1) Re: "Ideally, they would spend at least a few months living in a rural environment, living in an inner city, living in a suburb, and living in a foreign country. They would be expected to get to know and respect the typical residents of these communities."
I doubt that youths can understand different stations and ways of life by sampling them briefly. One must be locked into a situation long-term in order to grasp it. For example, grad students on a shoe string don't thereby know what it is to be poor without prospects — They see a decent income on the horizon.
2) Re: "Others would take courses more suited to their ability and more relevant to potential employment opportunities."
They should avoid university altogether. This is where apprenticeships, training programs, internships and the like should develop job skills and inculcate workplace norms.
Bryan Caplan, "The Case against Education," makes a strong case that at most 10 percent of youths should attempt university.
There was an article in the WSJ the other day on how Northeastern became vastly more competitive by running co-op programs with employers. Their law school does something similar. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/in-demand-the-colleges-where-students-start-jobs-right-away-80738edb -- however, I think it is fair to say that the Northeastern co-op program is not really a university experience anymore. It is a a thing that qualifies as a "university" according to its accreditors that isn't much like the traditional definition.
Caplan is correct, but it is hard for people to ignore the massive loan and grant incentives provided by universities. It's not possible for an 18 year old to borrow $400k+ over four years or more without a credit check and no down payment for anything else but university plus room and board. Come to think of it, a four year undergrad plus law school with no scholarships will easily punt you past $750k over seven years now per child for private schools. If you can fog a mirror, you can qualify for the loans. That's a lot of money for shepherding one person with two arms, two legs, a heartbeat, and a semi-functioning brain through at least part of a program.
This is why no one "serious" wants to reform the universities (OMG my easy money), but it is really the deeply unserious position not to want to lift up the battle axe and start tearing them down.
Speaking as an engineer, I think 10% is ridiculously low. On top of that, we would have to be able to predict who falls into that 10%. We cannot. We should not. And the losses from missing the few who would gain immensely, for themselves and society, more than pays for many times more who go and gain little. On top of that there are the ones who gain little financially but enjoy the experience or enjoy what they gained from it.
Caplan has in mind prevalence that would occur if taxpayer subsidies (including loan guarantees) were eliminated. He would also tax higher ed.
SAT/ACT scores, high-school grades (weighted by curriculum difficulty), and entrance exams would identify students likely to succeed in a rigorous academic setting.
Philanthropy would help disadvantaged students who excel in school.
"Caplan has in mind prevalence that would occur if taxpayer subsidies (including loan guarantees) were eliminated."
It's a false strawman. If those subsidies disappeared, the price of higher education would go down.
To Kling's position, that would also mitigate most of what he complains about. Of course I'd also argue that most of his complaints only apply to a minority of colleges but that's another issue.
I think it might be enough to abolish federal student loan guarantees, along with the federal department of education.
The grievance studies departments would wither and die without students. No sane private lender would finance a course of study which leads to students becoming _bad_ baristas.
A nonexistent federal department of education would have trouble sending Dear Colleagues letters.
Even better, if you default on the loan, the college pays. After all, they're the ones taking advantage of, "You need a college degree to get a good job."
I wonder roughly what percentage of each cohort would be going to university in Arnold's ideal situation? Presumably far less than the 40-50% we currently have in the UK (and which I think is close to the US mark).
I think the failure of the elitist/egalitarian axis (e/e axis) is due to the terrible incentive structure of university classes. Universities have two primary tasks (ignoring research, which is a separate matter): teach students things, and credential students as having learned things. The problem lies in that the same person is responsible for both aspects. We ask a professor to teach students, and then ask him to tell us how well he taught the students and how much they learned. I struggle to come up with another field of endeavor with less oversight. Every incentive for professors points towards "Just pass students". Every incentive for admissions points towards "Just let enough in to look suitably elite, and have the professors pass them".
Does the university's reputation for credentialing suffer? Sure, a little, but if every university is doing roughly the same thing then the relative rankings needn't change much. Besides, the administrator will have retired by the time it becomes a problem; it takes time for people to realize as abstract a problem as credentialed quality dropping is a real thing.
I am still amazed that we allow professors to judge whether or not they were successful at teaching their own class. Notably, graduate fields often don't do that, but have standard exams students must pass that are created by multiple professors, separating the matter of teaching and whether the student learned anything.
How do the skilled trades work in the USA? Can carpenters and plumbers still do competent work, and what preserves the standard of behaviour? I think that some people in the universities see themselves as being a trade school for the middle class, and when it comes to making dentists and working engineers, this goal may be possible. It does not seem to be working for the humanities, perhaps because scholarship is not a trade.
Sorry for the slow response. The trades work alright in the States. Not amazing, but alright. You can get good ones, but there are a lot of bad ones too and some that are outright scammers. Mostly it seems to be word of mouth and market pressure that drives quality (and people with more money than sense helping to drive it down.) Getting a lot of quotes before going with anyone is important though, because you will get some wildly different estimates and diagnosis of problems. There are some good trade schools that are known for putting out good folks, but I have never seen contractors advertise that.
I think you are right about the notion of colleges being functional in theory as middle class trade schools. Accounting schools seem to do well, probably in part due to the third party CPA exam requirements (apparently a fair few fail that exam or never take it, and so are not certified accountants). Other business fields are super hit or miss; I have had some really bad interns. There are a lot of certification groups for things like supply chain and project management, but at least the supply chain one seems to be passable with just a brutal amount of memorization, not requiring real understanding.
Then again, maybe I am too hard on people. I am frequently shocked at people's ignorance, but then things sort of work alright none the less.
“So I end up wanting to kill the university, not try to save it. But too many people have a stake in the existing system for it to change.”
If something can’t go on, it won’t go on. Right now our best institutions of higher learning are in open revolt against the ideals that built this country. Our largely corrupt news media have tried to hide this but it has become too big to hide. A revolt is coming and it won’t be reform but destruction and then rebuilding.
I, for one, look forward eagerly to the destruction phase.
In recent months we’ve seen Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Princeton and others, behave disgracefully. While I’m sure you’re right that there are many at those institutions that don’t support such behavior they dare not speak up.
A good start would be viewpoint Diversity, with quotas for Reps & Dems of 30% for professors and on the trustees. Required by a law change for eligibility for tax free endowment.
There’s an obvious huge University failure, so an active govt should correct it. It’s already NOT a market, so it’s a Public-Private failure.
Ending govt support might be a more ideal policy, but any such politician advocating it would likely lose, almost as fast as any who argues for Social Security cuts.
Getting more Rep trustees & professors & staff at the top 100 endowed colleges, thru quotas, via tax subsidies, is better than what Arnold is suggesting, or any other reform I’ve read.
A beautiful idea ruined by an inconvenient fact. "Republican" and "Democrat" are not Platonic essences. There has to be some procedure for determining who is who, and it will be gamed. The media is full of stories about "life-long Republicans" and "prominent conservatives" who are voting for Kamala Harris.
"Look at me", says the psychology professor filling the Republican quota, "I'm a registered Republican." But did she ever vote for a Republican? If you ask her, will she tell the truth? Will she tell you, "I'm a Republican but the party has moved away from me?"
1. Universities are grossly over priced. $50,000 is a low price for one year of tuition at a private school. If you take 5 courses per semester (10 per year) the cost per course is $5000. A typical class has about 20 students, or a total price of $100,000 for the University. If a professor taught the course for $10,000 and taught 8 courses per year, she'd make $80,000 per year. If you put an add for such a job, you'd get hundreds of resumes. If we assume that the overhead is equal to the salary of the professor then it costs the University about $20,000 per course or 1/5 of the price they charge.
2. Many courses are available on line. I watched YouTube videos for two courses on General Relativity. One from Stanford and the other from MIT. The lectures were excellent taught by top level researchers. All I need is to get credentials for the course. This should cost no more than $100 per HW set for the grader or about $1000 per course.
3. Why do we teach English Literature to 20 year olds? Imagine a course with 1984 as one of the books. What would be better? A typical class where the professor guides the students to realize that Winston is a white supremist that gets what he deserved. Or a discussion group with people with ages ranging from 20 to 80 all speaking of how 1984 relates to what they've seen in their lives.
4. Need a book? Visit the library at www.amazon.com. Research journals are a different story. It might be hard to get some articles at a reasonable cost.
There are many two year schools that fit that model yet very few who have a way of choosing the more expensive option go the route you present.
From the other direction, the only reason there is a supply of people willing and able to teach eight classes per year is that they are hoping it will lead to one of the positions where they teach 1 to 4 per year. Otherwise, most would leave the profession entirely for other pastures.
"Innovation happens among the unserved" -- Christensen.
For example:
Hillsdale College is a thought leader (e.g., Imprimis, online courses, podcasts, etc.) and driver of change (e.g., founding and operating K-12 schools) in part because they refuse federal funding.
University of Austin Texas is a de novo university that is blending in a lot of real world, per Dr. Kling's hope -- more like this please.
Jordan Peterson has just launched the Peterson Academy at a price point <$1k.
"Statistical Rethinking" YouTube lectures for serious stats learning.
"It is a utopian version of socialism, in which your wants are provided for while you yourself do not need to contribute any work."
That also describes day care. A gigantic proportion of young Americans have spent most of the years of their lives since birth in institutions that try to be nurturant, to "meet your needs". I think this is a major reason many of them have a warm and fuzzy feeling toward the idea of socialism.
At some point, universities became a business. Why this continues to create cognitive dissonance among people who honestly, deeply care (and gladly pay for) education is curious because these are often the same people who can explain problems like principle agents, externalities, adverse selection bias, and misaligned incentives.
Levin is right about the University needing to re-emphasize the search for truth, but fails to talk about the two big un-PC truths: men and women are different, average IQs are different between races due to genetics.
Instead, the Dem dominated colleges enforce believing women are equal to men, and Blacks are equal to Asians. These LIES have destroyed the truth mission of the University.
The Truth is racist & misogynistic.
But individuals can still be judged based on their own actions, and that’s what the University should be for.
Another big lie concerns whether fetal humans deserve the right to life. Restricting human rights to life is against the idea of rights to Life & Liberty. But most college folk create rationalizations to support the govt allowing doctors to kill the fetal humans unwanted by their mothers, usually because the women feel having a child is too inconvenient at that time.
In courts of law, the Truth is unknown as well. Prosecutor & Defender put forth their own version of the relevant truth, and the jury decides. In US society today, it’s Dems & Reps presenting their versions. Colleges getting govt support, tax exemptions, loans for students, need to answer to the 50% or so who vote Rep. A minimum quota of 30% is the quickest way to get more Reps hired into colleges and start supporting the search for Truth, rather than activism.
The idea of arguing for a reform of the universities seems naive to me bordering on complicit negligence.
If you were to create a carbon copy of a university that had the same operating principles it would probably end up the same way.
You have to create an economic and legal framework of society outside of the university that isn't as dependent on the university. Many universities will simply go bankrupt and their physical and personel assets can be put to more productive uses. The remaining universities in order to survive financially will be forced to reform without any explicit orders to do so by outside political actors.
[1] End all federal loans and loan guarantees for student debt
[2] College degree requirements should be all but illegal for jobs that don't pay a substantial amount of money.
[2.5] This might be difficult to implement practically, but promote hiring systems use of course work requirements for employment rather than degree requirements, where the relevance and difficulty of coursework can be compared across time and across educational institutions (i.e. no more grade inflation). I don't think government can easily regulate this directly, but it can bootstrap a legal and business environment where industry associations are more directly involved with quality control in course work.
[3] Explicitly legalize the use of standardized tests in hiring especially for entry level work. Go as far as to block other government agencies from launching anti-discrimination lawsuits. (A bit like the Stalin constitution guaranty of free speech being an empty letter this is one area where I don't think a promise that the government won't go after you without engaging in high-profile commitments)
[4] Normalize the pursuit of education-as-enrichment post employment rather than pre-employment. With this new wonderful new device called the 'internet' there isn't a practical obstacle to making a top quality liberal arts education available to someone who wants it for less than 1000 dollars. If someone objects to the idea of college education not being about finding productive employment then we can in turn object to the idea that people should be expected to participate in college education before having the means to financially support themselves and loved ones.
"Those on the degreed side of the divide were highly elitist—they wanted their own children to get into the most prestigious universities."
I think this statement indicates an extremely biased and incorrect view. In reality, most parents and their kids have no interest in and no expectation in attending "the most prestigious universities." Even if you included top public schools such as Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, etc. it's still a small percentage.
To try to be charitable... I think the statement is true if one word is added, ""Those on the degred side of the divide were highly elitist—they wanted their own children to get into the most prestigious universities POSSIBLE." That turns it into a comparative statement. Parents want their kids to go to the most special university they can, to the most prestigious.
Good try. Your charity mostly avoids the reasons I gave to Tom Grey. Now try to get around this one (with two parts).
1 Most kids are at public schools because it is the cheapest option or they think it is. That's almost entirely true at 2 year schools (half the students), nearly as true at most other publics, except noticeably less at many of the better state flagship schools.
2 Take any non-prestigious private school. Half those kids are above the average. Do you think they couldn't go to a more prestigious school? I'd bet 2/3 to 3/4 could if they wanted.
If you are saying that parents trade off prestige and expense, I completely agree. It's not a complete "maximize specialness/prestige/selectivity."
That said, different state schools have different amounts of prestige/selectivity. And even parents whose kids go to a community college, many hope that after two years, the child will go on to a more prestigious unit of the state system.
For I suppose historical reasons, private schools have more prestige than state schools (ceterus parabus!). For most of the kids at private colleges, they and/or their parents consider that particular one the most prestigious of the possible alternatives.
Though people seem to be less and less willing to pay for the historic cachet of private schools. Recently, two have failed around here. Of course, this is eastern Massachusetts, which has a surfeit.
And there are complications. A student who loves skiing may go to a less prestigious school that is located in the mountains. A kid who wants to be a cop may go to a school with a history of their Peace Officer program placing almost all of its graduates.
Ok, this is getting absurd. First it was getting in a prestigious school. Next it was the most prestigious possible. Now it is a more prestigious.
I'm calling bullshit on that too. I'm telling you most are just looking for the degree and I think I've offered ample evidence of that. If you don't see it, I'm sorry but I don't think I'm going to be able to convince you that most students attend and graduate from schools that have to essentially zero prestige and don't care.
Perhaps part of the problem here is terminology. Students (and parents and guidance counselors) don't say, "I want to go to the most prestigious college possible." They say, "I want to go to the best college possible." They also have a heuristic that the harder a college is to get into, the better it must be. When it comes to where to apply, the two statements pretty much collapse into the same thing.
I never said that high school students are all, or even a substantial percentage, trying to get into the Ivy League, or the Ivies Plus. They don't apply where they don't think they can get in. Though most students with a good record will probably be told by her guidance counselor to have one "reach" application, where the odds are against her but you never know ... It is assumed that she should be maximizing, yes, prestige.
Sorry to piss you off. My experience as a high school teacher was that some sort of specialness/prestige/selectiveness very much entered into many students' decision about where to apply and where to finally go. If you could get into Stonehill College and got a good financial package, you took that over Bridgewater State.
When it comes to community colleges, yes, most students go wherever is near them. And since maybe half of students are there, you are right that at that point, most students (and their parents) don't care about prestige.
However, when it comes to four-year schools, the idea that students (and parents, and Guidance Offices) don't rank them on some sort of better and worse scale is absolutely untrue. The idea that, other things being equal, they don't want to go the the top school on that scale, is also generally untrue.
I'm not pissed but I don't like moving targets and I think you are valuing your anecdotal experience far too highly. The basic math doesn't support your position.
First, the average SAT is about 1060. The middle at Bridgewater is 1030-1210. When you talk about students considering Bridgewater or a more prestigious school, you are well into the upper half. Even then it's not going to more more than a secondary factor for most of those kids. Forget Bridgewater and look at kids in the the bottom half, many which never even took the SAT, and these schools have no prestige. They are looking for the best path to a diploma.
Honestly, I think that's what most of the Bridgewater and Stone Hill students are looking for too. By definition half are in the upper half and could probably go to a more prestigious school yet they don't.
You have any data showing that kids of parents with degrees have no interest, or less strong no greater interest in their kids going to the best colleges they can?
To claim some statement is incorrect without data is pretty lame.
~70,000 at Ivies. Add the little ivies and 10-20 other privates and maybe you have 250,000. Add a handful of publics, which however good they might be, is a stretch to label prestigious, even more some of the colleges within. Now maybe you have 500,000.
There are 15-18 million indergraduate college students. What percent of them have aspirations of prestigious universities?
Near half of them go to two-year schools? What percent of them?
Of the 15-18 million, what % applied to colleges that rejected them?
Most college advice I’ve read includes applying to at least one highly prestigious college. My guesstimate is that over 50% of applicants with at least one parent having a degree will get at least one rejection letter (70% +- 30).
Not a small %.
Your “most parents” statements are not talking about those with degrees, so become less relevant.
Sure. Someone with an SAT score below the average of 1060 (I couldn't find median but you get the idea) is going to apply to an Ivy or similar school. You are just repeating another version of the same absurd claim.
Read what I wrote again. I'm responding to a claim about "prestigious universities." How do I provide data when I don't know which ones qualify as prestigious?
Maybe you should point the lame finger somewhere else.
If you divide the universities into STEM and non-STEM groups you find different thinking.
Statements like: "They expect higher incomes than those earned by their peers who did not intend college" not to be as valid among the STEM group, especially the Engineers. In my engineering economics class, where making decisions over time scales was relevant (how much insulation depends upon projections of heat costs in the future), you understood the significance of compound interest equations. We had no such expatiations.
One class assignment was on lifetime economics of a BS, MS, or Ph.D in Engineering. I use my fast car HS friends in LA in the 50's as my reference group. My HS adviser said I should be a mechanic, but my friends had family connections for the high end skilled trades unions (the only way to get in). Lifetime data on chemical engineers was available along with public data on the unions like Longshoremen, Pipefitters, Boiler Makers, etc.
Calculations showed that if my friends invested the difference in incomes past HS at standards rates of return (stock market index) over a lifetime to 60 years. A BS from UCLA was about break even but a MS favored the union job with savings and a Ph.D. was a form of economic insanity (my choice -- money isn't everything and academic draft exemptions were relevant for those without enough connections to get a "bone spur" exemption). All that money my friends spent with their high paying jobs on fast cars and women, while I was living as a grad student in extreme poverty (according to the War on Poverty numbers) ultimately allowed me to get ahead in the very long run.
I mostly agree except your opening makes no sense. Many, including some who maybe shouldn't, go into engineering exactly because they expect that will get them higher salaries. And if they complete a degree it all but assures a higher salary at the start.
Note: My engineer kids in their mid-thirties are already way ahead of even the best skilled blue collar workers except maybe a few in remote locations such as oil rigs. Of course engineers in those locations can earn a small fortune too. And they both did masters while working full time with tuition paid by employer.
An incisive essay. A tonic essay.
May I pick two nits?
1) Re: "Ideally, they would spend at least a few months living in a rural environment, living in an inner city, living in a suburb, and living in a foreign country. They would be expected to get to know and respect the typical residents of these communities."
I doubt that youths can understand different stations and ways of life by sampling them briefly. One must be locked into a situation long-term in order to grasp it. For example, grad students on a shoe string don't thereby know what it is to be poor without prospects — They see a decent income on the horizon.
2) Re: "Others would take courses more suited to their ability and more relevant to potential employment opportunities."
They should avoid university altogether. This is where apprenticeships, training programs, internships and the like should develop job skills and inculcate workplace norms.
Bryan Caplan, "The Case against Education," makes a strong case that at most 10 percent of youths should attempt university.
There was an article in the WSJ the other day on how Northeastern became vastly more competitive by running co-op programs with employers. Their law school does something similar. https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/in-demand-the-colleges-where-students-start-jobs-right-away-80738edb -- however, I think it is fair to say that the Northeastern co-op program is not really a university experience anymore. It is a a thing that qualifies as a "university" according to its accreditors that isn't much like the traditional definition.
Caplan is correct, but it is hard for people to ignore the massive loan and grant incentives provided by universities. It's not possible for an 18 year old to borrow $400k+ over four years or more without a credit check and no down payment for anything else but university plus room and board. Come to think of it, a four year undergrad plus law school with no scholarships will easily punt you past $750k over seven years now per child for private schools. If you can fog a mirror, you can qualify for the loans. That's a lot of money for shepherding one person with two arms, two legs, a heartbeat, and a semi-functioning brain through at least part of a program.
This is why no one "serious" wants to reform the universities (OMG my easy money), but it is really the deeply unserious position not to want to lift up the battle axe and start tearing them down.
Speaking as an engineer, I think 10% is ridiculously low. On top of that, we would have to be able to predict who falls into that 10%. We cannot. We should not. And the losses from missing the few who would gain immensely, for themselves and society, more than pays for many times more who go and gain little. On top of that there are the ones who gain little financially but enjoy the experience or enjoy what they gained from it.
Caplan has in mind prevalence that would occur if taxpayer subsidies (including loan guarantees) were eliminated. He would also tax higher ed.
SAT/ACT scores, high-school grades (weighted by curriculum difficulty), and entrance exams would identify students likely to succeed in a rigorous academic setting.
Philanthropy would help disadvantaged students who excel in school.
"Caplan has in mind prevalence that would occur if taxpayer subsidies (including loan guarantees) were eliminated."
It's a false strawman. If those subsidies disappeared, the price of higher education would go down.
To Kling's position, that would also mitigate most of what he complains about. Of course I'd also argue that most of his complaints only apply to a minority of colleges but that's another issue.
I think it might be enough to abolish federal student loan guarantees, along with the federal department of education.
The grievance studies departments would wither and die without students. No sane private lender would finance a course of study which leads to students becoming _bad_ baristas.
A nonexistent federal department of education would have trouble sending Dear Colleagues letters.
Even better, if you default on the loan, the college pays. After all, they're the ones taking advantage of, "You need a college degree to get a good job."
That’s a good addition.
I wonder roughly what percentage of each cohort would be going to university in Arnold's ideal situation? Presumably far less than the 40-50% we currently have in the UK (and which I think is close to the US mark).
I think the failure of the elitist/egalitarian axis (e/e axis) is due to the terrible incentive structure of university classes. Universities have two primary tasks (ignoring research, which is a separate matter): teach students things, and credential students as having learned things. The problem lies in that the same person is responsible for both aspects. We ask a professor to teach students, and then ask him to tell us how well he taught the students and how much they learned. I struggle to come up with another field of endeavor with less oversight. Every incentive for professors points towards "Just pass students". Every incentive for admissions points towards "Just let enough in to look suitably elite, and have the professors pass them".
Does the university's reputation for credentialing suffer? Sure, a little, but if every university is doing roughly the same thing then the relative rankings needn't change much. Besides, the administrator will have retired by the time it becomes a problem; it takes time for people to realize as abstract a problem as credentialed quality dropping is a real thing.
I am still amazed that we allow professors to judge whether or not they were successful at teaching their own class. Notably, graduate fields often don't do that, but have standard exams students must pass that are created by multiple professors, separating the matter of teaching and whether the student learned anything.
How do the skilled trades work in the USA? Can carpenters and plumbers still do competent work, and what preserves the standard of behaviour? I think that some people in the universities see themselves as being a trade school for the middle class, and when it comes to making dentists and working engineers, this goal may be possible. It does not seem to be working for the humanities, perhaps because scholarship is not a trade.
Sorry for the slow response. The trades work alright in the States. Not amazing, but alright. You can get good ones, but there are a lot of bad ones too and some that are outright scammers. Mostly it seems to be word of mouth and market pressure that drives quality (and people with more money than sense helping to drive it down.) Getting a lot of quotes before going with anyone is important though, because you will get some wildly different estimates and diagnosis of problems. There are some good trade schools that are known for putting out good folks, but I have never seen contractors advertise that.
I think you are right about the notion of colleges being functional in theory as middle class trade schools. Accounting schools seem to do well, probably in part due to the third party CPA exam requirements (apparently a fair few fail that exam or never take it, and so are not certified accountants). Other business fields are super hit or miss; I have had some really bad interns. There are a lot of certification groups for things like supply chain and project management, but at least the supply chain one seems to be passable with just a brutal amount of memorization, not requiring real understanding.
Then again, maybe I am too hard on people. I am frequently shocked at people's ignorance, but then things sort of work alright none the less.
"It is a utopian version of socialism, in which your wants are provided for while you yourself do not need to contribute any work."
Well described!
“So I end up wanting to kill the university, not try to save it. But too many people have a stake in the existing system for it to change.”
If something can’t go on, it won’t go on. Right now our best institutions of higher learning are in open revolt against the ideals that built this country. Our largely corrupt news media have tried to hide this but it has become too big to hide. A revolt is coming and it won’t be reform but destruction and then rebuilding.
I, for one, look forward eagerly to the destruction phase.
"Right now our best institutions of higher learning are in open revolt against the ideals that built this country."
I'd argue it is a minority of the best institutions. Even in those it doesn't include all of the institution.
In recent months we’ve seen Harvard, Yale, Columbia, MIT, Princeton and others, behave disgracefully. While I’m sure you’re right that there are many at those institutions that don’t support such behavior they dare not speak up.
More importantly, many continue their work while giving little thought to the commotion.
A good start would be viewpoint Diversity, with quotas for Reps & Dems of 30% for professors and on the trustees. Required by a law change for eligibility for tax free endowment.
There’s an obvious huge University failure, so an active govt should correct it. It’s already NOT a market, so it’s a Public-Private failure.
Ending govt support might be a more ideal policy, but any such politician advocating it would likely lose, almost as fast as any who argues for Social Security cuts.
Getting more Rep trustees & professors & staff at the top 100 endowed colleges, thru quotas, via tax subsidies, is better than what Arnold is suggesting, or any other reform I’ve read.
A beautiful idea ruined by an inconvenient fact. "Republican" and "Democrat" are not Platonic essences. There has to be some procedure for determining who is who, and it will be gamed. The media is full of stories about "life-long Republicans" and "prominent conservatives" who are voting for Kamala Harris.
"Look at me", says the psychology professor filling the Republican quota, "I'm a registered Republican." But did she ever vote for a Republican? If you ask her, will she tell the truth? Will she tell you, "I'm a Republican but the party has moved away from me?"
Several comments.
1. Universities are grossly over priced. $50,000 is a low price for one year of tuition at a private school. If you take 5 courses per semester (10 per year) the cost per course is $5000. A typical class has about 20 students, or a total price of $100,000 for the University. If a professor taught the course for $10,000 and taught 8 courses per year, she'd make $80,000 per year. If you put an add for such a job, you'd get hundreds of resumes. If we assume that the overhead is equal to the salary of the professor then it costs the University about $20,000 per course or 1/5 of the price they charge.
2. Many courses are available on line. I watched YouTube videos for two courses on General Relativity. One from Stanford and the other from MIT. The lectures were excellent taught by top level researchers. All I need is to get credentials for the course. This should cost no more than $100 per HW set for the grader or about $1000 per course.
3. Why do we teach English Literature to 20 year olds? Imagine a course with 1984 as one of the books. What would be better? A typical class where the professor guides the students to realize that Winston is a white supremist that gets what he deserved. Or a discussion group with people with ages ranging from 20 to 80 all speaking of how 1984 relates to what they've seen in their lives.
4. Need a book? Visit the library at www.amazon.com. Research journals are a different story. It might be hard to get some articles at a reasonable cost.
There are many two year schools that fit that model yet very few who have a way of choosing the more expensive option go the route you present.
From the other direction, the only reason there is a supply of people willing and able to teach eight classes per year is that they are hoping it will lead to one of the positions where they teach 1 to 4 per year. Otherwise, most would leave the profession entirely for other pastures.
I forgot to say that the point of my comments is that Universities are ready for disruption.
I say tax the endowments, institute price and wage control, and strip them of their names.
First 2 yes, name-stripping seems malicious and thus counter productive against any action.
"Innovation happens among the unserved" -- Christensen.
For example:
Hillsdale College is a thought leader (e.g., Imprimis, online courses, podcasts, etc.) and driver of change (e.g., founding and operating K-12 schools) in part because they refuse federal funding.
University of Austin Texas is a de novo university that is blending in a lot of real world, per Dr. Kling's hope -- more like this please.
Jordan Peterson has just launched the Peterson Academy at a price point <$1k.
"Statistical Rethinking" YouTube lectures for serious stats learning.
"It is a utopian version of socialism, in which your wants are provided for while you yourself do not need to contribute any work."
That also describes day care. A gigantic proportion of young Americans have spent most of the years of their lives since birth in institutions that try to be nurturant, to "meet your needs". I think this is a major reason many of them have a warm and fuzzy feeling toward the idea of socialism.
At some point, universities became a business. Why this continues to create cognitive dissonance among people who honestly, deeply care (and gladly pay for) education is curious because these are often the same people who can explain problems like principle agents, externalities, adverse selection bias, and misaligned incentives.
Levin is right about the University needing to re-emphasize the search for truth, but fails to talk about the two big un-PC truths: men and women are different, average IQs are different between races due to genetics.
Instead, the Dem dominated colleges enforce believing women are equal to men, and Blacks are equal to Asians. These LIES have destroyed the truth mission of the University.
The Truth is racist & misogynistic.
But individuals can still be judged based on their own actions, and that’s what the University should be for.
Another big lie concerns whether fetal humans deserve the right to life. Restricting human rights to life is against the idea of rights to Life & Liberty. But most college folk create rationalizations to support the govt allowing doctors to kill the fetal humans unwanted by their mothers, usually because the women feel having a child is too inconvenient at that time.
In courts of law, the Truth is unknown as well. Prosecutor & Defender put forth their own version of the relevant truth, and the jury decides. In US society today, it’s Dems & Reps presenting their versions. Colleges getting govt support, tax exemptions, loans for students, need to answer to the 50% or so who vote Rep. A minimum quota of 30% is the quickest way to get more Reps hired into colleges and start supporting the search for Truth, rather than activism.
The idea of arguing for a reform of the universities seems naive to me bordering on complicit negligence.
If you were to create a carbon copy of a university that had the same operating principles it would probably end up the same way.
You have to create an economic and legal framework of society outside of the university that isn't as dependent on the university. Many universities will simply go bankrupt and their physical and personel assets can be put to more productive uses. The remaining universities in order to survive financially will be forced to reform without any explicit orders to do so by outside political actors.
[1] End all federal loans and loan guarantees for student debt
[2] College degree requirements should be all but illegal for jobs that don't pay a substantial amount of money.
[2.5] This might be difficult to implement practically, but promote hiring systems use of course work requirements for employment rather than degree requirements, where the relevance and difficulty of coursework can be compared across time and across educational institutions (i.e. no more grade inflation). I don't think government can easily regulate this directly, but it can bootstrap a legal and business environment where industry associations are more directly involved with quality control in course work.
[3] Explicitly legalize the use of standardized tests in hiring especially for entry level work. Go as far as to block other government agencies from launching anti-discrimination lawsuits. (A bit like the Stalin constitution guaranty of free speech being an empty letter this is one area where I don't think a promise that the government won't go after you without engaging in high-profile commitments)
[4] Normalize the pursuit of education-as-enrichment post employment rather than pre-employment. With this new wonderful new device called the 'internet' there isn't a practical obstacle to making a top quality liberal arts education available to someone who wants it for less than 1000 dollars. If someone objects to the idea of college education not being about finding productive employment then we can in turn object to the idea that people should be expected to participate in college education before having the means to financially support themselves and loved ones.
"Those on the degreed side of the divide were highly elitist—they wanted their own children to get into the most prestigious universities."
I think this statement indicates an extremely biased and incorrect view. In reality, most parents and their kids have no interest in and no expectation in attending "the most prestigious universities." Even if you included top public schools such as Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, Virginia, etc. it's still a small percentage.
To try to be charitable... I think the statement is true if one word is added, ""Those on the degred side of the divide were highly elitist—they wanted their own children to get into the most prestigious universities POSSIBLE." That turns it into a comparative statement. Parents want their kids to go to the most special university they can, to the most prestigious.
Good try. Your charity mostly avoids the reasons I gave to Tom Grey. Now try to get around this one (with two parts).
1 Most kids are at public schools because it is the cheapest option or they think it is. That's almost entirely true at 2 year schools (half the students), nearly as true at most other publics, except noticeably less at many of the better state flagship schools.
2 Take any non-prestigious private school. Half those kids are above the average. Do you think they couldn't go to a more prestigious school? I'd bet 2/3 to 3/4 could if they wanted.
If you are saying that parents trade off prestige and expense, I completely agree. It's not a complete "maximize specialness/prestige/selectivity."
That said, different state schools have different amounts of prestige/selectivity. And even parents whose kids go to a community college, many hope that after two years, the child will go on to a more prestigious unit of the state system.
For I suppose historical reasons, private schools have more prestige than state schools (ceterus parabus!). For most of the kids at private colleges, they and/or their parents consider that particular one the most prestigious of the possible alternatives.
Though people seem to be less and less willing to pay for the historic cachet of private schools. Recently, two have failed around here. Of course, this is eastern Massachusetts, which has a surfeit.
And there are complications. A student who loves skiing may go to a less prestigious school that is located in the mountains. A kid who wants to be a cop may go to a school with a history of their Peace Officer program placing almost all of its graduates.
Ok, this is getting absurd. First it was getting in a prestigious school. Next it was the most prestigious possible. Now it is a more prestigious.
I'm calling bullshit on that too. I'm telling you most are just looking for the degree and I think I've offered ample evidence of that. If you don't see it, I'm sorry but I don't think I'm going to be able to convince you that most students attend and graduate from schools that have to essentially zero prestige and don't care.
Perhaps part of the problem here is terminology. Students (and parents and guidance counselors) don't say, "I want to go to the most prestigious college possible." They say, "I want to go to the best college possible." They also have a heuristic that the harder a college is to get into, the better it must be. When it comes to where to apply, the two statements pretty much collapse into the same thing.
I never said that high school students are all, or even a substantial percentage, trying to get into the Ivy League, or the Ivies Plus. They don't apply where they don't think they can get in. Though most students with a good record will probably be told by her guidance counselor to have one "reach" application, where the odds are against her but you never know ... It is assumed that she should be maximizing, yes, prestige.
Sorry to piss you off. My experience as a high school teacher was that some sort of specialness/prestige/selectiveness very much entered into many students' decision about where to apply and where to finally go. If you could get into Stonehill College and got a good financial package, you took that over Bridgewater State.
When it comes to community colleges, yes, most students go wherever is near them. And since maybe half of students are there, you are right that at that point, most students (and their parents) don't care about prestige.
However, when it comes to four-year schools, the idea that students (and parents, and Guidance Offices) don't rank them on some sort of better and worse scale is absolutely untrue. The idea that, other things being equal, they don't want to go the the top school on that scale, is also generally untrue.
I'm not pissed but I don't like moving targets and I think you are valuing your anecdotal experience far too highly. The basic math doesn't support your position.
First, the average SAT is about 1060. The middle at Bridgewater is 1030-1210. When you talk about students considering Bridgewater or a more prestigious school, you are well into the upper half. Even then it's not going to more more than a secondary factor for most of those kids. Forget Bridgewater and look at kids in the the bottom half, many which never even took the SAT, and these schools have no prestige. They are looking for the best path to a diploma.
Honestly, I think that's what most of the Bridgewater and Stone Hill students are looking for too. By definition half are in the upper half and could probably go to a more prestigious school yet they don't.
You have any data showing that kids of parents with degrees have no interest, or less strong no greater interest in their kids going to the best colleges they can?
To claim some statement is incorrect without data is pretty lame.
Or you could do a bit of basic math.
~70,000 at Ivies. Add the little ivies and 10-20 other privates and maybe you have 250,000. Add a handful of publics, which however good they might be, is a stretch to label prestigious, even more some of the colleges within. Now maybe you have 500,000.
There are 15-18 million indergraduate college students. What percent of them have aspirations of prestigious universities?
Near half of them go to two-year schools? What percent of them?
Enough data?
The degreed parents have how many kids?
What % of those kids go to college?
What % applied to colleges that rejected them?
Of the 15-18 million, what % applied to colleges that rejected them?
Most college advice I’ve read includes applying to at least one highly prestigious college. My guesstimate is that over 50% of applicants with at least one parent having a degree will get at least one rejection letter (70% +- 30).
Not a small %.
Your “most parents” statements are not talking about those with degrees, so become less relevant.
Sure. Someone with an SAT score below the average of 1060 (I couldn't find median but you get the idea) is going to apply to an Ivy or similar school. You are just repeating another version of the same absurd claim.
Read what I wrote again. I'm responding to a claim about "prestigious universities." How do I provide data when I don't know which ones qualify as prestigious?
Maybe you should point the lame finger somewhere else.
If you divide the universities into STEM and non-STEM groups you find different thinking.
Statements like: "They expect higher incomes than those earned by their peers who did not intend college" not to be as valid among the STEM group, especially the Engineers. In my engineering economics class, where making decisions over time scales was relevant (how much insulation depends upon projections of heat costs in the future), you understood the significance of compound interest equations. We had no such expatiations.
One class assignment was on lifetime economics of a BS, MS, or Ph.D in Engineering. I use my fast car HS friends in LA in the 50's as my reference group. My HS adviser said I should be a mechanic, but my friends had family connections for the high end skilled trades unions (the only way to get in). Lifetime data on chemical engineers was available along with public data on the unions like Longshoremen, Pipefitters, Boiler Makers, etc.
Calculations showed that if my friends invested the difference in incomes past HS at standards rates of return (stock market index) over a lifetime to 60 years. A BS from UCLA was about break even but a MS favored the union job with savings and a Ph.D. was a form of economic insanity (my choice -- money isn't everything and academic draft exemptions were relevant for those without enough connections to get a "bone spur" exemption). All that money my friends spent with their high paying jobs on fast cars and women, while I was living as a grad student in extreme poverty (according to the War on Poverty numbers) ultimately allowed me to get ahead in the very long run.
I mostly agree except your opening makes no sense. Many, including some who maybe shouldn't, go into engineering exactly because they expect that will get them higher salaries. And if they complete a degree it all but assures a higher salary at the start.
Note: My engineer kids in their mid-thirties are already way ahead of even the best skilled blue collar workers except maybe a few in remote locations such as oil rigs. Of course engineers in those locations can earn a small fortune too. And they both did masters while working full time with tuition paid by employer.