Posted on 02/27/2019 5:38:58 AM PST by reaganaut1
Often, the strongest criticisms of higher education come from insiders. One insider is Daniel Johnson, who retired as president of the University of Toledo in 2006 after an academic career that included several senior leadership positions. He has recently published a book, The Uncertain Future of American Public Higher Education, that illuminates many of the worst problems besetting higher ed.
Much of Johnson’s analysis is excellent, but he misfires on some. I will start with the book’s best sections.
While some of our higher education traditions are sound, many others, Johnson argues, are outmoded. They lead to “unaffordable costs for students, ineffective and inefficient delivery of instruction, and failure to adapt to advanced, lower cost, and more effective technologies and methods.”
Foremost among those outmoded traditions is the way colleges award credit for “seat time” rather than for learning. The truth, Johnson says, is that the credit hour system “measures neither education nor learning.” Thus, we compel students who pursue college degrees to spend huge amounts of money on courses when what they really want is knowledge—knowledge that could be more expeditiously delivered.
Johnson points to three alternatives to the traditional credit hour system—The Bologna Process (widely accepted in Europe), the Lumina Foundation’s Degree Qualifications Profile, and the Turning USA Initiative—each of which, he writes, “stress active learning, knowledge, and competencies, not seat time credit, as the path to a degree.” Unfortunately, the inertia of the higher education system, combined with the fact that most faculty members like the status quo, prevents us from making much progress in replacing the seat time tradition.
Tenure is another of our academic traditions that Johnson sees as accomplishing little except to increase the cost of college education.
(Excerpt) Read more at jamesgmartin.center ...
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The real problem is that over the last forty years universities have been forced to expand their academic programs to include non scholarly political nonsense such as women’s studies, ethnic studies and LBGT programs. The faculties include shrieking, often illiterate politicos that are not scholars and are disruptive to the true mission of a Western university. Their departments “teach” unqualified students who don’t belong at a university dedicated to education and research.
Doesn’t sound like he points to the #1 issue—which is taxpayer provided and guaranteed student grants and loans.
Community college is just fine for 3/4s of those who can’t afford college on their own. And the other 1/4 do 2 years of an economical community college before transferring all the credit to the associated state college system—and then move along from there.
No need for loans other than the students and professions that are credit worthy—and thus can be funded by the private sector.
Those are probably the most profitable departments they have!
There was a time when Universities embraced debate of opposing ideas, opposing opinions, to hone critical thinking skills. I see a complete rejection of that now. No one wants to see a different way of thinking. Must have conformity.
At worst, it produces graduates without the requisite skills needed to add to the overall knowledge of mankind yet brimming with the latest Utopian folderal meted out by the powers-that-be to preserve and enhance their powers.
From Kindergarten through Graduate School, defund it and sell the physical plants to the private market and use the windfall to rebuild our infrastructure.
When college loans were handled by the private sector, the lenders actually wanted you to pursue a degree program that would provide a career.
Good analysis...didnt mention that academic freedom is for academic issues only...not freedom to break laws. Also the reason “seat time” used to count was because students were motivated to learn. Now everyone believes that having a college degree alone is necessary for success...when having knowledge is way more important....also schools need to be cut out from federal monies that are used for lavish pbysical structures and salaries.
And as soon as the guv started even guaranteeing them, all bets were off.
A majority of our higher ed at this point should simply be online. Then community college. All privately funded.
When he retired, there were DOZENS of assistant, deputy, associate, etc. provosts in the provost office. The assistant assigned to his area could approve nothing. His only course of action was "to call a meeting". The process of approvals went from immediate, to months. Meanwhile, the college itself, had no more actual students than when he started. In addition, many of these assistant bureaucrats earned more money than the professors actually teaching students.
Tuition, of course sky rocketed. At the time, I had graduated from a similar university in a different state. I had earned my own way to a degree working in a co-op program where I would alternate between working and education sessions. The same program today earns students only a small fraction of the cost of tuition and housing. The cost of the bureaucracies is a major part of this problem.
0bama pushed the student loan business onto the taxpayers to prop up colleges and universities.
He just made the power grab more complete. There were already massive guarantees and grants that made no sense, fueling a rapid run-up in costs over the past 30-40 years.
All public education should be abolished and returned to the private market.
The savings would work to the betterment of all more that the current indoctrination system does.
All government programs eventually become expensive, ineffectual behemoths.
That’d be fine by me. But politically untenable at this point. Simply chipping away as much as possible seems the best we can do there. Also, wholesale privatization becomes suspect, such as here, where the big public schools would just become private monopolies. Better to help some competition crop up before cutting off the supply completely, I think.
And not that we’ve had much political success at the college level of course...
I think that if you looked at public schools, you would find the same problem. The growth in “administration” has far outpaced the growth in student numbers and the numbers of classroom teachers.
I suspect that, in public schools at least, some of that growth is due to the need for compliance with state and federal regulations.
At the same time, parents of children in the elementary grades are burdened by extensive and detailed “supply lists” given out by the schools. Apparently they can’t teach without things like post-it notes, multicolored pens, boxes of tissue, hand sanitizer, and the like.
It’s funny that the more money is poured into “education” the less of it that seems to be taking place.
Correct. Universities blather on endlessly about diversity and even have whole departments dedicated to it yet they simultaneously reject the most important kind of diversity of all - diversity of thought.
That needs to change. Some brave administrator or president needs to openly take up the cause and see to it that only candidates who disagree with the received orthodoxy on campus be hired for faculty positions. Obviously this means Leftists need not apply.
“...The real problem is that over the last forty years universities have been forced to expand their academic programs to include non scholarly political nonsense such as women’s studies, ethnic studies and LBGT programs. The faculties include shrieking, often illiterate politicos that are not scholars and are disruptive to the true mission of a Western university......”
Agreed. That’s it in a nutshell.
I went back last year just to visit with one of my old Mechanical Engineering professors. He told me to be thankful that I wasn’t going thru the program today. When I asked why, he showed me that now over 18 semester-hours of SJW courses were required of engineering students!! I asked if the SJW curriculum had 18 semester-hours of Engineering courses. He busted out laughing stating: “No...they’d all flunk them.” The engineering school was forced to add the SJW BS to maintain their accreditation. That’s 18 semester-hours that should be going towards advanced engineering studies instead of some socialist BS.
Libs have taken over universities and like everything libs touch, they destroy. The word “professor” today conjures up some social justice warrior that don’t know crap. It used to command respect, knowledge and teaching ability. Today....not so much.
A young person today would be waaaaay better off going to a technical trade school, learn a good trade, become proficient at it to the point of starting their own business in that trade. Waaaay better off than SJW “basket weaving” or what not.
The trouble here is we are on out third generation after the leftist takeover of all education. Parents have been miseducated to agree with the official government/education-industry position that if you pay teachers more money, they will become more effective teachers. They are receptive to the latest fad touted by “experts” in the education industry, however ridiculous the new strategy may seem to rational people. Parents are government lobbyists for unlimited increased spending for their little darlings.
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