The Future of College

Degrees in Humanities Plummet

2009-02-26T09:39:00.001-08:00

Whither the Humanities?

2009-02-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

Check this out:

Previous economic downturns have often led to decreased enrollment in the disciplines loosely grouped under the term “humanities” — which generally include languages, literature, the arts, history, cultural studies, philosophy and religion. Many in the field worry that in this current crisis those areas will be hit hardest. Already scholars point to troubling signs. A December survey of 200 higher education institutions by The Chronicle of Higher Education and Moody’s Investors Services found that 5 percent have imposed a total hiring freeze, and an additional 43 percent have imposed a partial freeze. In the last three months at least two dozen colleges have canceled or postponed faculty searches in religion and philosophy, according to a job postings page on Wikihost.org. The Modern Language Association’s end-of-the-year job listings in English, literature and foreign languages dropped 21 percent for 2008-09 from the previous year, the biggest decline in 34 years.

So what does this mean? Can we live without the humanities? Does studying Kante and Confucius and classics make us better citizens? Or have the humanities always been a rarefied set of disciplines pursued by elitists and snobs?

Read the rest of the story from the 2/24/09 NY Times here.

Technology and the Future of College, Part 1: The Networked Student

2009-01-13T11:48:00.001-08:00

Take a look at this video, a good overview of how current web-based technologies make learning possible. These technologies present the possibility of students no longer being physically tied to a place and time for learning. If college is about learning, and learning happened when and where the student wanted it to happen, what does this suggest about the future of college?

Defining College Readiness

2009-01-11T16:55:00.000-08:00

According to a 4/26/06 Education Week article titled "Views Differ on Defining College Prep,"

One of the overarching goals of the national push to redesign high schools is increasing the number of students who graduate ready for college. Yet pinning down what people mean by "college readiness" and how to measure it is no easy task.

So what does "college readiness" mean? Here are the crucial aspects:

willingness to amass colossal debt - according to an Associated Press story, nearly two of every three undergraduate students are going into debt to go to college, owing an average of more than $19,000, most often to the government. About 65 percent of students who graduated in the 2003-2004 school year did so after getting student loans, according to the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics.
willingness to attend lecture-driven courses with 400 or more other students
capacity to sit passively and take notes for hours
ability to accurately guess what will be on the test or quiz and then study the night before to engorge the short-term memory on those items which are most likely to be on the test or quiz
ability to fully purge short-term memory during the test or quiz
capacity to forget what was studied for the test or quiz
capacity to manage time and assignments in order to do the least amount of work possible
ability to binge drink on the weekends
tendency to view college as a means to acquire a high-paying job
cultivated interest in material acquisition and consumption, with a special emphasis on 42" plasma screen TV's and Hummers

And what about measuring "college readiness"?

How about this: why don't we ask for a federal law that focuses on superficial learning of only a couple subjects, e.g., reading and math? Forget about all the others. Let the students start practicing short-term memory stuffing, purging, and voiding in the 3rd grade by taking as many tests as they possible can. Starting in kindergarten, tell them that getting into college is the most important thing in the world. Tell them the reason they are in school is to get into college. We can measure their "college readiness" by looking at their test scores. If they score badly, we punish them by not letting them go to college and encourage them to cut grass or pick oranges. Those that do well on the tests will be ready for what lies ahead.

Oh, wait. We already have that system in place. It's called No Child Left Behind.

How Is a 400-Seat Lecture Course Different from a Tyson Chicken Farm?

2009-01-11T16:50:00.001-08:00

High Stakes for Higher Ed

2009-01-11T13:11:00.000-08:00

My fundamental concern is that we are at risk of creating a permanent underclass in this society that has no stake in it . . . people who don't have access to [college] because they're priced out of it.

These words from Oregon State University's president Ed Ray underscore the unquestioned belief that college is the only equalizer in America. Go to college and you're set. Get left out of college and you're cooked. The solution may not be to make college more affordable for more people. The solution may be to make more options available for more people, and to make sure that all of those options allow people to escape the confines of poverty and the underclass.

College as a Subversive Activity, Part 1

2009-01-11T12:37:00.000-08:00

I'm thinking about the experience of going to college not only as a rite of passage, but also as a subversive activity: being away from the comfort of home and parents, cloistered inside the confines of an environment with other young people (ostensibly) committed to intellectual pursuit, binge drinking, bong toking, casual sex, etc., etc. For a lot of people -- maybe most people? -- the college experience is much more about this kind of stuff and less about what they "learn." So it's experiential learning of a different sort.

If this is indeed the case, then how might this "subversive activity" be facilitated in other ways? And, since I'm a technology guy, what role does Ye Olde Internette play in all of this?

I like the Met School model because it supports the work of students outside of school. But it also provides a place for students to gather with their mentors and peers and engage in substantive conversations about the work and learning they're doing.

The upshot? Maybe the whole "subversive experience" thing is a product of serving entitled, privileged, bourgeois kids and keeping them happy. Maybe those days are over? Maybe they -- and we as a society -- can no longer afford it? But if we get rid of it and focus on the college experience exclusively as an academic experience, might we then need to create other experiences that serve as a rite of passage for children becoming adults?

Charles Murray Challenges "College for All"

2009-01-08T15:44:00.000-08:00

Charles Murray is not a very popular guy amongst lefty-progressives like me. His ideas, especially as set forth in his controversial book The Bell Curve, can very easily be interpreted as racist. Yet his latest op-ed in The New York Times got me thinking, as it did Deborah Meier over on Bridging Differences.

Here's an excerpt:

The residential college leading to a bachelor’s degree at the end of four years works fine for the children of parents who have plenty of money. It works fine for top students from all backgrounds who are drawn toward academics. But most 18-year-olds are not from families with plenty of money, not top students, and not drawn toward academics. They want to learn how to get a satisfying job that also pays well. That almost always means education beyond high school, but it need not mean four years on a campus, nor cost a small fortune. It need not mean getting a bachelor’s degree.

OK - I'm sold. Then he adds this:

For most of the nation’s youths, making the bachelor’s degree a job qualification means demanding a credential that is beyond their reach. It is a truth that politicians and educators cannot bring themselves to say out loud: A large majority of young people do not have the intellectual ability to do genuine college-level work.

This is where Murray gets into hot water. A majority of young people do not have the intellectual ability to do genuine college-level work?? I'm not sure what "genuine college-level work" means. But that point aside, how is intellectual ability achieved? Murray argues that it's innate -- you got it or you don't. The implications for low-income kids, esp. low-income minority kids, are frightening. Does this mean their fates are sealed from birth? You can see why so many folks, esp. progressives, despise Murray.

But then he adds this:

The core disciplines taught at a true college level are tough, requiring high levels of linguistic and logical-mathematical ability. Those abilities are no more malleable than athletic or musical talent. You think I’m too pessimistic? Too elitist? Readers who graduated with honors in English literature or Renaissance history should ask themselves if they could have gotten a B.S. in physics, no matter how hard they tried. (I wouldn’t have survived freshman year.) Except for the freakishly gifted, all of us are too dumb to get through college in many majors.

This point got to me. I could no more study advanced physics or chemistry than star in a re-make of Cinderella.

Finally, Murray argues for what many progressive educators have long argued for: allowing students to demonstrate what they know and can do through measures that are related to their chosen field. He uses the example of the certification test, but adds:

Certification tests can take many forms. For some jobs, a multiple-choice test might be appropriate. But there’s no reason to limit certifications to academic tests. For centuries, the crafts have used work samples to certify journeymen and master craftsmen. Today, many computer programmers without college degrees get jobs by presenting examples of their work. With a little imagination, almost any corporation can come up with analogous work samples.

So if we encouraged students to follow their passions and interests, developed curricula that responded to their needs, provided mentoring to support their pursuits, and required them to showcase the fruits of their labors, many students would be ready to enter the world of work -- at an entry level or as an apprentice -- right out of high school. If we extended this model beyond high school, students could continue to pursue what was meaningful and relevant to them as they combined work with study.

So is this what life beyond college would look like?

The Met School Model Applied to College?

2009-01-07T12:53:00.000-08:00

I'm a big fan of The Met School, started in Providence, RI, by Dennis Littky and Elliot Washor in 1996. Take a look at this video and you can begin to see why.

So how might the Met School model be applied to college?

My Own Personal Horror Story

2009-01-07T12:16:00.000-08:00

When you consider the mythology and salvational rhetoric that surrounds the institution of higher education, ACT's desire to prepare all students for college seems quite noble. Indeed, for much of K-12, the whole gestalt is based on the unexamined dictate, "Thou shalt produce students who graduate and go on to college."

But as we know, many students who graduate from high school are not prepared for college. And those that are prepared (academically and in all other ways) are not prepared for Death by Lecture, Teaching by Grad Student, Class Size for the Masses As Taught to the Masses by Adjunct, and college loan debts that rival an unlucky bus tour in Vegas.

So let me pose the naked emperor question: what's so great about college? There are lots of great things. But it would be nice to understand a bit more clearly what we mean by "the college experience," esp. since we are selling this idea to as many K-12 students as will listen. What are we selling them on? And if only 50% of them are finishing college with a degree, maybe we should interpret this as a rejection of our sales pitch?

I went to Princeton. It was a pretty good experience over all. But here are the low-lights:

Econ 101 - freshman year with Professor Branson; 400 students crammed into McCosh hall; one boring, incomprehensible lecture after another; precept led by somone from China; could not understand a word he said; switched to precept led by John Duka; a good guy, but he had no idea how to teach. End result: maybe a B-.
Biology 101 - sophomore year led by some high-ranking hoo-hah; 250 students crammed into a lecture hall; most of the students were pre-med; they had to get A's to get into med school; it was a requirement for me, so I took it; competition was cut-throat, grades were distributed on a curve; one boring, incomprehensible lecture after another; labs led by Jonny LabGuy; a cipher. End result: C.
Religion 410 - junior year led by some former White House aide; one boring, incomprehensible lecture after another
Religion 310 - senior year led by septuagenarian with a negligible pulse and a limp; one boring, incomprehensible lecture after another

I could go on. The piece de resistance: Robert Darnton, senior year, graded my history comps. Having taken a couple pretty good courses in post-structuralism (OK, not all of the classes were bad), I proceeded to deconstruct the questions that were posed in the departmental exams. I was proud of what I did for my comps. But of the 3 essays I wrote, I got two C's and one C-. Why? I called Darnton afterwards. What happened? He said he wanted history, not an op ed. I have since referred to this as "Darnton's Dilemma." Ironically, it served to make the point I made in the comps, i.e., what we mean by "history" determines what counts as fact, how it counts, and why. And who gets to say what "history" is. Darnton failed to see the irony.

Now, 20 years after graduating, I still have $30K in debt to make up for one boring, incomprehensible lecture after another and two C's and one C-.

Yes, you could say I'm disappointed.

I recently called my student loan processor, ACS. The pay-off amount is $30K. If I keep paying the $252.36 every month, I have 191 more months to go. That's 16 years from now. Total amount left to go? $48,200. That means I will have spent 34 years paying for my Princeton education.

With ACS, since 2002, I have paid $3,647.75 in principal and $8,213.17 in interest, amounting to $11,860.92 in the last 4 years. If you add the total paid to the total amount due over the next 16 years, that comes to $60,060.92. The original loan amount was $32,866.14. So ACS will realize approximately 200% ROI. Not a bad business to be in.

Note - the $60,060.92 does not include payments I made on the loan prior to consolidation in 2002. Likely add another $10 - $15K.

Keep in mind that I racked up this debt when Princeton only cost about $10K per year. For the 2008-09 academic year, Princeton charges for a resident student are:

tuition - $34,290
room - $6,205
board - $5,200

In addition, they allow $3,495 for books and personal expenses, bringing the total to $49,190, not counting travel expenses which vary based on state (or country) of residence.

$49,190 per year. PER YEAR. So, is a Princeton education worth it?

Diane Ravitch on College

2009-01-07T11:30:00.000-08:00

Diane Ravitch offers some thoughts on the push to send all kids to college. Here's an excerpt:

Why are we pushing all students to go to college? If they want a job or career that does not require college-level studies, we do them a disservice and we load up the colleges with students who don't want to be there and would rather be working. Charles Murray has made an argument along these lines. Then there is the implicit argument in Tom Wolfe's novel from a few years back, "I Am Charlotte Simmons." Anyone who took this book seriously would conclude that even a great university, as he portrayed it, was a scene of debauchery where learning was incidental. And more recently, in The Atlantic, an essay by the anonymous Professor X describes students who are enrolled in his or her classes because they need the degree for their job but have no interest in collegiate studies, have read nothing in common (the only common reference point they share is "The Wizard of Oz" [the movie, not the book]), know little about the world, and cannot compose a coherent sentence.

She also makes the point that "the college degree has been substituted by employers for the high school diploma, which now signifies no skills or knowledge at all." Finally, she observes that colleges and universities have become "'hooked' on remediation," referring to the fact that institutions of higher education require students to complete basic/remedial courses:

In some state university systems, nearly half of entering students require remediation. In New York City, despite the school system's boasts about higher standards and higher graduation rates, fully two-thirds of the city school system's high school graduates need remedial courses when they enter local community colleges. There is also the subsidiary problem that the goal of "college for all" makes the high school diploma worthless; this puts an enormous burden on low-income and disadvantaged students, who are the least likely to slog through two years or four years of higher education.

Ravitch does not mention the fact that these remedial courses are a cash cow for these institutions.

Soaring Costs = No Future?

2009-01-07T09:46:00.000-08:00