Rebutting "Five Easy Steps..."

Anthony Beard
BUCR Advisor

The campus community was recently forwarded this link to an article titled "How the American University Was Killed, In Five Easy Steps", which basically blames the entire downfall of higher education on conservative principles.  Thought it was important to share a rebuttal.  So far this summer my reading has focused on intellectual works such as Atlas Shrugged and Academically Adrift, so it’s nice to have some light reading that requires less thinking. 

I would say while I obviously agree with the premise of the importance of education, it’s a wild assumption to think that H.G. Wells was specifically speaking of higher education.  To think that traditional university or college education is the penultimate education one can receive in life strikes me as a bit narcissistic.  What I find even more narcissistic is the thought that a faculty member’s wage is equivalent to a migrant worker.  I read The Press Enterprise and I sincerely believe George Milton would disagree.

By no means do I disagree with the downfall of higher education being linked to “poor educational outcomes in our graduates, the out-of-control tuitions and crippling student loan debt.”  As I rebut this article I see the same issues, but recognize the true causes of them.

Before I get to that, I would also point out that I am neither a war-monger or a corporation, yet I am not foolish enough to see things as simply black and white as this article does and assume that the culturally liberal upheaval of the 1960s didn’t come with any drawbacks, such as out of wedlock birth, which leads to increased poverty, which leads to more crime and (ironically enough) less education.  I’m grateful that the 60s brought us open-mindedness, but as all revolutions do, they also brought about consequences.  You don’t need to love war and big business to see that.

But on to the rebuttal...

#1: First, you defund public higher education

To address one immediate thought, Pennsylvania is not defunding education; the oft perpetuated lie.  State funding of basic education has steadily increased each year going back to the 2010-2011 fiscal year (the final year under Governor Ed Rendell).  Some folks get confused, since there was federal stimulus money that was added to the expenditure in 2009-2010 and 2010-2011, but when it comes to how much Pennsylvania taxpayer money is going to basic education, it has increased each year under Governor Tom Corbett.

The writer seems to go on a tangent when the topic of attacking political correctness comes up.  So to quickly address that, political correctness runs completely counter to the idea of open dissent, the downfall of which the writer laments.  It can’t go both ways.  We cannot champion being PC and also expect dissention.  The very essence of being politically correct means we cannot say what we honestly think; thereby, avoiding true dissent.  Unless, of course, the actual goal is to just dissent against opinions we dislike.  Personally, I find it remarkable when a student dissents against such a lack of diverse thought in higher education,

Back to topic, it’s a safe area of agreement to say that the percent of 18-25 year olds enrolled in undergraduate studies has generally increased over the years.  While the historic value of higher education in the area of humanities and liberal arts cannot be understated, we can simply not have more and more of our young adults enrolling in these studies, or else it will contribute to a consistent unemployment rate of over 7% (like we've had for years).  I stand by the merits of fields of study such as English, history, psychology, and economics, but they rarely have a positive result in employment.  The immediate defense of these studies is the intangible benefit of “expand[ing] the mind, develop[ing] a more completed human being, [and] a more actively intelligent person and involved citizen.”  Ignoring how differently one can define “complete”, “intelligent”, and “involved,” it’s important to consider the cost of that benefit.  Is it worth the student accumulating over $35,200 in debt to earn a degree that leaves him or her unemployed or underemployed?  Is it worth taxpayer money for a student to earn a degree in philosophy, but now finds him or herself unable to pay rent and needs to move back in with his or her parents?  And while underemployed, interest continues to build.  What is a poor liberal arts major to do?  Why, grad school of course!  And while more debt is being added for this education, assuming the student has not received more taxpayer money for a likely useless degree, more interest accrues and the student is not earning money during that time to pay off any debt.  Gleaning lessons from recent housing turmoil, we know that owing more money than something is actually worth is chaos.  This will inevitably lead us to a burst in the higher education bubble.

In addition, there is evidence to suggest the more federal government gets involved with paying for education, the more expensive it becomes.  When you subsidize something, you get more of it.  So if tuition is subsidized, there will be more tuition.  And just forgiving debt doesn’t solve any actual problem.

And quite briefly, while the article bemoans the attempt of conservatives to more easily manipulate citizens, I think there are countless articles and books that would argue that students are inundated with liberalism (which is even getting more extreme) at college (and in The Department of Education) far more than conservatism, which makes a mockery of the writer’s premise.  It is not the conservatives that are at the forefront of indoctrination.

 

#2 You deprofessionalize and impoverish the professors (and continue to create a surplus of underemployed and unemployed Ph.D.s)

If the endpoint of education is not a job, which this writer already suggested, why should we care that folks with Ph.Ds are facing difficulty with gainful employment?  The word I am struck with again is narcissism.  Also hypocrisy.  What kind of audacity does it take for one to say that a young adult with no money should incur ridiculous amounts of debt for the sake of furthering his or her education rather than finding a job, but that the 40+ year old who has had time to make money and his or her own decisions needs to be employed simply because he or she has earned three degrees?  Throw in this laughable quote:  “Keep in mind, too, that many of the more recent Ph.Ds have entered this field often with the burden of six figure student loan debt on their backs.”  No one put that loan on their backs; they saddled it up on their own.  They chose to take on debt to enter a field with what this writer would describe as a bleak employment outlook.  If those in the field feel insecure, perhaps some time in the real world as a blue collar worker would show what job security is like.  I respect faculty members for their dedication to the pursuit of knowledge, but that comes with some sacrifices, as anything does.  If the world we live in is that there is less job security and job openings for becoming a professor, that is a risk the individual takes on.

As far as faculty pay goes, The Press Enterprise has informed us of those public records.  I’d say roughly 70% of faculty makes over $70,000.  Roughly 30% make over $100,000.  The average income for a nonfamily household is $30,511.  Are we really shedding tears for the six figure salary?  Again, I thought it was about expanding the mind, not making money.  In addition, there is conflicting research showing the increase in faculty wages.  Those numbers paint a different picture than that of “our undergraduates…being taught by faculty living at or near the poverty line.”

To be sure, I’m not interested in blaming faculty salaries for the state of tuition, but nor am I interested in the crocodile tears of professors lamenting the state of their wages.

 

#3: You move in a managerial/administrative class who take over governance of the university.

Was the best example of adding bureaucracy to healthcare really President Richard Nixon?  Isn’t there a more recent president adding red tape between the patient and the doctor?  No one?  Really?

Anyway, I think I should take great offense to this section, but I actually agree with some of this point.  After reading Unlearning Liberty, I recognize that many college and university administrators have made serious mistakes.  Again, referring to The Press Enterprise listings of salaries at BU, I’m not completely sold on the issue that administration is paid well at the expense of faculty.  I believe I am on the receiving end of “solid salaries, benefits, offices, [and] prestige.”  By no means is faculty paid too much; they are fairly compensated.

While most colleges and universities could probably find some monetary waste in their administration, keep in mind that there are plenty of legal reasons why administration has expanded in higher education: Dixon v. Alabama, Southeastern Community College v. Davis, Rosenberger v. Rectors of the University of Virginia, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System v. Southworth, Good v. Associated Students Univ. of Washington, Duarte v. Commonwealth, etc.  As well as plenty of laws on the books that require navigation: HOEA, FERPA, ADA, Clery, etc.  While we can debate the merits of these court decisions and laws, they are regardless in effect.  Faculty has plenty of responsibility in researching and teaching, I’m not sure they are physically capable of taking care of these tasks as well.

#4: You move in corporate culture and corporate money

I’ll leave the entire defense of capitalism for another time.

This is basically the same argument the writer makes in #1, where s/he justifies spending ridiculous amounts of money in order to experience “rigorous intellectual, emotional, psychological, creative development of the individual citizen.”

Really, we need to come back to: What is the point of higher education in our modern society?  With the development of the middle class over the past couple centuries (thanks to capitalism), more people can “afford” to attend college.  However, those coming from the middle class are not as rich as the nobility/upper class which were for centuries the only ones able to attend formal education (since they didn’t have to tend the fields, milk the cows, build the homes, etc.).  This means they do not have the luxury of paying for an education that does not result in better employment.  With an entirely different social class attending higher education than 200 years ago, it would be foolish to believe that the purpose of higher education doesn’t shift even ever so slightly.

I see a true corporate model something that would work well for higher education.  On the one side, the school needs to keep its costs low and make a profit to be able to continue offering its product (education).  On the consumer side, the student needs to determine what institution offers the best value as he or she defines it (quality of education, prestige of faculty, location of school, etc.). 

 

#5: Destroy the Students

To address the first prong, I wish the writer would have provided some citations in regards to who is responsible for the dumbing down of the education.  My understanding is that most faculty control what is being taught and how it is being taught.  While I accept this might not be the case at some institutions, why hasn’t the writer cited anything if it is so widespread?  S/he has included the occasional hyperlink, so clearly the idea of giving references does not escape the writer.

The second prong begins with another false premise: that higher education isn’t an investment, and if it is, it shouldn’t come with risks like any other investment.  Yes, only the wealthiest of students can go debt free.  Just as only the wealthiest of citizens can build a house debt free.  However, because of loans, education and home-owning become very real options for more citizens.  The very idea of debt isn’t bad.  The idea of unmanageable debt is bad.  It comes down to the word investment.  "If I put X amount of money and X amount of time into Y, what will my return be?" 

The writer’s explanation of cost is asinine.  I was unaware about the free universities, but I will take the writer’s word for it.  However, this was, again, a time that very few attended college.  With less people going, obviously costs can be kept at a minimum.  Less residence halls, less laboratories, etc.  When suddenly 1,000 applications roll in instead of 100; when suddenly the school needs to build more residence halls, and eating facilities, and property to build these on, and hire more faculty and administrators; when suddenly it’s realized the taxpayers can’t be expected to subsidize all of this, it becomes time to start charging.

In addition, the writer uses tuition in the 1970s compared to now as an example of great increases in the cost of education, yet ignores the fact that the federal government’s involvement in student loans started in 1965!  Again, the writer’s premise is completely false.  There is no such thing as a free education; someone, somewhere pays for it.  And the more the federal government (via the American taxpayers) foots the bill, the more it will cost.

The writer ends this section confusingly implying that not all young adults need to attend college.  I agree with this notion, but again disagree with the comment about debt.  A reasonable amount of debt is a good thing.  They are often good investments into transportation, housing, business ventures, and education.  It’s about taking on an amount of debt one can handle, and gaining from the investment.

 

----

The article begins to wind down by calling college administrators whores and insinuating they are all conservatives who hate all social programs (trust me, they are not all conservatives—we are few and far between).  There is also more martyrdom about being a migrant worker.  Something about higher education benefitting the right-wing agenda (guess someone didn’t look at polling results from any US presidential election since 1992) was in there too.  There is also some blaming of the government, which I agree, but then wonder why there should be more public funding (government) involved, which the writer argues for in the previous sentence.

The sad thing about this article is that I find the faculty to be the second most important part of any higher education institution (anyone who thinks number one is anything other than the student is part of the problem).  Students go to college to receive an education, and the faculty are the ones charged with providing it.  That responsibility is immeasurable, and faculty deserve the utmost respect for it.  I agree that obstacles have been placed in between the student and his or her education, but this blog post demonstrates the incompetence in understanding what those problems are.  There is nothing wrong with a middle class population concerned about receiving education that leads to better employment.  There is nothing wrong with the taxpayers expecting to see a return on their investment.  And most people will not put up with the arrogance it takes to think otherwise.