Yesterday, the Manhattan Institute and the Pope Center sponsored a debate over higher ed. The question was, “Do Too Many People Go to College?” I argued the affirmative and Peter Sacks the negative. You can read our prepared statements here.
One notable aspect of the debate, I think, was the continuing confidence of Sacks (and other defenders of the higher-ed establishment) in what “the research shows” on the purported “returns to higher education.” Nobody is paid just for having sat through courses — with the exception of a few government employees who get automatic raises if they complete various degrees. People are paid for using productive skills. If you learn something that improves your productive skills, you stand to earn a return on that education. The trouble is that for a large percentage of American college students, what work they do in college does little or nothing to enhance their productivity. What sense does it make to talk about “the return to education” for a college grad with weak basic skills and a job serving coffee?
But here’s a very pointed one about the student debt bubble, with many sad college grads appealing to Barack to save them.
So says financial expert Dave Ramsey to a woman whose stepdaughter wants her parents to finance her $250,000 private college education:
If this child is going to take your money, then she needs to take your advice too. If she’s not willing to be reasonable and take your advice, then she gets none of the money. There’s no undergraduate degree on the planet worth $250,000. The whole idea is absurd, and somebody needs to say that out loud.
This girl can work, and she can go to a state school and get a great education for about a fourth of that price. Since you’re in Texas, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with the University of Texas or Texas A&M. They’re great schools. And at that price range, I’m sure it would allow you guys to pitch in and help out some.
But seriously, a quarter of a million dollars for an undergrad degree? I don’t think so!
Here is an informative piece on seven jobs that are expected to grow rapidly in the coming years. All “require” college credentials even though it’s hard to see why a moderately intelligent high school graduate couldn’t learn to do any of them. Also, they all offer low pay. I think this is strong evidence that the US has a serious case of credentialitis.
Keeping it all in perspective, this recent article (complete with snazzy info-graphic) from The Atlantic claims that the average cost for one year of prison is more expensive than one year at Princeton University. I wonder whether criminals would think twice before committing their next crime if they had to finance time at the penitentiary by accruing personal debt.
Andrew Gillen of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity registers strong dissent on Obama’s new student loan policy in this essay on Minding the Campus. Just like Obama’s moves to deal with the effects of the housing bubble, this new student loan forgiveness policy does not deal with the underlying problem and will just make it worse over time.
The New York Times has turned into a good forum for critics of our higher ed system, with sharp pieces on law schools this year and “Room for Debate” features questioning the supposed need to push more and more kids through college. Last Friday, the paper ran this op-ed piece by Gail Collins, in which she notes that while higher ed expenses and concomitant student debt loads have risen greatly, many students put in little effort to get B or better averages. She quotes Richard Arum to the effect that in Europe, only students in the Slovak Republic put in less time studying than do American students.
With such columns running in the NYT, perhaps it’s now officially all right for liberal and progressive types to admit (or at least consider the possibility) that higher education has been undermined by the twin notion that almost everyone ought to go to college and that all students should get pretty good grades so they’ll feel good about themselves.
In this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call, Jay Schalin advances an alternative to the standard college experience, an experience that all too often leaves students with no more skill and knowledge than when they left high school. That alternative is apprenticeship combined with academic study. He points to one such program and suggests that the idea could gain wide acceptance as it satisfies the needs of both students and future employers.
In this week’s Pope Center Clarion Call, Jane Shaw writes about the recent book by Clay Christensen and Henry Eyring, The Innovative University. The authors foresee a great deal of change in the higher education market, catalyzed by improvements in distance learning. They contend that many colleges and universities will be left in the dust unless they figure out how to adapt, much as companies have crumbled when innovative technologies hit their markets and they couldn’t rapidly adjust to it.
That sounds right to me. The college degree has its origins in bygone centuries, when students were captive to the institutions where they enrolled, with no choice but to “buy” the bundle of educational good that comprised their degrees. The problem is that some, often much of what was in that bundle was of scant value. New learning technologies change all of that. Most people would rather get just the things they want at a low price than to accept a large bundle of things, many of which they don’t want, at high cost.
Recent Comments