Are We Getting Our Money's Worth in Higher Education?

President Obama has stressed that a college education is critical to the future of America and our ability to compete in the world marketplace. To achieve that aim, our government is spending 60% more in 2011 than 2008 and providing 123% more in tax breaks for post secondary education (i.e., college). The Government has taken over all federally backed student loans, pushing almost all private lenders out of the 100 billion a year market.

But are we getting our money's worth?

One of the hallmarks of bad government is spending that is out of proportion to what is actually bought. Think 500 dollar hammers and 1200 dollar toilets seats. Ensuring that taxpayers get what they pay for at a fair price is doubly important in this age of a 14 trillion dollar national debt. When the conversation turns to such ephemeral ideas as a good education, measuring value for money is rarely talked about. Perhaps we had better start considering some of the salient statistics;

The median debt for a student graduating with a 4 year degree is $19,999 and going up.
56% of Students that start a 4 year program don't get a degree within 6 years.
45% of students show no improvement in critical thinking, writing, or reasoning skills after the first 2 years of college.
College tuition costs have grown 3 times the rate of general inflation, even outstripping medical costs.

These statistics underscore the unintended consequences of blindly funneling monies into the US college education marketplace. Much like the community re-investment act coupled with loose monetary policy fed the housing bubble, government monies are feeding the forces driving higher education cost up. This produces a vicious cycle where government drives costs up requiring more taxpayer money to help get students through school. Currently dividing the amount of aid available by the estimated total student enrollment results in more than nine thousand dollars of aid per student for 2010!

The increasing cost isn't just too many dollars chasing a product. According to the New York Times, part of the increase in tuition costs can be traced to the increase in back office personnel required to comply with the regulations and reporting requirements colleges. Government has several strings attached for all of the money it lends out, and those strings aren't cheap.

Stephen J. Dubner of Freakonomics fame makes an interesting observation;

When I visited my undergrad alma mater a few years ago, the chancellor pointed out that three buildings had gone up in the past decade or so that were each larger than any existing building on campus. There was a library, a convocation center (a multipurpose arena), and a huge student gym. The gym, he said, was a top priority because parents and prospective students increasingly think of themselves as customers, shopping for the most amenities for the best price, and the colleges that didn't come to grips with this would soon see their customers going elsewhere.

Instead of looking at schools as places of learning, students and parents are looking at schools for their amenities. Some students are just looking for a good place to party. The existence of lists like the "Top ten party schools in the US" takes on a new meaning for taxpayers who are helping foot more and more of the bill. These changes in attitudes toward college may help explain some of the seedier statistics about college life in the US, from binge drinking to sexually transmitted disease infection rates. The changes in attitude among today's enrollees is a marked departure from the GI Bill students with whom they are compared when we talk about government funding secondary education.

As noted above, schools are adapting to keep up with these changing attitudes and this includes their teachers. In one recent example students were treated to a live sex show, an incident NRO described as "The $50,000 Orgasm". This may help explain why such a large portion of graduates show no improvement in critical thinking. The teacher responsible for the live sex show actually said "My decision to say 'yes' reflected my inability to come up with a legitimate reason why students should not be able to watch such a demonstration." Apparently being a "cool" teacher is more important than being an effective educator among a certain subset of college academics, and critical thinking is certainly not involved.

In the eyes of people like President Obama, America has failed college students. The failure isn't because people are graduating with large amounts of debt, or even graduating without being able to think critically. The failure is that enough people aren't going to college in the first place. The immediate reaction to the bad news among the statist crowd is more money, and more regulation. This will just exacerbate the problem. Governments often interfere in markets and then complain when that interference doesn't produce the desired results (For Example: FDR's policies prolonged the Great Depression by seven years).

The solution isn't more money, or more regulation. Indeed, we've already seen the Department of Education engage in unethical behavior while writing new regulations in an attempt to stop private for profit education from competing with traditional educational outlets. It is not the government's job to pick winners or losers in the educational marketplace.

If we want a first rate educational system that works in the US, then the federal government's interference in the college education marketplace needs to end. Allow schools to compete with each other and for student's money and attendance. Give tax breaks to businesses that provide college tuition assistance or loans. Let banks, businesses, colleges, and private charities be the source of student aid. These entities have a vested interest in the outcome of each student, the quality of instruction, and in controlling the cost of the education received.

A market based solution won't be popular among the entitlement crowd, but it will make for a more efficient and effective education system. Shifting the source of student aide will also produce a more serious college student. If the taxpayer funded ride to a top ten party school stops, more college bound students will have to select a school based on more than just the amenities (Welcome students to your first lesson in critical thinking).

Aaron Gee is a U.S.-based IT consultant who started the blog foundingideals.com.

The short answer is “no”.

But the reason is not, as most FReepers would like to believe, that the professoriate is largely loony-left (which is true), but because the K-12 schools don’t produce enough graduates capable of fully benefiting from a proper college education, yet we push almost everyone into going to college.

The place where the professoriate being loony-left takes its real toll is through the colleges of education, which the several states have given monopolies on producing K-12 teachers. “Whole language” as a replacement for phonics, “discovery learning” as a substitute for drill in basic arithmetic (not a supplement to drill in basic arithmetic, which would be a grand thing, but as a substitute), and “social promotion” are all the result of doctrinaire leftist enthusiasms in colleges of education. The result is high-school graduates whose writing ability ranges from formulaic (every paragraph must have a topic sentence. . .) to virtually non-existent (no real grasp of grammar or standard usage: they write as they speak, which is not well), who have “calculus” or “pre-calculus” on their high-school transcript, but who can’t add fractions correctly, many of whom can’t read at the level needed for real university-level courses. We professors do the best we can with such folks, but they are a drag on educating the folks who really should be in college. (And yes, unaccountably, our K-12 schools still turn out a fair number of them, despite the best attempts of the Deweyites and Vygotskians to ruin education.)

We would be far better off if our credential-happy society stopped demanding a bachelors degree for jobs whose content could be learned at a trade-school or on-the-job. Of course, we probably can’t do this until we fix K-12 education, because quite frankly, college is now what high school was in the 1940’s (the faculty at my father’s high school didn’t have ed degrees, they had masters degrees or doctorates in the subject they taught).

The first step is for the several states to abolish the monopoly given to colleges of education to produce “qualified teachers” and permit, nay, encourage, the hiring of high school and even middle school faculty whose qualification consists in a masters or doctorate in the subject they will be teaching.

No-

Higher education in America has become largely “vocational.” This is because years past aptitude tests by employers were all but shut down because of racial and sexual discrimination concerns. Hence the higher education filled the void in certification and licensing of what in the past was simply a hands on test by an employer or vocational trade learned on the job.

The number of math, science and engineering degree seeking Americans is flat or declining with many of the students in US schools being from China, India, or elsewhere. Americans want to study the soft sciences like sociology, psychology, anthropology, womyns studies, history....... fluff. The types of degrees that many pursue are a waste of time.

Our education system has many egg heads in it. Inbred idiots that never actually worked in the field they are instructing. You have kids going straight for a masters and PhD to then teach without ever having any real experience. Completely theoretical and largely lacking any applied knowledge or skills they then turn around and teach nonsense.

Our education system is infested with social theories and dogma that has caused the relevant to be superseded by the irrelevant in the name of diversity. Major art goes untaught (Gericults Raft of the Medusa) for the sake of presenting a female, Asian, black or whatever else artist, example Artemisia Gentileschi (who until the feminist movement had faded into obscurity but was recesitated when we went on a crusade to find a “female” painter in that era). Think of it this way: An American kid will graduate from college today and will not have read Mark Twain (who helped shape our language and was the most influential writer in his time), they will live in a Republic but never have read Plato's Republic, they not even know that Beowulf was an epic poem (The first written in the English language), nor will they have read the Odyssey etc. However, they will have read the Story of Pi (Asian), some poems by Maya Angelou (Black). Things are taught with a revisionist spin such as Malcolm X where all the hate and criminal behavior is brushed off as racist. MOST IMPORTNATLY, we do not teach kids how to think. There is no teaching of formal logic nor even what a fallacy is and since math skills are inherently weak among American kids, they essentially “can't think.” The need to be “current and “diverse” in race, sex, national origin, sexual orientation etc has led to the over valuing of the irrelevant at the expense profound works.

Ethics vs. Morals. Our education system is secular, for the most part even the formerly religious schools that are only hollow shells of what they once were. Ethics is a meaningless term, created by secularists where the true nuance meaning is the teaching of right and wrong in the ansense of the “G” word. It's situationally dependent and unfortunately it is the result of a society that embraces diversity vs. assimilation. The problem is that even on a behavioral level our education system is a complete failure. Kids don't learn right and wrong in grade/high school or higher education. You can't even expect someone with a certain attitude, code of conduct, work ethic etc if they have a masters degree. It's not like 100 years ago where you could expect someone to be a “scholar and gentleman” if they had a higher education.

Standards are extremely low. Today a kid in his second year of college and going for a degree will have the same math that my father in 1961 was “required” to have just to graduate from high school. You can get a degree without ever really learning much. Just pay your money, spend the time and eventually you'll have the degree.

What does a degree mean? Not much.

Price = “WMB” + “G”

What's “G” you say? “G” is whatever the government is paying towards that purchase in any form (loans, grants, subsides, ect)
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And....We will see the **exact** same problem with K-12 education if there are vouchers.

I cautiously support vouchers for K-12 education **only** if they are a means to COMPLETE separation of school and state.

Also...Charles Murray is right!!!! We need to move toward credentialing exams. Most of what is taught in K-12 and on the college level could be posted on the Internet and be available at very low cost. It could even be free to the consumer if there were advertising.

Even many courses for professionals ( law, medicine, dentistry, pharmacy, engineering, nursing...etc.) could be completed using credentialing exams.

Credentialing exams by private organizations could greatly reduce the cost of education. Businesses would have confidence that the student really did fully **master** a subject and children and youth could progress far more speedily through their education.

By the way...My homeschoolers were in college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. Two earned B.S. degrees in math by the age 18. This was possible because once they mastered a level they could immediately move on to the next level.

Higher education in America has become largely “vocational.”
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It isn't even that. They still need to be trained on the job.

For example:

In my health clinic most of the work done by the employees required a solid 8th grade reading and writing skills and a mastery of 6th or 7th grade arithmetic.

If an applicant for a job in my office merely graduated from high school they did NOT get an interview. Why?...It was because I had wasted far too much time interviewing high school graduates that were nearly illiterate and innumerate. If their application showed some community college courses or graduation from college, they likely had the intelligence and reading and math ability to **begin** the training needed to do the job.

If any applicant had come into my office with a Charles Murray-style credential showing mastery of reading to the 8th grade level and math to the 6th or 7th grade level, I would have given them an interview. I would have know that they had enough of a foundation to begin training.

Everyone, who had not had experience in our field, needed to be **trained**. It didn't matter if they finished 8th grade or graduate school.

By the way....I once hired and trained a homeschooler who was only 14. She was a GREAT employee! She never went to high school or college, but went on to be the manager of a very large and busy health clinic. She literally has made a good career for herself.

We professors do the best we can with such folks, but they are a drag on educating the folks who really should be in college. (And yes, unaccountably, our K-12 schools still turn out a fair number of them, despite the best attempts of the Deweyites and Vygotskians to ruin education.)
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The success of those prepared for college work isn't unaccountable. These kids who are prepared were either “afterschooled” or homeschooled.

I have never met an academically successful child who wasn't either “afterschooled” or homeschooled.

In my clinic I have met ( likely) several thousand families. I almost always took the time to ask parents of successful children about their home habits and study habits primarily because I was looking for ideas to help with raising my own family.

I found **NO** difference between “afterschoolers” and homeschoolers regarding the attitudes by the parents toward education, their home routines, and the amount of time spent **in the home** at the kitchen table or at the child's desk.

Yes, my observations are anecdotal, but I seriously doubt that any “professional” educator with investigate the issue. If they did they might find that institutionalization in a government school has absolutely no benefit whatsoever since little or no learning happens in the classroom. It is the parents and the child who are doing the really hard work at home. The government school is merely sending home a tuition-free curriculum for the parents and child to follow.

If studied, we might learn that institutionalizing bright children actually artificially retards their academic and social development. They might be far better off with less institutionalization and with more time spent **in the home**!

By the way...My 3 homeschoolers entered college at the ages of 13, 12, and 13. All finished all college core requirements and Calculus III by the age of 15. Two earned B.S. degrees in mathematics by the age of 18. The oldest was also very successful in his chosen career and attended college part-time in the evening. This year he will finish a masters in accounting at an age typical for his contemporaries.

You have our courts and the social engineering efforts to thank for much of this:

http://openjurist.org/515/f2d/86/griggs-v-duke-power-company

This basically made employment skills testing a practice that is risky for employers because it may be perceived as sex, race, national origin or religiously discriminating and open one up for litigation.

Employers still need skilled labor or at least hire people that are trainable, right? So they fell onto higher education to provide them people with the certifications, licenses or degrees that show they have some basic skills in this area or at least an aptitude to learn it. Doesn't mean they know everything, but if you have an engineering degree they know the basic concepts etc and should quickly pick up on what you're teaching them. Meantime a high school degree had also become worthless because of the push to make sure we're ALL winners and we ALL have a chance to own a home (ooops that's the another area where the gubbermint has helped us), I mean have a high school degree. That push simply forced schools to drop their standards to where you have kids graduating today with “basic algebra” (not even algebra I), unable to write one decent sentence etc. When my father graduated from HS in 1961 he actually knew how to read, write, do math (trig was the norm), had a basic science background (today kids in some areas do one year of science where they combine physics and chemistry! You have these make belief science classes like medical biology for kids that can't handle a real biology class so they can get their credits to graduate).......... Many kids graduating from an American HS today can barely read anything difficult or complex, hardly write, never learned to really critically think, are weak in the sciences and math........ Critical thinking as taught in American high schools simply means to question all authority and to turn the world upside down, i.e. attack the Judea Christian value system, protestant work ethic, certain moral ideas, the patriarchal society, American exceptional ism and our own history etc. Real critical thinking comes from understanding the formal logic in an argument, the fallacies that we all fall into from time to time and it requires a certain amount of general background knowledge, all of which our kids lack! Back then the HS diploma meant more not because the expectations in the outside world were lower, but because the standards in the schools were higher.

Come on! The purpose of the American university system is to keep young people out of the workforce for four years. It’s an overflow reservoir to reduce unemployment numbers.
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There are other consequences as well that the Marxists are celebrating:

** It keeps young adults in a state of child-like dependence on the government making it more likely that they will vote Democrat ( Marxist really) during these years.

**It makes it financially impossible for young people to marry and form families. This extremely delayed entrance into adulthood and starting an adult career encourages sex outside the bounds of marriage and undermines the institution of marriage. ( The Marxists love this!)

** The enormous debt that they bring into marriage delays having children. Delayed childbearing increases the likelihood of infertility. ( The Marxist environmentalists cheer.)

** The longer children and young adults are under the influence of godless secularist thinking and reasoning the more likely they fully adopt a godlessly secular worldview. ( Another Marxist goal is the destruction of Judeo Christian belief.)

**The longer children and young adults are subjected to Marxist indoctrination the more likely they will be to support Marxism as an adult.

** Colleges and universities are a government jobs program for literally thousands of professors, college employees who support the system, and vendors and their employees. Few of whom will bite the Marxist government hand that feeds them when they go to vote.

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