Public Higher Education Is 'Eroding From All Sides,' Warn Political Scientists (Chronicle of Higher Education)
The ideal of American public higher education may have entered a death spiral, several scholars said here Thursday during a panel discussion at the annual meeting of the American Political Science Association. That crisis might ultimately harm not only universities, but also democracy itself, they warned.
"We've crossed a threshold," said Clyde W. Barrow, director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. "Higher education is no longer viewed as a public good in this country. As tuition at public universities becomes more expensive, middle-class parents say, 'I'll bite the bullet and pay this for four years, but I don't want to pay for it a second time with taxes.' And families who are frozen out of the system see public universities as something for the affluent. They'd rather see the state spend money on health care."
The mid-20th century suddenly appears to have been a golden age for higher education, said Wendy Brown, a professor of political science at the University of California at Berkeley.
"That era offered not only literacy but liberal arts to a mass public," Ms. Brown said. "But today that idea is eroding from all sides. Cultural values don't support the liberal arts. Debt-burdened families aren't demanding it. The capitalist state isn't interested in it. Universities aren't funding it."
The danger, Ms. Brown said, is that the public will give up on the idea of educating people for democratic citizenship. Instead, all of public higher education will be essentially vocational in nature, oriented entirely around the market logic of job preparation. Instead of educating whole persons, Ms. Brown warned, universities will be expected to "build human capital," a narrower and more hollow mission.
And faculty members are unlikely to resist those changes at a time when two-thirds of them are on contingent appointments instead of the more secure tenure track, said Cary Nelson, president of the American Association of University Professors. They simply do not have enough power within the institution.
During a plenary lecture earlier Thursday, Mr. Nelson, who is also a professor of English at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, said he believes that the era of "incremental state funding for public higher education is basically over." For the foreseeable future, he said, the traditional battles for higher state appropriations are bound to be losing ones….
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10 comments:
Not everyone needs to go to college. Everyone does need a job and needs to know how to balance their checkbook. If we pull our heads out of our ass, the community college can assist very well with both of these needs.
Not everyone needs to go to college. Everyone does need a job and needs to know how to balance their checkbook. If we pull our heads out of our ass, the community college can assist very well with both of these needs.
So, then everyone does need to go to college. Perhaps your head was still up your ass when you wrote that first sentence. Perhaps it still is. You could surely benefit from a college logic course.
Is getting a mediocre job and balancing a checkbook—accomplishments for a 16 year-old— the purpose of a college education? Really? Pathetic....
Pretty scary, man.
It seems to me that the original commenter was saying that not everyone needs a college education as this is traditionally understood. In fact, as is well known, community colleges have long provided both (roughly the first two years of) a traditional college education and various other forms of education and training, including various forms of vocational training. It is extremely unlikely that the California cc system will cease serving this function, though it is possible that the proportions will change and that instruction will emphasize “Voc Ed” over traditional colleges courses.
One issue here is indeed whether everyone needs to be college educated. Our state has undeniably sought to bring about the availability of a college education for everyone. I think that Californians (in the old days) probably assumed that everybody’s going to college was a good thing. Was that a good idea? Perhaps not.
But that still leaves open the question of proportions. I would still argue that, ideally, our society should be populated by a majority of college graduates or persons who are otherwise educated in a fashion that gives them basic academic skills (reading, writing, ‘rithmetic) plus a general understanding of history, literature, the sciences, and so on. This sort of education would not have to be called “college education,” but I think it would have to resemble roughly the approach that is now taken in 4-year colleges and universities around the country.
Another question concerns efficiency. I think it is fair to question whether the traditional approach to providing a college education maximizes our resources. Unfortunately, instead of raising this question and then seeking an informed answer, we are allowing circumstances to define the direction of college instruction. Increasingly, college instruction is a diffuse and ill-defined thing that is provided in largely untested ways. (I have high standards of evidence. The existing testing and data collection re “distance ed” and online instruction is, I believe, underwhelming.) So I’m all in favor of considering how we might provide a “college education” more efficiently than we have. But that is not the same as embracing the status quo, which seems to involve deterioration of the old way, directionlessness, and a wholly unwarranted faith in the power of the “free market.” --BvT
For many, college has been sold as a necessity when it clearly is not. There are many well paying occupations that can't be outsourced (car repair, plumbing, appliance service, etc.) and are looked down upon all too often. We need a change in what appears to be a general attitude about manual labor as being an undignified, lower tier way to make a living. Then, provide classes that really train people to get actual jobs.
But this issue is not about voc ed or manual labor. Trades are important and necessary. This is about the disintegration of a traditional liberal education ("liberal" here does not mean political liberalism) which included studies in history, philosophy, literature, languages, the arts, along with math and the sciences. It was this traditional liberal education that was required for a informed and intelligent citizenry. If the traditional affordable public university is no longer an "efficient" means of transmitting this knowledge, then what is? I fear it will reinforce class distinctions, abandon education to the free market as BvT says. Skills such as critical thinking must bed learned and they don't come prepackaged from the internet or TV.
Agreed, but I think there's a false dilemma at work here--either (1) we have a traditional well rounded curriculum available in public colleges or (2) the population will be a mass of ignorant dolts. This avoids the many other possibilities that people can be educated in many ways, such as by reading and paying attention, and having interesting dialogue with others, or at the evry least, watching some sort of quality television.
I fear that now that we have a citizenry that is obsessed with personal, narcissistic trivia, fueled by incessant texting and social networking, to the point that a college education that points in different directions will become more and more marginalized. These are sad times.
The notion that people can readily become "educated" (or can be good critical thinkers) through reading or "paying attention" will, I think, be rejected by experienced educators. The current crop of college undergraduates is barely educable as it is, and those kids often emerge from their education with alarmingly feeble thinking (and writing) skills. This suggests that those without the advantages of college instruction are not likely to manage to educate themselves.
If we are to have an informed citizenry, we must have more and better (institutions of) education, not less. There is no reason at all to think that vocational training produces good and informed thinkers. (How can one make competent judgments about many contemporary issues without some understanding of history and the sciences?)
These days, colleges are producing good thinkers, but the quality of students is such that most college graduates are poor thinkers nonetheless. So, as I indicated earlier, I think we need to think about improving education in this country (especially at the K-12 level) and providing a college education more efficiently. Yes, some young people should probably go straight to a vocational school, but don't kid yourself. Without a more-or-less liberal arts education of the kind traditionally provided by colleges, citizens will not be critical thinkers.
Nice, BvT. And the stakes are so high. A liberal education was meant to liberate the individual from dogmas, unreflective tradition, and prejudices; and to liberate the individual to think for herself, question prevalent assumptions, and find a life that is personally fulfilling and reflective, not just supported by an adequate income. It was meant to prepare the person for a meaningful life (beyond a job or career), a reflective life, and a life of contributing to civil society.
It is a terrible loss if we are to lose that. But I love your point that these things could conceivably be nurtured by the K-12 system. They are certainly not now; but they could be.
The consequences of their not being cultivated or valued now are grave and huge: a populace and policy-makers that aren't convinced of global climate change; people who don't understand that the human species is grossly overpopulated; citizens who are easily taken in by demagogues.
Not everyone needs to go to college to find a good vocation and a satisfying life; but everyone needs to have the chance to cultivate critical, careful, iconoclastic thinking--for a maximally meaningful life of informed choice, and for a democratic society that can survive, and for (ultimately) a world that can remain livable.
MAH
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