campuses.
Also contributing to the problem with marginal results is the fact that there are few other options for post secondary training so many individuals who are more inclined to work with their hands enroll in college because they’re looking for continued mentorship. They want elite not HVAC. They fear the other obvious fast food/retail option so they try academia. They weren’t academically inclined in the first place so failure shouldn’t shock – the price tag for the experierment should. Usually it approaches $50k.
Just yesterday I listened to an interview where an “expert” in student loan banking described how college students are “fortunate” for a particular loan he was pitching because the interest rate was just 8.5% – the interviewer counter inquired; why aren’t the terms of student loans more in line with the fed rates extended to the banks. He responded that again that the student population was sooooo fortunate to have this 8.5% available instead of consumer loan option of 11 to 15%. This gentleman was stunningly confident. And yes the interest clock runs the second these loans are disbursed – no grace periods like what probably this banker received back when he educated himself. There are teams of experts convincing these marginal or poorly funded students to dive into the game.
Even when they do succeed with their degree, just how isn’t this part of the economy not going to explode once they graduate and jobs are not easy nor well paid. Then factor in that many of them probably have a Toyota car loan for their college transportation. Smart people are already adjusting their plans – community colleges are bursting with increased enrollment. But until the majority of overpriced colleges and universities cry about falling attendance, we all have plenty of risk for student loan default.
Don’t let Franco influence you, these pictures on the right here are aboslute comic relief in contrast to the gloom and doom of the serious topics you present for discussion. Hard to explain the inability to find humor in Edwards or Spitzer. That is unless, one could be applying for a talk radio position.