Thoughts on the State of Higher Education

The economic downturn has had a substantial impact on colleges and universities. 

The first shoe dropped when endowments everywhere took big hits from a rapidly falling market.  When endowments go underwater, they produce no income and generally can't be touched. 

The other shoe will drop when we see how private colleges and universities do in terms of their student numbers for the fall.  My casual conversations with peers indicates that the private schools are running behind in terms of student deposits.  The buyers are not feeling flush.

The public universities, on the other hand, have their own problems.  The ones that have endowments are down.  They also rely on tax subsidies in a time when tax revenues are diminished.  The trend of the last several years has been for states to offer less and less financial support.  In-state tuition has risen substantially.  Where they do not suffer is in terms of student numbers.  They will be overwhelmed by bargain seekers in tough economic times.  The question is whether they will have state funds to backfill the subsidized education they offer and how many they can admit.  As it stands now, their facilities are often severely strained, teaching assistants do an awful lot of the instruction, and there are a large number of cattle call style courses.

What I'm suggesting is that the era of almost unbroken tuition increases at will is over.  Economic reality is descending harshly upon colleges and universities.  I suspect we will see a continuation in the move away from tenure.  Colleges that have tenure covertly move away from it by hiring more and more non-tenured track instructors.  I also think we will see a long term movement away from the emphasis on research in areas where grant dollars do not accompany the work.  The result will be that many institutions will move away from light teaching loads (maybe two courses a semester) back toward heavier loads (four courses per semester).  The reason I suggest this will happen in the long term is because faculty contracts are not alterable until either they conclude or a university declares financial exigency.

At the same time, formal higher education is under competitive pressure from alternative sources.  The number of online options continues to increase.  Students in many fields may find themselves pursuing Microsoft certification (or the equivalent) in a corporate setting rather than at a university.  To make matters worse, the evisceration of the classic liberal arts core curriculum has left many scratching their heads at why they have to spend two years taking a cafeteria style core that imparts no particular foundation of knowledge.  Unless it can answer these challenges, higher education may be in store for a major reversal of fortune.

For the consumers (the students and parents) this may represent a positive development in the sense that colleges will focus on recognizing financial efficiencies rather than counting on substantial tuition increases.  It may also mean tougher competition for the schools seeking a smaller pie of students.

So, how will schools compete?  I can take a shot at answering for the Christian institutions.  For the most part, these schools are on the lower end of the private tuition scale because they are already instructionally efficient.  The vast majority of faculty at Christian universities teach four courses each semester.  The advantage these schools have to offer, if they will take it, is in the area of intellectual and moral formation. 

From my point of view, that means the Christian schools should place a heavy emphasis on a rigorous and classical liberal arts core curriculum.  This curriculum should not have a lot of choice in it.  Students should journey together under expert guidance through the great conversations of the ages.  The teachers should look for opportunities to connect their teaching to their understanding of the Christian faith.  Having just covered Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, and Machiavelli in an intro to political science class, I found highlighting the relevance of the Christian confession very simple in the case of each author.

The emphasis on formation should continue through the courses offered in the major.  Each professor should take a personal interest in students and hope to build them up in their faith, their integrity, and their desire for excellence.  For example, no student of a Christian business or MBA program should entertain any illusions about the wisdom of separating business from moral and spiritual values. 

As an undergraduate at Florida State, I found all too little mentorship, but one economics professor (not necessarily a Christian) cared about shaping me as a person.  I have thought about him regularly since that time almost twenty years ago.  As I teach at Houston Baptist University, I try to have that effect on my students.

Christian philanthropists absolutely should be putting their dollars into these projects.  If a Christian university functions in the way I've suggested, I suspect there are few cultural initiatives that can hope to have the same impact.  I remember speaking to a very wise Christian university president recently about exactly these things.  He feared the economic downturn would cause some schools to close.  That may happen, but I hope the downturn will generate the creative tension needed to cause our institutions to focus on first things and how to pass them on.  And may the financial support follow.

Comments

[Kevin V.]

Perhaps the large number of college students who don't belong there in the first place will stop filling up classes and dragging down the level of the curriculum when they can no longer go to college for free.

[Kamilla]

I can't speak to larger instutions, public or private. However, from my short visit to the campus of Denver Seminary this morning to return some library books, I would have to wager (guess? if gambling is forbidden) that their students are not struggling to pay tuition. The majority of vehicles parked in their student parking lot were both newer and generally nicer than mine.

Kamilla

[Ethan C.]

I don't know that the "car test" is all that accurate, Kamilla. If you'd have looked around Wheaton during my time there (2002-2006), you'd have come to the same conclusion. It's somewhat true -- for the kids who own and drive cars. Those of us who were there on heavy financial aid usually didn't have cars at all.

[Michael]

"Perhaps the large number of college students who don't belong there in the first place will stop filling up classes and dragging down the level of the curriculum when they can no longer go to college for free."

No, because a lot of those students aren't going for free. They're going because that was the next logical step from high school because God forbid someone tell them the simple truth that technical skills or the military is a perfectly reasonable course. The whole purpose of our modern public education system (if not every individual staffer thereof) is to produce college students, and in collge, it's to produce college professors. If I could go to school for free, I would have been done ages ago. But I have to pay, and believe me, it takes longer when you have to work for it.

Further, if these "people that don't belong" are there in the first place, you are seeing a teaching to the mean and accompanying grade inflation, thus devaluing higher education and the degrees that come with it. I would be happy if my 4.0 GPA were a 3.0 (or even a 2.5!) if it meant I didn't feel like every class I'm taking was meant for high schoolers instead of serious college students. Alas, it is not so.

Kamilla--

I agree with Ethan. I don't even own a car, but those friends of mine who do all drive newer vehicles. My first car was over a decade old when I first got it, and it was perfectly serviceable, and I actually liked it very much. Those that do park tend to overfill parking lots because the lots weren't designed for modern driving habits where one gets keys on his 16th birthday, but probably for more than a decade ago when you were lucky if you got a car for graduation.

While I'm on the topic of parking lots, does anyone else find it a little frustrating that there is such a large percentage of "reserved" spots for staff, visitors and/or carpoolers? Perhaps it is just at my school, but the entire front row of spaces in every lot is marked "STAFF"--which leaves me, who actually wants to teach, a little, a little miffed. I mean, if teaching is a vocation (Latin vocatio, a calling), then isn't it assumed that a school's purpose is service to the student body, not for faculty convenience? I go to retail stores, and if I'm early enough, the few cars in the lots--presumably employees--are well out in the lot, leaving near spots open for the customers they serve. Why isn't teaching the same way? Perhaps it is odd that all my professors claim to want some sort of relationship--I appreciate the effort, thank you, but we are not equals. I would like you to teach me, to serve me, for which you are paid by my tuition--as equals, then, it is assumed that their function in the system is of greater importance.

I'm sorry, I am now rambling. Dr. Baker, welcome. I can see now that as far as intellectual fodder and commentaries on culture and education goes, I will enjoy your posts as much as Dr. Esolen's.

[Kamilla]

Michael and Ethan,

You may be right, and I did think about those who live on campus and park elsewhere or don't have a vehicle to drive. For some reason it just struck me - and I probably shouldn't use myself as an example because, as I told Ethan privately, I drive a less than beautiful car because I have other things I prefer to spend my money on.

For some reason, it just struck me, I guess partly because it is a seminary and my prejudice is that clergy, counselors an those who work for parachurch organizations probably don't make all that much money.

By the way, the Denver Seminary campus is brand new.

Kamilla

[Beth from TN]

Dr. Baker:

I sent the link to this post to my colleagues on a committee -- we are considering revamping our core curriculum, and you have articulated the thoughts of several of us very well. We shall see how it goes. (I teach in a private, reasonably conservative, Christian college in the South.)

Beth

[Hunter Baker]

From Michael:

"I will enjoy your posts as much as Dr. Esolen's."

This is in the realm of stratospheric praise.

And Beth, I am so pleased your school is considering a revamp of the core. The more we do that, the stronger our institutions will be.

[Emily-Rose]

Michael,

"The whole purpose of our modern public education system (if not every individual staffer thereof) is to produce college students, and in collge, it's to produce college professors."

I am wondering about the origin of the comment. I thought most colleges were intent on simply producing the greatest possible number of wage-earning, marketable alumni. And with the general lack of regard for humanities curriculi what would they be producing professors to teach?

[Wonders for Oyarsa]

Hi Hunter,

Are you at all familiar with St. John's College? What do you think of their program?

[Ethan C.]

Emily-Rose,

I would revise that to read, "in college, it's to produce alumni donors."

[Michael]

Emily-Rose,

The comment was philosophical and polemic, not literal and suggestive. The more people you produce thinking like academia, the more successful you are.

Of course not every college student can become a college professor--you'd end up having a 10:1 staff-to-student ratio (which honestly doesn't sound like a bad thing, but it's awfully unsustainable). But the general environment of colleges has student aids teaching (as Dr. Baker observed) and getting by on a class is just as useful as acing a class. Because campus philosophy on the whole is about liberalisation, which could be mistaken for free speech if you ever heard a conservative voice, the philosophy doesn't hold in the work place. It is inculcation that cannot be applied to professional life, because your boss is not interested in your peculiar freedoms, but in your production.*

This is why I want to teach high school instead of at the college level: I don't want to parrot the institutional leaning and publish the right papers in the right journals to keep my job; I want to teach valuable things to people who need it. The fact that job security, and even hiring, at the college level is based so heavily on publishing history is a worrisome fact, and I am not interested in the politics; I am interested in the education.

*This is the failing of the American school system: the destruction of vocational classes in high school to be replaced by more and more advanced classes in specialized fields makes people remarkably good at school, but terrible at life. They are judged on the completion of work, not the merit of the work submitted. I remember a professor a few quarters ago who said "I'd like you to do your best with spelling, but I'm not grading on it," and I was shocked. Regurgitate the right alternative historical theory and you pass, even if you don't understand what you're writing. Congratulations, you think like a professor!

[Hunter Baker]

Wonders for Oyarsa,

Awesome name. I've seen your blog. I am familiar with the program at St. John's and frankly, I hope my own son (now age six) will someday want to pursue a great books program of that type. For that matter, I might truly enjoy teaching with that fine institution.

[Judy K. Warner]

Hillsdale College is not an explicitly Christian college. But its freshman English curriculum is a Great Books course, it has freshman requirements of Western Civilization and American History, and most of its professors are knowledgeable about and deeply appreciative of western civilization. This sensibility suffuses many if not most of its liberal arts courses (and probably science courses too, though I don't know that) -- even in such areas as psychology and sociology which are usually bastions of radicalism. As a result, the college produces many students who end up far more knowledgeable, serious and orthodox in their Christianity.

[Francesca]

Hunter Baker writes: "At the same time, formal higher education is under competitive pressure from alternative sources. The number of online options continues to increase."

Excellent article, Dr. Baker! Do you think, though, that classical, Christian education and cyberuniversity are necessarily mutually exclusive? Perhaps one solution, of the if-you-can't-beat-'em-join-em variety, is to increase the online options to include the classic, liberal arts, Christian-based core curriculum?

Online colleges, especially supported by local opportunities for hands-on labs and proctored exams, offer wonderful opportunities. For so many -- the precocious 9-year-old needing calculus, the teen mother, the middle-aged parent who needs to be working or at home, the retiree, the housebound disabled, the poor, the ESL -- attending formal college is simply not an option. As a result, residential colleges tend to fill up with a subset of a narrow window of the spectrum -- unencumbered and relatively privileged 18-22-year-olds -- rather than with the talented and motivated of all ages and from all walks of life.

Technology allows the virtual classroom to be just as effective (if not more so) as its bricks-and-mortar equivalent. Interactive classes and discussions can take place just as easily online as in a stone-walled, ivy-clad building. Online learning can be easily adapted to individual abilities and learning styles. Thousands can watch a high quality "canned" presentation (which might be enlivened by vivid DVD clips, maps, and other audio-visual aids) more cheaply than 25 can sit through a live lecture, and those thousands can do so at a convenient time when they're most receptive to the information. If scantrons, why not automatically-marked online quizes with instant feedback? Cyberlearning is so cheap, so efficient, so flexible, and so easily and widely deliverable that it can only benefit an education-starved society.

I see rapid growth, fueled by need, in this area as a huge advantage to the current economic downturn.

[Hunter Baker]

Francesca, your question about the cyberuniversity and classical liberal arts instruction being combined is an interesting one. I tend to distrust the cyber-model because I want to see vigorous student teacher interaction and then conversation between the students about the subject matter. But, like anything, I imagine someone will figure out how to do it.

I'm a little down on computers for instruction because I think students attempt to multi-task too much.

[Bobby Winters]

While it might seem that greater efficiencies will mean the era of large tuition increases is over, the tuition increased only because, in the case of the state institutions, the legislatures allowed it and that is what the market would bear. People wanting to go to snotty institutions will pay snotty prices. For some, it is not a question of going from two courses to four, but from four to five and remaining something like a university. Efficiencies sound great; efficient is a real nice word. What it translates to is elimination of faculty and programs, and the introduction of huge classes and scantrons instead of small classes and essays. It translates to students getting cheated out of the second half of first year French.

God tests us, but I'd just as soon see this cup pass.