The Higher Education Problem and Some Solutions

A recent study of college undergraduates showed that there was no significant learning, critical thinking development, or writing improvement among nearly half of college students by the end of the sophomore year. At the end of four years and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars in expenses, more than a third of college students learned little to nothing.

No one who has taught in a college or university in the last several decades would be surprised by those findings. A lot of people go to college and learn nothing. The recent concerns of a student loan bubble that rivals the sub-prime crisis is inadvertently reflected in the research.

Students emerge with degrees but are unable to find jobs to put those degrees to work. Without doubt that is partially due to the current economic situation. But there is another reason. Colleges and universities have callously awarded degrees by using flexible and malleable standards.

Where subjectivity is a strong component of grading there is a higher likelihood of simply pushing students through. Colleges increasingly are tuition dependent as state resources are withdrawn because of budgetary problems. In many states, subsidies increase as a student moves through the years, with colleges receiving a far greater financial stipend for seniors than for freshmen. The incentive to the colleges is to retain students, not to apply standards.

The result is that colleges have learned how to grant degrees, not necessarily to provide educations. But it is ludicrous to simply blame the colleges. Higher learning is a special activity that not only requires of students a certain amount of raw intelligence, but also psychological and motivational aptitudes to commit to what should be the demanding process of learning.

Only a small percentage of students are really capable of partaking in and benefiting from the experience. Test scores, high school grades, and recommendations only attest to the likelihood of college success; without motivation, interest, and intellectual stamina those conditions are insufficient to developing the skills and mastering the material that leads to an education. And many students enter college without even the necessary conditions for success let alone both the necessary and sufficient ones.

We have created the myth that everyone can benefit from the college experience, without acknowledging what those benefits might be. For many, college is nothing more than enhanced access to alcohol, drugs and sex. Clubs and bars dot the campus landscape in abundance. I once asked a class if it were possible to leave class, buy hard drugs and return before the fifty minute hour was over. Half a dozen eager students volunteered to show this could not only be achieved but were willing to bet one another as to who could “score” and return first. Needless to say, the quest was not implemented.

Today, the colleges are vendors. The students are consumers. They are to be lured with fancy dorms, fashionable shopping malls, and recreation centers that rival upscale athletic clubs. A student with a bad grade is a disgruntled consumer, and if he is the least bit sophisticated, he can achieve vengeance by due-processing the professor to death, first with testimony from his friends as to the failings of the professor, and then through a series of procedural reviews. Finally, the case will land on the desk of some administrator who will have vigorously embraced Marshall Field’s famous aphorism, “The customer is always right.”

A dissatisfied consumer is one thing. A dissatisfied member of a protected class presents a qualitative different problem, where accusations of identity bias will play a prominent role in the plaintiff’s complaint. These will appeal to the identity bureaucracy that needs such complaints to justify its bloated existence. Members of this bureaucracy will volunteer to get involved to buttress the “abused” student’s case.

Over a scotch at the faculty club, you will hear more than one war story of being threatened with due-process that is concluded with the refrain, “I gave the bastard a “B” and to hell with him.”

Because as a society we demand a college education to lift boxes on the loading dock, we have students who don’t want to be in college, don’t relish the yearly accumulation of increasing debt, and are angry about the process, but see few alternatives. We are a credentialed society. We claim that we relish diversity and achievement, but we are drawn to status. We assume that a degree from a status institution means something more than it really does. Often it means that the person got in the door and had the financial resources to pay the tuition. We overlook the hard-working, impoverished student who worked his way through a public college and had no time for the hedonism of the “college experience.”

We are now seeing in the colleges some of the same dysfunctional behavior we see in high school: angry students, acting out, disrupting classes, slouching in their seats, conspicuously looking bored and waiting for class to end.

Meanwhile the mounting debt and lack of available jobs for people who have managed to acquire degrees without educations, and even those with educations, places the society in jeopardy of another financial crisis. Let’s face reality. Many of the jobs that require college degrees do not really require college educations, and both employers and graduates know this.

We need to provide opportunities for people who are not interested in or capable of benefiting from a real college experience. There are a whole host of technical educations that would greatly advantage both society and students, and we have largely given that education over to the for-profit education system. This places a large financial debt on students whose incomes will be good but not substantial. There is a need for public education to provide a larger role here and for students to be counseled to post-secondary education options other than traditional college educations.

The generation before mine produced physicians and lawyers who went from high school to professional school. In my generation there were numerous three year programs that led to entry into professional school Now students generally need a four-year degree to enter professional school, and teachers often need a fifth year to be certified. Has all of this extra “education” really made for better lawyers, doctors and teachers? Does one really need required courses in the debilitating propaganda of “identity studies” to become educated? All this has done is to increase student debt and tuition revenue to maintain the academic façade. We should strongly consider reducing the number of years of college before professional school or even placement exams that would permit a direct route for the brightest students.

So how do we as a society teetering on a student loan collapse change this? First, we should expand community colleges and publicly funded on-line programs. The British used the Royal Mail in the 19th Century to create a program of distance learning that reached the overseas colonies. In the mid-20th C, it was possible in the United Kingdom to get college credit by turning on the BBC. The Internet age means that access to distance learning is increasingly possible, and it should not be monopolized by the for-profit institutions.

The first two years of college are generally a review of high school. There is absolutely no financial justification for spending money in an expensive institution, public or private. If your child needs two years away from home to indulge in recreational sex and drugs, send him to Caribbean for a couple of weeks several times a year. It will be a lot cheaper and likely more memorable.

Get rid of the “identity” studies programs, and the “identity” bureaucracy. The identity bureaucracy consumes between three to five percent of a traditional institutions’ budget, and the mandatory courses in ethnic cheerleading and propaganda are generally recognized as a waste of time and a Works Progress Program for intellectually challenged minorities.

Use civic centers, senior centers, and public libraries as satellite learning centers dispensing college credit, providing easy access to everyone who wants a no-frills college education. The technology exists. There is no reason a campus lecture couldn’t be broadcast out to communities drawing in more students and providing revenue for the institution.

If tax policy can determine where a society wants money invested, then financial aid policies can provide incentives as to what skills a society needs from the college educated. Right now, we need more engineers and fewer liberal arts majors and lawyers. Let’s provide incentives for those outcomes.

Higher education is in many ways a corporate subsidy. Major corporations with large campuses should start their own educational facilities and receive appropriate accreditation. This would enhance the practical value of an education by putting into the classroom people with real business and technical experience. There should be enhanced people-to-people partnerships between businesses and higher education.

A traditional bachelor’s degree should and could be streamlined into three years. Some Western countries have never had a four college program and produce fine graduates. The amount of high school repetition, intellectual fluff, compulsory ethnic propaganda courses, and distribution requirements no one wants to take, which serve primarily to capture more tuition money, could all easily be eliminated. No student will miss them. And in reality few administrators will miss the identity programs because these departments are a nightmare of political turmoil seeded with people who believe they are entitled to unlimited claims as societal victims.

Of course, there are too many vested interests that benefit from the traditional bricks-and-mortar, four-year system, with its lavish building programs, malls and captive consumers. And there are too many parents who will indulge their children in a college life-style rather than a college education.

Yet, a major student loan default appears on the horizon, and when the collapse comes, we will be compelled to at least look at what higher education should look like, albeit I am pessimistic about change as the vested interests are unlikely to yield the cosseted sinecures the current system provides without a massive lobbying effort on behalf of the status quo.

If we want the 21st Century to remain the American Century, we at least have to consider that the current system is dysfunctional for us as a society and needs to be changed.

Probably an oldie, but still good... Teaching Math

1. Teaching Math In 1960

A logger sells a truckload of timber for $500. His cost of production is 4/5 of the price. What is his profit?

2. Teaching Math In 1970

A logger sells a truckload of timber for $500. His cost of production is 80% of the price. What is his profit?

3. Teaching Math In 1980

A logger sells a truckload of timber for $500. His cost of production is $400. How much was his profit?

4. Teaching Math In 1990

A logger sells a truckload of timber for $500. His cost of production is $400 and his profit is $100. Your assignment: Underline the number 100.

5. Teaching Math In 2000

A logger cuts down a beautiful forest because he is selfish and inconsiderate and cares nothing for the habit of animals or the preservation of our woodlands. Your assignment: Discuss how the birds and squirrels might feel as the logger cuts down their homes just for a measly profit of $100.

6. Teaching Math In 2005

A logger is arrested for trying to cut down a tree in case it may be offensive to Muslims or other religious groups not consulted in the felling licence. He is also fined $100 as his chainsaw is in breach of Health and Safety legislation as it is deemed too dangerous and could cut something. He has used the chainsaw for over 20 years without incident however he does not have the correct certificate of competence and is therefore considered to be a recidivist and habitual criminal. His DNA is sampled and his details circulated throughout all government agencies. He protests and is taken to court and fined another $500 because he is such an easy target.

When he is released he returns to find some illegal immigrants have cut down half his wood to build a camp on his land. He tries to throw them off but is arrested, prosecuted for harassing an ethnic minority, imprisoned and fined a further $500. While he is in gaol again the immigrants cut down the rest of his wood and sell it on the black market for $500 cash. They also have a departure BBQ of squirrel and leave behind several tons of rubbish and asbestos sheeting.

On release the logger is warned that failure to clear the rubbish immediately at his own cost is an offence. He complains and is arrested for environmental pollution, breach of the peace and invoiced $15,000 (plus tax) for safe disposal costs by a regulated government contractor.

Your assignment: How many times is the logger going to have to be arrested, gaoled and fined before he realises that he is never going to make any profit by hard work, give up, sign on as "incapacitated" and live off the State for the rest of his life?

7. Teaching Math In 2010

A logger doesn’t sell a lorry load of timber because he can’t get a loan to buy a new lorry because his bank has spent all his and their money on a derivative of securitised debt related to sub-prime mortgages in Alabama and lost the lot. There is only enough government money left to pay a few million dollar bonuses to their senior directors and the traders who made the biggest losses.

The logger struggles to pay the $1,200 road tax on his old lorry however, as it was built in the 1970's it no longer meets the emissions regulations and he is forced to scrap it.

Some Mexican loggers buy the lorry from the scrap merchant and put it back on the road. They undercut everyone on price for haulage and send their cash back home, while claiming unemployment for themselves and their relatives. If questioned they speak no English and it is easier to deport them at the governments expense. Following their holiday back home they return to the US with different names and fresh girls and start again. The logger protests, is accused of being a bigoted racist and as his name is on the side of his old lorry he is forced to pay $1,500 registration fees as a gang master.

The Government borrows more money to pay more to the bankers as bonuses are not cheap. The politicians feel they are missing out and claim the difference on expenses and allowances.

You do the math.

8. Teaching Math In 2030

Un maderero vende un camión de madera para $500. Su coste de producción es 4/5 del precio. ¿Cuál es su beneficio?

8. Teaching Math In 2050

أ المسجل تبيع حموله شاحنة من الخشب من اجل 500 دولار. صاحب تكلفة الانتاج 80 من الثمن. ما هو الربح له؟= 20

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