The Coming College Bubble

It’s coming! And the causes will be about the same. I’m talking about the college bubble. Just as there was a housing bubble that came close to destroying our economy, we are facing a higher education fiasco of similar proportions.

We got into trouble with mortgages when the politicians decided that everyone should own a house. It didn’t matter how sizeable your income was, home ownership was such an unqualified good that the government decided to promote it. Being the lord (or lady) of one’s own manor increased individual responsibility; hence it was in everyone’s interest to expand its scope.

The way to get there, of course, was to make homes affordable, and that could only be achieved by reducing the cost. If down payments were eliminated and interest rates reduced, even the least privileged could enter the market. All that had to happen was for the government to guarantee loan repayment.

With education the impulse has been the same. Obviously higher education is a good thing. Everyone knows that people who have college degrees earn over a million dollars more during their lifetimes. Moreover, they become healthier, more moral, and better informed citizens. As such, everyone wins.

To this end, altruists from Bill Gates to Barack Obama have advocated universal college enrollment. Indeed, some are now describing a university degree as an entitlement. Every person born in the U.S. (as well as some illegal aliens), not just the rich or intellectually endowed, is said to have a right to a college diploma.

The way to make this happen is, of course, to reform the current system. According to the reformers, it obviously costs too much, takes too long to complete, and teaches irrelevant materials. If instead we get rid of professors dedicated to protecting their outmoded disciplines and replace them with cheaper adjuncts and even cheaper on-line courses, the results will elevate us to the forefront of international learning.

This may sound reasonable, yet it is fatuous! The only way to give everyone a college degree is to reduce the standards drastically. As a college professor I know—first hand—that not every student has the motivation or ability to handle college level subjects. And this, while we still impose standards that deny some folks admission and force others to drop out for lack of performance.

For every potential student to pass, the bar has to be dropped lower than is now the case in secondary education. But if this occurs, what is learned will be so meager that college credentials will be worthless. All they will certify is that a graduate has applied for one.

What is more, the costs will be exorbitant. For the privilege of dumbing down our population, and making it more difficult to distinguish the competent from the incompetent, we will have to furnish trillions in student loans that the recipients will never be able to repay—because they will be unemployed. --Sounds like a terrific bargain to me.

The fact is that a college education is not a right. Not everyone is entitled to a diploma. What people do deserve is the option to pursue a degree. We all, whatever our social origins, warrant an opportunity to prove what we can do. But then we must prove it! If we are admitted to an institution of higher learning, we must demonstrate that we have learned something.

Nowadays with many politicians attacking the integrity of college professors, and some educators apparently intent on watering down what is taught so that it can be inexpensively packaged for the Internet, the soundness of higher education is being compromised. If this comes to pass, an institution that has taken generations to create will be lost.

So let us celebrate those who have learned something in college. We must continue to strive for high standards without opting for the privilege of bankrupting our country both financially and intellectually. Democracy is a privilege. It shouldn’t be an excuse for seeking the impossible.

In the Wizard of Oz the scarecrow received a piece of paper that confirmed he was a college graduate. As portrayed in the movie he was wise, yet in the final analysis his head was still filled with straw. Let us not choose only to be empty-headed.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Following the Leaders—From a Respectful Distance

Colleges are supposed to be on the forefront of progress. They are both expected to increase our knowledge and to impart it to those who later apply what they have learned to enhancing social conditions. So why is it that colleges are so frequently behind the curve when it comes to improving the ways they operate?

One might think that with hundreds of intelligent faculty members on staff, they would be able to develop homegrown strategies for enriching their teaching and research practices. Yet this is frequently very far from the truth. Most colleges and universities are bastions of intellectual conservatism. Their cultures may be dominated by political correctness, but their levels of initiative are appallingly low.

Let me use my own university to illustrate. On any number of fronts it has adopted academic policies pioneered elsewhere. As a result, it tends to implement them long after they have become standard in other systems. But worse—much worse—it is liable to perpetuate these procedures well after they have failed and been discarded by other institutions.

Thus, in trying to keep up with the Joneses, it often does so after these folks have gone bankrupt. Rarely aware of these fiascos until it they become common knowledge; the school is not alerted to correct its mistakes until after they have done substantial damage. Only then does it roll back these disappointments—and then only slowly.

For example, we are currently creating on-line programs all over our university. The explosive growth of schools like the University of Phoenix has encouraged copycat degrees. Our administrators are apparently worried that they may lose business to these upstarts. Mind you we keep growing and if anything already have more students than we can accommodate.

But worse still, we must dilute the quality of our regular courses to find the resources for the new ones. As it happens, most on-line programs are inherently less sound than the traditional ones; hence we are faced with a double whammy. This is a case of heads you lose and tails you lose, with both sorts of courses being dumbed down.

Then there is the current vogue for interdisciplinary departments. These are supposed to foster creativity by encouraging disciplinary cross-fertilization. Presumably faculty members who work with colleagues from other fields will acquire new ideas that improve their own work. And if they are really lucky, these collaborations will result in completely original breakthroughs.

Except that this is not what experience suggests. In condemning the traditional disciplines as “silos” from which nothing good emerges, they are telling professors not to specialize in the areas of their greatest strength, even though the increased complexity of most fields demands further specialization of those who hope to succeed.

What we are learning at my school, at any rate, is that those faculty members who gravitate to the interdisciplinary departments are frequently malcontents looking to escape the constraints of their home departments. These are rarely our most productive academics. In fact, very few breakthroughs—but a lot of conflict—can be attributed to their efforts. So generally is this the case, that the carcasses of interdisciplinary units litter the scholastic landscape from coast to coast.

Lastly, but not finally, many of the new disciplines that are given freestanding degrees attract small numbers of students. Despite the money and time lavished on fields like women’s studies, black studies, and environmental studies, those at whom they are aimed are aware that there are very few jobs available in these areas down the road. As a result, they opt for subjects that provide better opportunities after they graduate.

Why then do colleges adopt these majors, especially after other schools have begun to discontinue them for want of student support? They usually do so from political correctness. These programs are implemented because teachers want to teach them, not because students want to take them. And the administrators go along because they do not want the potential radicals to make a fuss.

If this does not sound like a particularly intelligent way to do business, it is because it is not. But then who said that everything that happens in the groves of academe makes sense?

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Ron Paul and the Libertarian Dilemma

Freedom is a good thing! Both traditional conservatives and libertarians agree on this. Indeed, the United States was founded on the promise of liberty for all. It is written into in The Declaration of Independence, a document we rightfully honor.

But even a good thing can be taken too far. As Ralph Waldo Emerson taught us, “a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” Today one of those who is taking his political principles too far is Ron Paul.

In seeking the nomination for the presidency, Paul is providing an object lesson in libertarianism run amok. Given what he is saying, it is remarkable that his poll numbers are so high. Perhaps not everyone realizes the implications of what he preaches. Much of it implies an unwillingness to learn from experience.

Paul has in recent weeks presented what can only be described as a crackpot foreign policy. Yet he is so beloved by ideological libertarians that they cheer rowdily for every word out of his mouth. It is as if they aren’t listening.

Exhibit number one is his expressed indifference as to whether Iran acquires nuclear weapons. As far as Paul is concerned, this is their right. Because Iran is a sovereign nation, it is supposedly not our business to dictate how its leaders choose to defend themselves. This is presumably their decision, not ours.

Paul undoubtedly thinks of himself as applying libertarian principles to the world stage. He evidently believes everyone should be free—including rogue states. He even asks why we should care what Iran does, thereby implying that there are no negative consequences of their actions.

Paul fancies himself intellectually consistent, but he is guilty of failing to think ahead. Why should we worry about Iran getting nuclear weapons? The reasons are many. To begin with, if they do, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Algeria and Iraq will all want to follow suit. In their desire to protect themselves from an aggressive neighbor, they will feel obliged to enter an arms race.

But if this happens—if there are too many undisciplined fingers on the nuclear trigger—someone is likely to do something foolish. The situation will be comparable to Europe just before World War I. The Middle East will then become a tinderbox where one stray match can set off a conflagration.

So what does Ron Paul want? He clearly wants to play Neville Chamberlain and appease the Iranians. Instead of stepping in to stop a Hitler before he goes feral, he wants to disengage. Somehow he believes that the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans can protect us if the world descends into chaos.

This is worse than wishful thinking. It is willful ignorance of history disguised as high-minded statesmanship. While it is true that Paul has the courage of his convictions, he is trapped in an ideological time warp that prevents him from the flexible thinking required of a president.

Another example of this tendency has been revealed by his reaction to the aftermath of hurricane Irene. He has suggested that it is inappropriate for the federal government to help out its victims. Paul even wants to put FEMA out of business.

In fact, Paul does have a valid argument when it comes to offering government insurance to people who live in areas prone to natural disasters. He is correct in describing this as a subsidy for bad behavior. Private insurers won’t issue policies because they know this amounts to paying people for predicable losses. Why then should the federal government squander our money?

Nevertheless, one of the jobs of the government is to help people when they suffer from unpredictable losses. The hurricane was not the fault of people who live in Vermont. Why should they suffer? Don’t we want to be there for them?

So should we abandon tradition merely to be intellectually consistent? This would amount to what the English did during the Irish potato famine. They refused to send aid to Ireland on the principled grounds that people have a duty to help themselves. But wasn’t this going too far? And isn’t Paul doing the same thing?

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University

Reinventing Higher Education

Usually when I review a book, it is because I have learned something valuable from it. Even when I disagree with part of its thesis, my understanding has been enlarged. Indeed, in the process of quibbling with what I have read, I am usually working out what I have come to believe.

This is not exactly the case with Reinventing Higher Education: The Promise of Innovation. I have repaired to my computer not to honor an impressive intellectual endeavor, but out of anger and despair. This book was essentially a hit job on higher education. If its recommendations are taken seriously, the outcome will be the demise of college education, as we know it.

The authors of this edited tome might even agree with this last assessment. For the most part, they believe that traditional forms of university education must be dismantled. Although presented as a paean to innovation and reform, their proposals would dumb down what is taught to such a degree that it would be unrecognizable.

Mind you, the authors are not marginal figures. Many are associated with important universities and think tanks. Moreover, the Harvard Education Press published their compendium. This is, amazing to say, a mainstream document. As such, it suggests that many influential educators are intent on committing professional suicide.

Let me start with a small example. One of the authors is an expert in on-line courses. Naturally, he wants to see many more of these classes. Often employed as a consultant to assist in the implementation of electronic programs, he describes them as the culmination of a long tradition. Indeed, he provides a short account that begins with the creation of correspondence schools.

Historically, the correspondence schools were a means whereby adult learners who lived too far away to attend brick and mortar schools could continue their education. Conducted through the mail, they depended upon the motivation of their students to accomplish their mission. Unless these auditors applied themselves to their lessons, little education was likely to occur.

As a consequence, correspondence schools acquired an abysmal reputation. Few confused them with the quality education available in actual colleges. This, however, is never mentioned in Reinventing Higher Education. One is left with the impression that schooling by mail was a rousing success. The implication is, therefore, that on-line learning, which is also distance learning, is bound to be equally valuable. That it too might rise and fall on the motivation of students, who are liable to be less than enthusiastic, is largely left unsaid.

With technology having become a national icon, large numbers of reformers perceive it as a guaranteed source of salvation. They customarily regard it as cheaper and more effective than the traditional classroom. The proof of this is largely lacking, but they are not shy about propagating hyperbolic screeds that imply it the superior way to go.

Nevertheless, the most egregious chapter in the book boasts about the so-called for-profit colleges. These are the schools that are regularly advertised on television. You know, they are the ones that promise their students high paying jobs in law-enforcement and health care. They are the schools that brag of their personalized education and high-quality faculties.

Even so, there are some problems. The author admits that the students they attract are not the usual candidates for a college degree. Most are poor, a large proportion are high school drop-outs, and many have families to raise. Not generally motivated to perform well academically, they are looking for a fast and easy way to get a degree that can be converted into lucrative employment.

Not surprisingly, quick and easy is what they get. In fact, many graduate in short order. This is consequently lauded as a superior method of engaging persons who would not otherwise go to college. As such, it is argued that this is the best route for making a college education available to everyone.

But is this a college education? Shouldn’t these for profit institutions be labeled technical schools? On this level, they may have a place, but presenting them as the successor of contemporary colleges is worse than a joke. It is a prescription for destroying what higher education has been able to accomplish.

Not only do these for-profits eliminate the elements of a liberal education, but they make no pretense of inculcating critical thinking. Of course, many colleges do not achieve this goal either. Nonetheless, if this does not remain an objective of higher education, it is less likely to occur.

So what would be the result of substituting for-profits for traditional colleges? More people would probably get degrees, but they would surely learn far less. Moreover, the jobs for which they would be prepared would be low level. As it is, most students who major in criminal justice at the for-profit wind up as security guards, not police officers.

This will not do. With more jobs requiring professionalized attitudes, a universal education that is dumbed down is the high road to third world status. As more people learn less and less, splendidly equalized destitution beckons as the standard American way of life.

Excuse me, if I do not applaud this as innovation or reform.

Melvyn L. Fein. Ph.D.

Professor of Sociology

Kennesaw State University