How To Stop Complaining And Start Fixing America’s Higher Education Crisis

[mountaineer]

How To Stop Complaining And Start Fixing America’s Higher Education Crisis
The most striking thing about fixing American higher education is that the direct costs look surprisingly small. The major obstacles are political, not financial.
By Peter W. Wood
May 15, 2017
The Federalist (excerpted; click on link for entire article)

How much would it cost to fix American higher education? Think big. In 2015, colleges and universities spent about $532 billion to teach 20.5 million students enrolled in two-year and four-year colleges.

That $532 billion figure is the lowest estimate in circulation. The National Center for Education Statistics gives the figure as $605 billion for 2013-14. But let’s stick with the humble $532 billion.

So how much would it cost to fix our $532 billion worth of colleges and universities? The answer depends, of course, on what you think is wrong with them and which of the possible repairs you favor. But let’s not get overly complicated.
Here’s What’s Wrong with Higher Education

American higher education is subject to five broad categories of complaint.

The progressive left criticizes it for reinforcing oppression based on race, class, and sex. American higher education favors the rich and abets unjust capitalism.

Pro-market and libertarian observers criticize its dependence on public funding; guild-like stifling of innovation; and hostility to capitalism. American higher education privileges itself.

Liberals, moderates, and conservatives criticize it for putting identity politics at the center of curriculum and student life. It fosters inter-group hostility, a grievance culture, psychological fragility, incivility, and contempt for free expression. American higher education is illiberal.

Those who support the classical liberal arts criticize it for trivializing higher education, turning the curriculum into a shopping cart, neglecting the formation of mind and character in favor of political advocacy, and estranging students from their civilization by elevating the false ideal of multiculturalism. American higher education is culturally corrosive.

A wide variety of people criticize its high price, frivolous expenditures, and increasingly uncertain rewards for graduates. The gigantic growth in the number of campus administrative positions relative to the faculty comes under this heading too. American higher education is too expensive.

It would be easy to add more items or expand any of these into a whole book. Many have done just that. But my goal here is to cut a path through the forest, not to linger over the variety of trees.

When I speak of fixing higher education, I discard the first category, the criticisms of the university as a font of capitalist oppression. It simply has no basis in reality. Each of the other four categories is cogent, and any real repair would have to address all of them. Moreover, they are deeply connected.  ...

He writes: We don’t necessarily need 3,039 four-year colleges to teach 6.65 million students. Our proposed financial model will let competition thrive. We may well see new colleges as well as closings of existing institutions, as non-college options become more appealing to some students. In any case, we will not set a target for how many colleges there should be. The marketplace will determine that. ...

[Free Vulcan]

Let's stop giving blank checks to colleges, for starters. Govt money should go to practical degrees that get jobs and that is all. Make the college do some matching funds. Let the fluff classes be funded by them with no slushing of funds.

[mountaineer]

My husband has retired from a local state university, but while there observed 1) too many children admitted who absolutely were not college material (50% in remedial courses); and 2) too many undersubscribed majors. If you can't get more than one or two kiddies to major in your subject, drop the subject and let the kid go elsewhere. Every public institution of higher ed in the state offers the same liberal arts majors: art, music, and the like. While I appreciate the arts as much as the next person, the redundancy is ridiculous. Find your strong point, and run with it. At his school, it was education (teacher prep) and certain sciences. Play those subjects up, and don't offer a major in church organ for one student.