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May 07, 2008
"I'm Melting!"
"I'll help you, my pretty," said the candidate today at a rally at a college in West Virginia, "and your little dog, too!"
I saw it on a television at a pizza place out in the sticks. Final exams in my courses are over, so I had a free afternoon, and used it to go biking with my son Davey out into the Rhode Island countryside. We stopped for lunch at a little place called Pete's Pizza, where Pete had some rather gruff and backwoods things to say about the lady on the hustings. "I'll make Big Oil pay," she said, probably pandering to the stupid and ill-informed, possibly stupid and ill-informed in her own right. It is hard to tell, with the modern politician. She promised instead to use biofuels and solar and wind to help make us energy-independent. Whether that might include appending millwheels to the mouths of congressmen was left unclear. "If we can put a man on the moon," she began, falling back upon her reminiscences of Shakespeare. Yes, the old man on the moon argument a fortiori. The idea is that if we can put a man on the moon, surely we can squeeze all the power we need out of the wind and the sun, and the Cubs can win the World Series. Yet, in a way that the candidate did not see, the argument sort of works in this case. We could put a man on the moon because we had the knowledge of physics to do it. We also have sufficient scientific know-how to make oil cheaper. I believe it is called "Drilling".
Well, that wasn't the stupidest part of her speech. "You should be able to afford a college education!" she shrilled out, and it never occurred to her, for once, to apply her socialism to price gougers that make the oil companies look like Albert Schweitzer and Mother Teresa. When I enrolled at the ol' mater ferox, Princeton, back in 1977 (I am dating myself, I guess), tuition was $8000; room and board added about $1800 more. That was it. No nasty student fees, either. Back in 1940, four years at Harvard cost a little less than one and a half years of the median American household income. Read that sentence again carefully, and consider who was probably making that median income: a plumber, a grocer, a farmer. If Harvard's prices were comparable now, what would the sticker read? Maybe $60,000? A little more? For four years, no less. Multiply by four the cost of my first year at Princeton, and you come up with about the same deal. My father, who sold insurance and did all right, but was nowhere near being a rich man, could have paid for all four years, including room and board, with a little less than a year and a half of his gross pay.
So then, I'm finally seeing the Socialist Light! Why not put price controls on Harvard? That place doesn't need all that money; Harvard has more money than many a nation in the world, never mind schools. Cap the price! Better yet, lower it, by force -- and watch as the lesser schools are compelled to lower their prices in turn. Or lower them all, on a sliding scale. You can do it, Hilaria Regina! You have the technology. Threaten to kill their accreditation. Withhold all government grants, or government-backed loans. Send in the National Guard. The Constitution? Isn't that the scrap of parchment used as a model for the pretty designs on the bathroom tissue in Washington? No one cares about the Constitution. The Constitution won't pay for a college education. It won't even pay for a college miseducation.
"But Mr. Esolen," one might protest, "don't price controls always distort the market? Don't they result in weird gluts, or hoarding, or shortages?" Yes, they do -- but in this case they might not. If, for instance, I know that the Committee on Public Safety has recommended price caps on slaughtered pigs, and if those prices won't reimburse me for my time, effort, and outlay, I'll put my money elsewhere and let the porkers starve. You want a pig -- fine, here's what's left of a pig. But the typical academic is not comparable to a pig-dealer. The pig-dealer is a practical man of affairs. He can tan hides, maybe, or sell goat's milk, or something. The typical academic, were it not for that massive public welfare program known, I think, as Mister Ed, would be on a streetcorner with his mortarboard turned up, singing snatches of Proust for nickels and dimes from bored passersby.
So, my green candidate, leave Big Earl alone. He's actually given us a few things people want or need. Go after Big Ed. After all, it doesn't matter whether a policy works, so long as it's enforced from above. With skywriting, too. "Surrender, Harvard!" How I would love to see that day.
Posted by Anthony Esolen at 08:14 PM | Permalink
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Comments
There are actually some encouraging movements afoot at places like Harvard (my alma mater, not quite so ferox as Princeton mayhaps) and MIT, where they're offering essentially free tuition to anyone with a household income of less than $75,000, and offering very low tuition to even higher income levels, with minimal debt, too.
I sure hope this trend catches on. The whole point is that it's a con game--they don't have to charge any tuition if they don't want to. It only covers a miniscule fraction of their operating costs, anyway. They only set high tutitions as a kind of one-upsmanshipping the other Ivies.
Let's face it, the whole college education game is a scam anyway: they're just trade schools and social clubs, no matter the subject.
Posted by: Chris Ryland | May 7, 2008 9:33:13 PM
Absolutely brilliant!
To all of those liberal academics (it's almost redundant) who complain about corporate greed and the oil companies: it's time to put up or shut up.
Marxism should start "at home."
(That is, IF they have the courage of their convictions.)
So the next time one has to endure a rant from such as these, it is time to say:
"Yes. Great idea! It is indeed time for change (and hope)! We need to implement your ideas immediately.
We can no longer wait. Let's think globally but act locally. It's time to take a stand!
"Here we are surrounded by wealth but indifferent to the sufferings of the less fortunate. This university is exploiting its poor students who, after all, NEED an education.
"First, let's impose spending caps. No matter what it actually cost, fairness demands that tuition be affordable for all.
"Second, any tax loopholes MUST be closed. Let's begin with the enormous subsidy that this institution received from the federal government by being completely exempt from taxation. This is an egregious loop-hole.
"Third, obscene profits - like the enormous endowment that the university keeps building (completely TAX FREE), - must be returned to the poor people from whom it was unfairly taken.
"Fourth, we need to begin an investigation into the capricious manner in which some people are unfairly charged more than others for the very same education.
"Fifth, we need to forgive the crushing debt that has been imposed on these students so they may have a chance to make ends meet with their existing wages. (Best of all, this will help them achieve nearly the same result as the living wage you want.)
"Finally, since they probably are only working in low-skill jobs (because Bush's tax policy has only favored the rich and the economic recovery did not create enough meaningful jobs), we should institute a class-action law-suit so that these poor, exploited young people can seek damages from the university which has clearly sold them a bill of goods -- all those empty promises about the great jobs they would have after receiving an education from this institution. To weed out the privileged, we should test the students to determine if they actually did receive a reasonably good education. If they did not, there should be sufficient grounds for pursuing a judgment to help these victims based on fraud."
Viva la Revolucion!
Posted by: Chrys | May 7, 2008 10:12:01 PM
Pikers! We need REAL revolution--
Transfer all federal subsidies to the trade schools. Set them up on posh acres in the suburbs.
Move the Ivies to the south side of the inner cities. Access only by public transportation.
All grants go to the trades. We'll find out how many professors it takes to change a light bulb!
Yes, our plumbing and electrics will go to the dogs. But--teachers will really teach, and students will truly learn! And besides, if the academics get really hard up, they can become gardeners and nannies for our plumbers and electricians.
Posted by: Bill R | May 7, 2008 11:32:26 PM
Tony, you speak of price controls for higher education as if they do not exist. But I think they exist already and are largely responsible for artificially inflating such costs: viz., federal grant and loan money (and to a lesser extent: tax credits, Coverdell accounts and 529s). Perhaps shutting down that arguably futile redistributive function, i.e., allowing the free market be actually free, would have an effect similar to that desired.
Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | May 8, 2008 12:03:04 AM
It is axiomatic that when you subsidize something you get more of it. For decades, now, the U.S. government has been subsidizing tuition payments, through a combination of scholarships and subsidized loans. As a result, the customer (i.e., students) have been insulated from the true cost of education, and universities, freed from customer driven cost discipline, have felt free to raise their fees well beyond the rate of inflation.
Underlying this problem is the notion that "everybody should go to college", or "everybody deserves a college education".
Please allow me to voice a dissent on this. The problem today, the one driving the rising cost of a college education, the one straining resources at colleges all over the U.S., is too many people are going to college, people who have no business being at a four year institution of higher education. Part of that is due to the collapse of the secondary education system, so that businesses now demand bachelors degrees for jobs that any literate high school grad should be able to perform. But when you consider that even elite schools such as Princeton, Penn, Harvard, Yale, et al. provide remedial courses in writing, you can understand their point. As I recently told my college-bound daughter (who truly does deserve to be at an elite institution), "Undergrad is the new high school".
Because colleges are admitting so many unqualified students, the curriculum has been gutted; fluff courses proliferate, and schools bend over backwards to pander to the needs and interests of people whose principal need is beer and whose principal interest is partying.
Thomas Sowell (whom David Mamet recently discovered was "America's greatest living philosopher" just published a three-part essay on the cost of college education, and his prescription is blunt and bleak: if everybody had to pay full price, people would recalculate the value of college and demand more for their money; colleges, finally faced with the law of supply and demand, would have to adjust their fees to economic realities. Fewer but more qualified students would reduce the strain on faculties; bad teachers could be jettisoned, bad courses eliminated. The bloated educational establishment would recede to a sustainable size. Alternatives to four-year institutions, including vocational training schools and community colleges, would thrive. Someone might even decide that it's time to fix the public schools for real.
With a kid about to head off to Penn in the fall, I am fully aware of the cost of college, but I agree with Sowell: more subsidies or price controls on colleges is not the answer, merely more gasoline on the fire.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 4:48:27 AM
Stuart and Steve,
I am in entire agreement with you. I've been telling students for years that so-called "loans" were nothing more than subsidies, with student as bag-man; that in fact is how they are treated legally (I believe the reasoning is faulty) by the Supreme Court. They merely float the tuition upward. That pipeline needs to be shut off.
I also agree that too many students are in college now. If you asked me how many students I meet who are genuinely interested in the life of the mind, I'd say about 1 in 10. Three or four of the others are there because they have a specific job in mind that requires a diploma. All the rest are there because they have nothing better to do at the time. I have a textbook on argumentation published at the turn of the century; if that's any evidence, one of the hot debates at the time was whether students should be required to defray some of the cost of their high schooling, or whether high school should be free to all. We have ended up making high school both free and compulsory -- how I love the contradiction hidden in that phrase. In the meantime, Dewey came along, that third-rate thinker, to dazzle the educrats and their bovine hordes with his abstract prose. So high school has been degraded, and what was high school is now ridiculously expensive -- the first two or three years of college.
So, again, I agree wholly. End the loan programs, and let the market work. Let teachers teach who can, and if they can't, let them find employment selling pencils on streetcorners.
Posted by: Tony Esolen | May 8, 2008 7:21:46 AM
Here is one Sowell alternative to student loans: Student Investment Bonds
Right-Sizing the College Market
Let students find an investment market for their talents.
By Thomas Sowell
Those who argue that the taxpayers should be forced to subsidize people who go to colleges and universities seldom bother to think beyond the notion that education is a Good Thing.
Some education is not only a good thing but a great thing. But, like most good things, there are limits to how much of it is good — and how good compared to other uses of the resources required.
In other words, education is not a Good Thing categorically in unlimited amounts, for people of all levels of ability, interest, and willingness to work.
Nor is there any obvious way to set an arbitrary limit. These are questions that no given individual can answer for a whole society.
The most we can do is confront individuals with the costs that their choices are imposing on others who want the same resources for other purposes, and are willing to pay for those resources.
Those who cannot bring themselves to face the tough choices that reality presents often seek escape to some kind of fairy godmother — the government or, more realistically, the taxpayers.
When the idea of conscripting taxpayers to play the role of fairy godmother for some arbitrarily selected favorites of the intelligentsia gains currency, “the poor” are often used as human shields behind which to advance toward that redistributive goal.
What will happen to the poor if there are no government subsidies for college?
If this argument is meant seriously, rather than being simply a political talking point, then there can always be some means test used to decide who qualifies as poor and then subsidize just those people — rather than the vastly larger number of other claimants for government largesse who advance toward the national treasury, using the poor as human shields.
Another option would be to allow students to sign enforceable contracts by which lenders would pay their college or university expenses in exchange for a given percentage of their future earnings.
That way, students would be issuing stocks to raise capital, the way corporations do, instead of being limited to borrowing money to be paid back in fixed amounts — the latter being equivalent to issuing corporate bonds.
Not only would this get the conscripted taxpayers out of the picture, it would also make it unnecessary for parents to go into hock to put their children through college.
Still, the financially poorest student in the land could get money to go to college, with a good academic record and a promising career from which to pay dividends on the lender’s investment.
More fundamentally, it would confront the prospective college student with the full costs of all the resources required for a college education.
Those who are not serious — which includes a remarkably large number of students, even at good colleges — would have to back off and go face the realities of the adult world in the job market. But not as many jobs would be able to require college degrees if such degrees were no longer so readily available at someone else’s expense.
If individuals issuing stock in themselves sounds impossible, it has already been done. Boxers from poor families get trained and promoted at their managers’ expense, in exchange for a share of their future earnings.
Even some college students have already gotten money to pay for college in exchange for a share of their future earnings. However, in the current atmosphere, where college is seen as a “right,” there has been resentment at having to pay back more than was lent when the recipient’s degree brings in large paychecks.
What is truly repugnant to some people about college students issuing stocks as well as bonds is that this not only takes the government out of the picture, it takes the intelligentsia out of the picture as prescribers of how other people ought to behave.
Reality can be hard to adjust to. The most we can do is see that the adjustments are made by those who get the benefits, instead of making the taxpayer the one who has to do all the adjusting.
— Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 8:26:38 AM
The preceding was the second part of his three-part essay. Here is the introduction:
The Economics of College
by Thomas Sowell
Posted 04/22/2008 ET
Updated 04/22/2008 ET
A front-page headline in the New York Times captures much of the economic confusion of our time: "Fewer Options Open to Pay for Costs of College."
The whole article is about the increased costs of college, the difficulties parents have in paying those costs, and the difficulties that both students and parents have in trying to borrow the money needed when their current incomes will not cover college costs.
All that is fine for a purely "human interest" story. But making economic policies on the basis of human interest stories -- which is what politicians increasingly do, especially in election years -- has a big down side for those people who do not happen to be in the categories chosen to write human interest stories about.
The general thrust of human interest stories about people with economic problems, whether they are college students or people faced with mortgage foreclosures, is that the government ought to come to their rescue, presumably because the government has so much money and these individuals have so little.
Like most "deep pockets," however, the government's deep pockets come from vast numbers of people with much shallower pockets. In many cases, the average taxpayer has lower income than the people on whom the government lavishes its financial favors.
Costs are not just things for government to help people to pay. Costs are telling us something that is dangerous to ignore.
The inadequacy of resources to produce everything that everyone wants is the fundamental fact of life in every economy -- capitalist, socialist or feudal. This means that the real cost of anything consists of all the other things that could have been produced with those same resources.
Building a bridge means using up resources that could have been used building homes or a hospital. Going to college means using up vast amounts of resources that could be used for all sorts of other things.
Prices force people to economize. Subsidizing prices enables people to take more resources away from other uses without having to weigh the real cost.
Without market prices that convey the real costs of resources denied to alternative users, people waste.
That was the basic reason why Soviet industries used more electricity than American industries to produce a smaller output than American industries produced. That is why they used more steel and cement to produce less than Japan or Germany produced when making things that required steel and cement.
When you pay the full cost -- that is, the full value of the resources in alternative uses -- you tend to economize. When you pay less than that, you tend to waste.
Whether someone goes to college at all, what kind of college, and whether they remain on campus to do postgraduate work, are all questions about how much of the resources that other people want are to be taken away and used by those on whom we have arbitrarily focused in human interest stories.
This is not just a question about robbing Peter to pay Paul. The whole society's standard of living is lower when resources are shifted from higher valued uses to lower valued uses and wasted by those who are subsidized or otherwise allowed to pay less.
The fact that the Soviet economic system allowed industries to use resources wastefully meant that the price was paid not in money but in a far lower standard of living for the Soviet people than the available technology and resources were capable of producing.
The Soviet Union was one of the world's most richly endowed nations in natural resources -- if not the most richly endowed. Yet many of its people lived almost as if they were in the Third World.
How many people would go to college if they had to pay the real cost of all the resources taken from other parts of the economy? Probably a lot fewer people.
Moreover, when paying their own money, there would probably not be nearly as many people parting with hard cash to study feel-good subjects with rap sessions instead of serious study.
There would probably be fewer people lingering on campus for the social scene or as a refuge from adult responsibilities in the real world.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 8:30:23 AM
Here is the third and final part. Anything else one could add would merely be chrome.
The Economics of College: Part III
by Thomas Sowell (more by this author)
Posted 04/22/2008 ET
Updated 04/22/2008 ET
Why does college cost so much?
There are two basic reasons. The first is that people will pay what the colleges charge. The second is that there is little incentive for colleges to reduce the tuition they charge.
Those who want the government to provide subsidies to help meet the high cost of college seem not to consider whether government subsidies might have contributed to the high cost of college in the first place.
In any kind of economic transaction, it seldom makes sense to charge prices so high that very few people can afford to pay them. But, with the government ready to step in and help whenever tuition is "unaffordable," why not charge more than the traffic will bear and bring in Uncle Sam to make up the difference?
The president of a small college once told me that, if he charged tuition that was affordable, even an institution the size of his would lose millions of dollars of government money every year.
In a normal market situation, each competing enterprise has an incentive to lower prices if that would attract business away from competitors and increase its profits.
Unfortunately, the academic world is not a normal market situation.
Some of the ways of cutting costs that a business might use are not available to a college or university because of restrictions by the accrediting agencies and the American Association of University Professors.
There was a time, back in the early 1960s, when my academic career began, when many -- if not most -- colleges had their faculty teaching 12 semester hours and a few had teaching loads of 15 semester hours.
Spending even 15 hours a week in a classroom may not seem like a lot to people who spend 35 or 40 hours a week on the job. However, there is also the time required to prepare lectures, grade tests and do other miscellaneous campus chores.
Even so, 12 hours a week in a classroom is not a killing pace, especially for professors who have taught a few years and have their lecture notes from previous years to help prepare for the current year's classes.
But that was then and this is now. Today, a teaching load of more than 6 semester hours is considered sweatshop labor on many campuses.
Incidentally, since academic class hours are 50 minutes long, 6 semester hours mean actually 5 hours a week in the classroom.
Why was it considered necessary to cut the teaching load in half? Mainly because professors were expected to do more research.
Why was more research considered necessary? Because research brings in more money from the government, from foundations and from other sources.
On many campuses, a beginning faculty member cannot expect to be promoted to a tenure position unless he or she brings research money into the campus coffers.
Once 6 semester hours of teaching becomes the norm, an individual college that tried to economize by having its faculty teach 9 or 12 semester hours could run into trouble with the American Association of University Professors and the accrediting agencies.
The University of Colorado law school had its accreditation by the American Bar Association put in jeopardy simply because they did not spend enough money on books for their law library -- even though their students passed the bar exam on the first try at a higher rate than the law students at Harvard and Yale.
The criteria used by most accrediting agencies are based on inputs -- essentially spending -- rather than results for students.
Competition among academic institutions therefore seldom takes the form of lowering their costs of operation, in order to lower tuition. The incentives are all the other way.
Competition often takes the form of offering more upscale amenities -- posh lounges, bowling alleys, wi-fi, finer dorms.
None of this means better education. But, so long as the customers keep buying it -- with government help -- the colleges will keep selling it.
Dr. Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution and "Applied Economics" and "Black Rednecks and White Liberals."
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 8:33:18 AM
I agree with what has been said here. It must be said, however, that young people feel that they must go to college. They are as well aware as the rest of us that there is a huge difference in earnings between those with a bachelors degree and those with only a high school diploma. The same is true for the impact of obtaining a graduate degree over merely an undergraduate degree. The result of all these folks obtaining undergraduate and advanced degrees is the the value of those degrees have decreased -- it's simply a matter of supply and demand (more B.S.'s and B.A.'s chasing a number of jobs which has not increased at the same rate as the number of people with the degrees). Certainly, alternatives should be available for those who need trade school education.
It must be recognized, however, that part of the problem here is the destruction of well-paying factory jobs. People who thirty or forty years ago would have graduated high school and head down to GM, Ford, Chrysler, U.S. Steel, etc. to get a good paying job with a promising future of a middle class lifestyle no longer have that option. It will take more than fixing our educational establishment to address this problem. The problems with the higher education system are really just symptoms of broader problems. Somehow, we need to get back to an economy that produces well-paying (i.e., solidly middle class) jobs for folks who don't go to college. Unless that happens, one can hardly expect there not to be more demand for college degrees than is really actually needed. The alternatives are a permanent underclass or a continuing watering down of our colleges and universities, serving a clientèle for which they never were intended.
Posted by: GL | May 8, 2008 10:02:56 AM
I fantasize about:
Twelve Books is a four year college preparatory school for so-called disadvantaged children. Tuition is free. All faculty hold advanced degrees and are generally folks who’ve retired from various major universities. In many cases, faculty members have moved specifically to be involved with the Twelve Books school. The school is located in…
By the way, the books are (hey, it's my fantasy..get your own if you want something different :)
Revised Standard Bible
Four Tragedies; Shakespeare
Poetry, Plays, Prose; Robert Frost
Dante’s Paradise; Anthony Esolen
Latin Via Ovid; Goldman & Nyenhuis
Four Romances; William Shakespeare
Letters and Speeches; Abe Lincoln
Philosophy of Medicine; Pellegrino
Practical Analysis; Donald Estep
Novels; Nathaniel Hawthorne
A Parish Book of Chant
Basic Works; Aristotle
Posted by: tdunbar | May 8, 2008 10:08:48 AM
Tdunbar, your college prep school is way beyond what most grad students are exposed to these days. But it's your fantasy!
Posted by: Bill R | May 8, 2008 12:06:22 PM
A bit off topic (but relating to the previous post), I thought Dr. Esolen and others might find this discussion interesting. I think he would agree with most of the sentiments, although surely he would leap to the defense of Measure for Measure:
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2008/05/school-reading-lists.html
Posted by: James Kabala | May 8, 2008 12:07:25 PM
In my state of Colorado alone, taxpayers will pay $8 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date -- enough to provide 1,424,656 scholarships for university students for one year. Or 3,047,454 children with health care for one year. I know where I'd rather see my tax dollars go.
Posted by: Francesca | May 8, 2008 12:20:44 PM
Bill R, but it's doable..just needs critical mass to try it. There are plenty of teens who'd flourish, given flexible teachers, in such a school. Of course, they might have a problem making the transition to "higher ed" but that is a different problem.
I'm arguing that the problems with higher ed, variously discussed in the postings here, are intertwined with fundamental misunderstanding about human nature. It is precisely when children are dealing with puberty and its immediate aftermath that serious intellectual and spiritual issues must be addressed and I suggest that the historical record supports this assertion.
However, it is also true that due to immaturity the extent of the curricula must be severely limited and, barring a clear communal consensus, that can seem rather arbitrary and contrary to the ethos of our milieu.
Posted by: tdunbar | May 8, 2008 12:33:57 PM
James, the "Four Romances" are Twelfth Night, Measure for Measure, The Winter's Tale & The Tempest. The school produces its own book using LuLu, thereby staying within the letter of the charter and also learning various media skills.
Posted by: tdunbar | May 8, 2008 12:45:35 PM
This doesn't take anything away from the justice of Dr. Esolen's challenge to Hillary, but as an employee of a small Catholic liberal arts college, I'd like to say something about tuition increases. I'll leave aside the broader questions about how many people should go to college and whether the government should assist them.
The average private college with a modest endowment is not raising tuition because it really feels good, or so that fat-cat administrators can get fatter. It's raising tuition in a more or less desperate attempt to make ends meet. The cost of keeping the doors open continues to escalate faster than inflation. And this is partly because student and parent expectations continue to grow. They expect more in every possible way. Old shabby dorms don't make it. Mental health professionals are both a marketing and a legal requirement. Technology is a big contributor--you have to have it to compete, and it ain't cheap. When I started at my employer in 1990 there were three IT employees. Now there are eight who do nothing else and several more for whom it's a major part of their jobs.
Lawyering is a big contributor. We are constantly looking over our shoulder for the lawyers, and spending money to ward them off. Just one example which involves both technology and lawyers is the tens of thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours of personnel time that we are spending to implement an emergency notification system. In light of events like the Virginia Tech shooting, you risk being sued out of existence if something of that sort happens and you did not have a system like this in place.
I could go on and on, but please don't suppose that anyone is getting rich in higher ed, with the possible exception of the top 10% or so of really prestigious schools.
If this were a normal industry, there would have been a massive shake-out twenty or thirty years ago. As it is, too many institutions are chasing too few students with too little money.
Posted by: Maclin Horton | May 8, 2008 1:16:06 PM
>>>In my state of Colorado alone, taxpayers will pay $8 billion for total Iraq war spending approved to date -- enough to provide 1,424,656 scholarships for university students for one year. <<<
Just think, if the government stopped subsidizing student tuition, how many more wars we could pay for.
Posted by: Judy K. Warner | May 8, 2008 1:22:57 PM
Stuart,
There are some nice points being made with regard to education. However, the world Sowell is looking at is different than the one I live in.
1. In regional state schools, a 12-hour teaching load is the norm, at least in the middle of the country.
2. HLC, the agency that accredits my school, is looking at student learning outcomes as opposed to inputs. This may be a recent thing, as I've only recently begun to care about it having taken on the mantle of Chair of the University Assessment Committee.
However, regardless of whether loans are the ultimate cause or there are other factors, I've seen the folly of providing an education without cost to the individual who is receiving it. This is the same whether the student is being subsidized by the state or whether he is being bank-rolled by his parents. Even having said this, there are some students who have something we used to call character. They will pull in the harness until they find the strain. These are the ones we want to help.
Posted by: Bobby Winters | May 8, 2008 1:26:13 PM
Maclin,
I agree. Another contributor to the increase in costs is accrediting bodies, which demand more and more each time they come around, much of which is tangentially, at best, related to actually providing a quality education. And its not just dorms which must be upgraded to satisfy students, parents and accrediting bodies, the classroom buildings must also meet ever rising expectations and standards.
The cost of technology is mind-boggling. The university system for which I currently work just upgraded its enterprise resource planning system state wide, at a cost of $50 million. We are implementing a new library automation system campus wide at a cost of more than $1 million. Then, of course, there is all the personnel costs associated with supporting these systems.
Back to the point of earlier posters, some of these costs might not be incurred or might be considerably lower were colleges and universities required to compete for students who had to pay for these costs out of their own pocket. On the other hand, I attended state-supported institutions for my undergraduate, Master's, and law degrees and was grateful for the state support which made a low-cost, quality education possible. Without that support, I might not have had the opportunities which I have enjoyed in life. For those like me who attended state-supported universities, I sometimes wonder if there is a bit of a "I got mine, now your own your own" attitude. As with most issues, the problems are more complex than we would like to believe.
Posted by: GL | May 8, 2008 1:34:15 PM
>>>people feel that they must go to college. They are as well aware as the rest of us that there is a huge difference in earnings between those with a bachelors degree and those with only a high school diploma. <<<
This is only on average. We've all heard the joke about the plumber charging more than the lawyer whose sink he is fixing. (Punch line: I charged less when I was a lawyer, too.) There are great opportunities to earn a good living in a trade. It is also possible to start a successful business without a college degree. I think part of the problem is that teachers and other school personnel hold trades and business in contempt and indoctrinate students to think they are worthwhile only if they go to college. And the popular culture portrays businessmen as villains most of the time, so what self-respecting earth-saving, Bush-hating, compassionate high school student would want to go into business?
Posted by: Judy K. Warner | May 8, 2008 1:35:53 PM
The economics of present-day college expenses baffle me. Two years ago, I finished putting my kids through a total of ten years of college, both in public and in private schools. The private college costs were roughly three times that of the public school costs, yet if I'm to believe the fund raising literature that pours in from public colleges, there isn't a great deal of difference today between the governmental subsidies (loans, grants, direct aid) that public and private schools receive. So the difference in funding must come down largely to the endowments that private schools have. But shouldn't that mean that private schools would charge less, not more, than their public counterparts? Certainly not. Private schools couldn't bear the "shame" of charging what public schools do.
Posted by: Bill R | May 8, 2008 2:24:24 PM
Judy,
I, of course, agree. My brother-in-law did not go to college and, instead, at 18, bought the business at which he worked during high school from his employer. He then slogged away at it for 15 years, first paying off the business loan and then the building loan. Now, at the age of 39, he owns his business and the building from which he runs it free and clear. He also own his home, a river-side cabin and a small amount of farm land free and clear. There are many like him, but you must admit that he and the ones like him are far fewer than the ones with only a high school degree who are making far less.
What I am suggesting is the there was a time, not that long ago, when large numbers of men with only a high school diploma (if even that) could make a good, solid middle-class living and not live a life that different from most (or at least many) college graduates. That day is no more. To persuade large numbers of young men and women to forgo college, that day must come again or, at least, a day must come that a few years in a trade school will leave such persons in the same relative position that their high school educated grandfathers were in.
My point is that the young people are behaving rationally, for the most part, in deciding to attend colleges given the distortions in the system and that among those distortions is the lack of opportunities to find good, solid, middle-class employment without a college degree. We could argue why that is the case and the reasons are myriad. We could also argue about how to fix it, which I believe is more complex than we would like to think. We can agree, however, I hope that the system currently in place distorts behavior by creating incentives for those who really don't need a traditional college education to get one anyway.
Posted by: GL | May 8, 2008 3:04:42 PM
Excellent points all round.
A couple of observations:
1. It is absolutely true that accrediting agencies are out of control, and add tremendously to college costs.
2. It is also true that students expect colleges to provide them with spas, etc.
3. Also that "technology," of fairly limited usefulness for most educational endeavors, causes the prices to spike.
4. And true that unreasonable expectations on the part of the parents and the students play a part in keeping costs high. Might I mention that there's only a modest correlation between class size and what a student actually learns? It depends upon the subject, of course, but, take it all in all, there's no difference between a class of 21 and a class of 27, and there alone you're talking about increasing labor costs by 30%. Sure, it's marginally harder to get to know students in a class of 27 than in a class of 21. But it's also MUCH harder, 30% harder, for students to enroll in that smaller class. My experience shows me that natural teachers are not all that common. Others, who are not natural teachers, can do a passable job under the right circumstances. Still others are in the profession who are overmatched with a class of 15, or even 10. If you lower class sizes by capping enrollment at an artificially low number, you increase labor costs, deflate the quality of the faculty, and make it harder for students to find or even meet those few teachers who might change their lives.
5. If we stuck to teaching what ought to be taught in college, we'd need a lot fewer people. This, too, is partly a product of foolish demands on the part of the students. I argued against instituting a minor in English on the grounds that it served no educational purpose -- that in fact minors tend to shunt students into introductory courses even in the junior and senior years; and that they have more to do with faculty turf wars than with anything like a coherent idea of what an education looks like. I lost that argument.
6. It's a chicken and egg problem, I know, but -- there is, in the nature of things, absolutely no reason why a college education should be required for most of the professions: selling insurance, real estate, etc. The college education now means nothing more than that the person with the diploma will show up to work on time and not slobber over the paperwork. That's what a high school diploma should be for.
7. The overrating and overpricing of a college education is the single most important factor in driving poor and rich households farther apart, in both income and geographical location.
8. The money pipeline does finance a lot of profoundly stupid stuff. One of my colleagues teaches an American lit course, 19th century. She spends 11 class days, more than one fourth of the term, on Uncle Tom's Cabin. Time spent on Moby Dick? None. She doesn't like Moby Dick. But she gets to indulge her hobbyhorse because of the disconnect between the people a college will hire and the actual interests of students who take courses. How many Queer Theorists would there be, in a truly free market? A few, here and there. Now they are as common as mushrooms. So there we are -- neither the providers nor the customers have any sense --
Posted by: Tony Esolen | May 8, 2008 3:49:54 PM
"6. It's a chicken and egg problem, I know, but -- there is, in the nature of things, absolutely no reason why a college education should be required for most of the professions: selling insurance, real estate, etc. The college education now means nothing more than that the person with the diploma will show up to work on time and not slobber over the paperwork. That's what a high school diploma should be for.
7. The overrating and overpricing of a college education is the single most important factor in driving poor and rich households farther apart, in both income and geographical location."
Two truths that have, so to speak, ruined countless lives.
Hey, let's talk about how bad farming and the middle ages were again!
Posted by: Bob | May 8, 2008 3:54:20 PM
>>>It must be recognized, however, that part of the problem here is the destruction of well-paying factory jobs.<<<
Most of these now also require a college degree, since the machinery is now computer operated, requiring knowledge of both computer science and statistical process control.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 3:58:29 PM
>>>Just think, if the government stopped subsidizing student tuition, how many more wars we could pay for.<<<
I have a list that I keep handy, just in case someone asks me where to strike next.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 4:02:38 PM
Last Monday, I had to drive up to Uniontown, PA to meet a prospective client, Shumar Industries, Inc. I met the owner and founder, Eli Shumar, who dropped out of college at nineteen to start a mine machinery company servicing the coal mines in the area. Today, Shumar is a $100 million company that makes huge pieces of mining machinery, but has also branched out into military hardware, including electronics shelters, gun turrets and motors for lightweight torpedoes. I was extremely impressed with Eli, the archetypical "self-made man", and would much rather do business with him than with any number of Harvard or Wharton MBA types, even if the latter freely let you know they are the smartest guys in the room.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 4:08:35 PM
>>>Most of these now also require a college degree, since the machinery is now computer operated, requiring knowledge of both computer science and statistical process control.<<<
Which are perfect examples of subjects which could be taught outside a traditional college. It is not the complexity of the subject matter but the nature of the subject matter that should determine whether a traditional college or a more focused trade or technical school is the better vehicle to educating a particular worker. The factory worker who needs to understand computer science and statistical process control does not *need* to take classes in American Literature and History of the World's Aborigines.
This also leads to one of my pet peeves, the demand that young men with immense athletic talent attend college before entering the pros. There will be no more LeBron Jameses going straight from high school to the NBA. Oh no, it is so important to their future success in life that they attend at least one year of college before turning pro. We're doing it for the kids, you know.
I think we all know what this is really about. While I currently work at a school whose basketball program has benefited greatly from this charade, one has to wonder where the benefit lies for such young men as Derrick Rose, who would have made millions this past year had the No-More-LeBron-James Rule not been implemented. Instead, he lost one year from his professional career so that a college team could compete for a national championship . . . I mean so that he could become a more well-rounded and educated person, of course.
Posted by: GL | May 8, 2008 4:14:03 PM
I've never met a theorist who wasn't at least a little queer.
Posted by: W.E.D. Godbold | May 8, 2008 4:16:12 PM
Wait--are you telling me there's an actual law/rule that keeps kids from entering the pros without going to college first? My goodness. . .I'm not sure if I'm stunned more by the fact of such a rule or by my ignorance of such.
Posted by: Bob | May 8, 2008 4:34:09 PM
I don't believe the rule (part of the collective bargaining agreement between the NBA and the players' union) technically requires them to attend college, but it does require that a player have been out of high school for one year and be at least 19 years old before entering the draft. The intended effect is obvious. No potential NBA player is just going to play street ball for a year. He'll go to a college team and get some seasoning before turning pro, whether he needs or not.
Posted by: GL | May 8, 2008 4:43:58 PM
>>The factory worker who needs to understand computer science and statistical process control does not *need* to take classes in American Literature and History of the World's Aborigines.
<<
Oh, but it is FAR, FAR easier to teach someone who can learn computer science and statistics Literature and History than for the Literature and History folks to learn the comp sci and the stats. I've had many, many conversations with the techies about the humanities, but most attempts to talk tech to the lit-types receives a very brick-wall-like response. If you wish to counter-argue this, bring some statistics to the table. Ah, but you CAN'T! You can't do the stat! Have a computer do the stat. No, wait, you can't run the software. Well, just have one of those techies who you don't think can hack the humanities do it...
:)
Posted by: Bobby Winters | May 8, 2008 4:46:31 PM
>>Just think, if the government stopped subsidizing student tuition, how many more wars we could pay for.<<
To kill or to educate? I guess we all have choices.
Posted by: Francesca | May 8, 2008 4:52:50 PM
>To kill or to educate? I guess we all have choices.
I suppose you could educate on how to kill...
Posted by: David Gray | May 8, 2008 5:32:08 PM
>>I suppose you could educate on how to kill...<<
"Right to Die" laws passed by legislators, abortions performed by folks holding M.D.'s...what do you think our higher education is doing?
Posted by: Michael | May 8, 2008 5:48:16 PM
The new Atlantic (June) has an article by "Professor X" called "In the Basement of the Ivory Tower." Subhead: The idea that a university education is for everyone is a destructive myth. An instructor at a "college of last resort" explains why.
Posted by: Judy K. Warner | May 8, 2008 7:18:37 PM
>>>To kill or to educate? I guess we all have choices.<<<
Killing can be very educational, Francesca.
Not to mention that some people can only be taught by a full metal jacket between the eyes. Some day, if you ever come face to face with one of the more zealous advocates of the "Religion of Peace", you may begin to realize that.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 8, 2008 7:50:43 PM
Judy says,
There are great opportunities to earn a good living in a trade. It is also possible to start a successful business without a college degree.
Yes. And by-n-large those jobs cannot be outsourced. Try getting some really polite guy in Bangalore to fix your plumbing, redo your kitchen, landscape your yard, cut your hair, or butcher your hog.
Posted by: Steve Nicoloso | May 8, 2008 11:24:16 PM
The loss of jobs to offshore outsourcing is one of the great economic urban myths. Om fact, over the last decade there has been a net insourcing of jobs, most of them quite well paying. The market seeks efficiency, and the U.S. attracts the kind of jobs at which it is most efficient, which is why low skill, low value added jobs go offshore. The result is indeed a win-win situation: the standard of living in countries like India rises (which is in the best interests of the United States and the whole world, by the way), U.S. consumers get access to lower-cost products, and the country's economy grows more rapidly as finite resources are directed into those sectors of the economy that yield the highest return on investment.
For that reason, you will continue to see an increase in the number of low value added jobs going offshore, and the number of high value added jobs coming onshore. This will accelerate as the relative weakness of the dollar makes it much more attractive for foreign companies selling in the U.S. market to do their manufacturing here. You already see it with automobiles (and why is it that Honda and Toyota plants here manage to make money, while GM, Ford and Chrysler cannot?), and soon you will see it with commercial aircraft (which are bought and sold in dollars). Already EADS, the parent of Airbus Industries, is planning to build a final assembly plant in the South (it already gets about a third of its components from the U.S. in any case).
Nobody has a right to a particular type of job, nobody can or should be insured against change. Advocates of stasis should be careful for what they wish--they might get it.
The same people who complain about offshore outsourcing of industries like textiles did not complain when the textile industry outsourced its work from places like Massachusetts and New York to North Carolina and Tennesee. That was OK, but now it is wrong to move those jobs from North Carolina and Tennesee to Mexico and Haiti? The workers in New England bleated just as loudly then as the workers in North Carolina do now.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 9, 2008 4:49:45 AM
It's not a question of a right to a job. It's what the workers can do when their jobs disappear. The education system is mismatched to the economy. In addition to the lack of encouragement and education for the trades and for business, for example, there is a huge need for nurses, which will only increase as all the baby boomers age. And there are many people who want to go into nursing. But there are not enough teachers of nursing, so there are not enough places in nursing schools to fill the need. Why? Because the nursing schools have not raised the salaries for their teachers enough to compete with salaries for nursing jobs. Education in general is sclerotic; it can't respond with the flexibility and speed that should be possible in a free market.
Posted by: Judy K. Warner | May 9, 2008 6:09:18 AM
>>Just think, if the government stopped subsidizing student tuition, how many more wars we could pay for.
Hah! The Ann Coulter of MC.
BTW, I mean that as a compliment. The principle of subsidiarity suggests to me that federal tax monies are better spent on war than education. Yes, of course, one would like to have no war at all, but given that unlikely scenario, it still serves little good purpose to have education funds funneled through the fedeal government.
Posted by: DGP | May 9, 2008 7:02:20 AM
Stuart,
I'm not going to argue that point. It is not, however, the point I was making. Many here have decried too many young people going to college and my point is that they go to college because the statistics clearly show that, on average, college graduates significantly out earn those who do not graduate from college. There was a time that a man could graduate high school and get a good paying factory job that would, over time, earn him a good, solid middle class living. That time is no more. As you pointed out, many of these jobs you describe now require education beyond high school. So even if a young man (or woman) wants to work for the new Toyota plant being built outside Tupelo, Mississippi or at the Nissan plant just outside Jackson, Mississippi, he'll significantly increases his prospects and earning potential if he gets a college degree. That some, like my brother-in-law or your potential client, became well-off in business without a college degree does not take away from the fact that on average college graduates out earn those who have not graduated from high school by a significant margin. If you want fewer young people to go to college, then, there will have to be an alternative to give them the education and training they need to earn good livings. I don't really expect the days of yore to return.
Judy,
Many laid off factory workers are entering the health care professions. I saw a story just the other day of a man in his early 50s who was just completing nursing school after having been laid off from the plant at which he had worked since graduating high school. The plant had shut down a few years earlier. He was getting a CNA or LPN degree because he needed to get back to work. The reporter pointed out that, unlike the situation when this man entered his factory job and years of experience and resultant expertise went a long ways toward determining earnings, in health care, the level of education largely determined earnings. As many nursing schools are part of colleges, this again tells you why so many more people are going to college. They are going to college because, to paraphrase Willie Sutton, a college degree is now where the money is. Now it may well be that this is the case because there are now so many with college degrees that employers can use it for a filter in deciding who to interview, but it is not irrational for so many people to want a degree and, given that, I would not be critical of all the people who seek one.
Posted by: GL | May 9, 2008 7:08:13 AM
>>> It's what the workers can do when their jobs disappear. <<<
Well, what did all those Nantucket Whalers do when John D. Rockefeller began selling kerosene? What did the weavers do when the big power looms came in (ask Silas Marner)? Basically, you have several choices: you can sit around moping about the unfairness of it all; you can riot in the streets like the Chartists and the Luddites; or you can reinvent yourself, which is what most of our ancestors ended up doing (that's why they came to America, in any case.
In regard to fields like nursing, it's my understanding that nursing schools trouble meeting the demand, but that's also due to a lack of applicants as much as capacity issues.
in other fields, there are ways to get the training you need--vocational skills, continuing ed, community colleges, all of which are available and affordable. But I see too much of the "You can't teach an old dog new tricks" attitude among displaced workers (My granddaddy worked on this assembly line, my daddy worked on this assembly line, and if I can't work on this assembly line, too, then I guess I'll just sit home and drink beer). Farmers are no better, by the way--most insist on sticking with the one or two cash crops they know (corn, beans, wheat), even when prices are bad, than to branch off into new areas (Broccoli? Dangnabit! I'm a corn farmer!), then cry when they go bust.
It's basically up to people to look out for themselves in these matters, and not expect others to carry them because change makes them uncomfortable. After all, one has to ask, why should a poor person in America have to pay more for clothing, or a Mexican peasant go without a job, in order to protect the middle class lifestyle of a North Carolina textile worker?
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 9, 2008 8:16:08 AM
Stuart, those whiny workers are certainly the ones you see on TV because they make such good sob stories. I'm not convinced that the attitude is as widespread as you think. Sure, when a plant closes the workers bitch and moan, but usually they soon look around to see what they can do next. In my rural county several factories have moved to Mexico in the last few years, but the unemployment rate here remains low.
The people in my previous (ELCA) church were typical local people. The families had long histories of good blue collar jobs at plants like Fairchild and Mack Trucks. They were universally pushing their kids to go to the community college -- not for liberal arts degrees but for the many practical courses in computer technology, health care, and other fields, mainly technical. It is apparent to everybody that you usually need education of some kind to be successful. Our community college is admirable because it serves the population here and provides dozens of courses of study geared to the kind of jobs available and that match the talents and interests of the young people. There are plenty of regular colleges in Maryland for those interested, and a liberal arts curriculum at the community college, but the important thing is that the often unserved people are being given options.
Posted by: Judy K. Warner | May 9, 2008 8:31:57 AM
DGP -- Taken as a compliment. (Sorry, James A.)
Posted by: Judy K. Warner | May 9, 2008 8:34:47 AM
>>Not to mention that some people can only be taught by a full metal jacket between the eyes. Some day, if you ever come face to face with one of the more zealous advocates of the "Religion of Peace", you may begin to realize that.<<
You're falling into the old trap of conflating justifiable self-defense with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which according to US intelligence agencies has merely reinforced Islamic radicalism. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html
It's certainly sad that there are religious zealots of every stripe who insist on equating faith with blood sport, but the original point remains: investment in education generally leads to societal improvements (think of the economic and health-related gains to all of us that have been spawned by research,) while squandering money on unneccessary wars does the reverse.
Posted by: Francesca | May 9, 2008 8:41:31 AM
Undoubtedly, most displaced workers in the U.S. rapidly land on their feet. As compared to Western Europe, our economy is a marvel of job production and full employment, and much as they sneer at us, they would love to have what we have. That is why I find protectionist rhetoric to be so disingenuous: if we followed the prescriptions of those who would raise tariffs, repeal NAFTA and subsidize failing U.S. industries, the situation for workers here would be far worse--as it would if we tried to replicate the kind of unemployment benefits one finds in Western Europe (which are generous to the point of asking why anyone works, anyway).
On parents in rural areas pushing their kids to go to school, undoubtedly this is true. It's the story of all the people in my old Ruthenian parish, most of whom were the first of their families to go to college, where, as you say, the eschewed the airy-fairy stuff and got a good, solid technical education. That's why they live in Northern Virginia, where the high tech jobs are, rather than in Western Pennsylvania, where they ain't. And that is how rural communities sow the seeds of their own destruction--kids with education and marketable skills will go where the jobs are, and they aren't in rural PA, or MD, or IA. So, gradually, the small towns whence they came die out. I went back some time ago to my wife's home town in Texas, where I was depressed to see nobody but those over sixty or under sixteen. Everybody who could get out, did get out.
Community colleges are an under-appreciated resource. If we were smart, we would strengthen the value of two year degrees and certificate programs, which would off-load basic vocational education from four-year institutions and arrest the rampant credentialism in society. After all, how long before the value of a BA or BS is debased to the point that entry level jobs require an MA or MS?
When I was a lad, I came across the Master's Thesis of a young Prussian man named Otto von Bismarck. It was all of twenty-odd pages long. Young Otto, even when he grew up and got a real job, proudly put the initials "MA" after his name. Now, if someone did that, we would think, "What a pretentious jerk!". But in Bismarck's day, masters degrees were rare, and doctorates even more scarce, so that earning the former was a real achievement. Now, it's almost taken for granted (my older daughter, who has not even entered college yet, has her five year matriculation program completely worked out, including all her courses and study abroad programs).
You wait--the day will come when some idiot running for president will stand on a soapbox and say that every American child is entitled to a post-graduate education.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 9, 2008 8:48:42 AM
>>It's certainly sad that there are religious zealots of every stripe who insist on equating faith with blood sport,
Really? Find me examples of such zealotry among Mennonite or Zen theologians.
>>investment in education generally leads to societal improvements (think of the economic and health-related gains to all of us that have been spawned by research,) while squandering money on unneccessary wars does the reverse.
Are such even-handed comparisons the fruit of investment in education?
Posted by: DGP | May 9, 2008 8:55:30 AM
>>>You're falling into the old trap of conflating justifiable self-defense with the invasion and occupation of Iraq, which according to US intelligence agencies has merely reinforced Islamic radicalism. See:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html<<<
Are you teaching me to suck eggs, Francesca?
Do I really have to give you a tutorial on Iraq, counter-insurgency, counter-terrorism, AND the workings of the U.S. intelligence communities?
I put up with enough idiots with the letters "Ph.D." after their names in the course of my work. I don't have to put up with utterly unqualified idiots telling me my job.
Posted by: Stuart Koehl | May 9, 2008 8:55:37 AM
