From n+1's April article, "Bad Education":
When you hire corporate managers, you get managed like a corporation, and the race for tuition dollars and grants from government and private partnerships has become the driving objective of the contemporary university administration. The goal for large state universities and elite private colleges alike has ceased to be (if it ever was) building well-educated citizens; now they hardly even bother to prepare students to assume their places among the ruling class. Instead we have, in Bousquet’s words, “the entrepreneurial urges, vanity, and hobbyhorses of administrators: Digitize the curriculum! Build the best pool/golf course/stadium in the state! Bring more souls to God! Win the all-conference championship!” These expensive projects are all part of another cycle: corporate universities must be competitive in recruiting students who may become rich alumni, so they have to spend on attractive extras, which means they need more revenue, so they need more students paying higher tuition. For-profits aren’t the only ones consumed with selling product. And if a humanities program can’t demonstrate its economic utility to its institution (which can’t afford to haul “dead weight”) and students (who understand the need for marketable degrees), then it faces cuts, the neoliberal management technique par excellence. Students apparently have received the message loud and clear, as business has quickly become the nation’s most popular major.
Apt. 11d 
“The goal for large state universities and elite private colleges alike has ceased to be (if it ever was) building well-educated citizens…”
Back in the 1920s, wasn’t college popularly supposed to consist of raccoon coats (for men), ukuleles, football, cars, coeds and cocktails?
The GI Bill era may or may not have been a bit more sober and academic.
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I can’t understand why anyone thinks that privatizing public education would be a good thing. You only have to look at this consequence in higher ed to see what a bad idea it is.
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Public K-12 is privatized. Just try to enroll your child in a richer neighboring community without living there and see what happens.
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I call the Providence whenever I have an emergency, and they rush right over to my house.
Oh, wait. They don’t. Damn privatized police force.
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Other than as a pointless slur to show that the author’s heart is in the right (i.e., left) place, I don’t see what the line about “Bring more souls to God!” is doing here. That is most certainly not the project of today’s large state universities and elite private colleges.
I have a rule. When I encounter writing with extraneous verbiage designed to prove the author’s political bona fides, I classify him as a hack writing to display for his tribe, not to inform, and ignore everything he says. This is one of several filters I have found useful to deal with the flood of words. So for anyone who doesn’t want me to read their writing, you know what to do.
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Let’s apply that last comment to itself. The result:
I ignore people who disagree with me.
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“Other than as a pointless slur to show that the author’s heart is in the right (i.e., left) place, I don’t see what the line about “Bring more souls to God!” is doing here.”
It’s particularly odd since more elite colleges than I could name here started out as seminaries, designed precisely to “Bring more souls to God!” It’s really weird (and maybe even a bit ignorant) to treat the religious mission as an extraneous add-on or novelty, when it was the initial core mission for the Western university.
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Looking back on our one college scouting trip so far, and looking toward future trips, I have a question: Why does the modern college need a climbing wall? Why does it need food service until 11 pm? Back in the dark ages, we managed to figure out how to order pizza after the dining hall closed. We didn’t have sushi bars in the dining hall. Do the added services and creature comforts improve the education? I don’t think they do, but they may help explain the high cost of college education.
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“I have a question: Why does the modern college need a climbing wall?”
Don’t let them get by with just offering a two-story wall. You need at least 3 stories before the diploma means anything.
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I’m fairly certain none of us would have eaten sushi sober.
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“I have a question: Why does the modern college need a climbing wall?”
I completely understand why colleges want to compete for the best students, and how little things like late night snacks and a climbing wall signal “We’re outgoing, fun, athletic, and the social life doesn’t disappear at dusk.”
What I don’t understand is why there appear to be no mid-tier private colleges that are trying to compete on price. With Rutgers at $13K and Seton Hall at $31K, it makes tons of sense to choose Rutgers. Except ALL of the mid-range private colleges around here are $31K – $33K. It seems like there should be somebody offering a “no frills” college where the dining hall closes at 8 PM and the student union doesn’t have an Olympic-sized pool in the $22-25K range.
Competing on amenities makes perfect sense — I just can’t figure out why no one is competing on anything else.
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I think those mid-tiers think they can compete on price for a select few, through the use of scholarships and fellowships. That way, they maintain the self-fiction that they are in the same tier as the higher tiers.
(I’m speaking generically, since I don’t know those schools at all)
I do think developing amenity niches seems like it might be a useful tactic, though. Say there’s some school in Virgina that has horse stables near by. Seems like one of those schools could have a olympic size pool and the other grand pianos in practice rooms. But, instead, it seems like the schools do exit surveys and then try to fill in whatever the students that rejected them happen to mention on the survey.
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I think the explanation is that university administrations face a number of very vociferous constituents, and an overall market that values harmony above all else. That is, the faculty wants sabbaticals and research assistants, the minority students want a diversity bureaucracy, the alumni want a winning football team, the students want food courts, etc. Any group which is disappointed has the capacity to cause the others to withdraw their support. E.g., alumni won’t give to, and students won’t enroll at, a university where the faculty are badmouthing the place; faculty won’t teach at, and students won’t enroll at, a university where the minority students are complaining about racism, etc., etc. So a university that tried to cut costs would not be viable, as any unhappy constituency can drag the place down.
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“…the students want food courts, etc.”
As a veteran of a dining hall that served cheesy manicotti way more often than anybody can actually have enjoyed eating it (in fact, it’s only thing that I can remember eating there), I have to applaud the current revolution in edible campus food.
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Breaded circular patty means chicken. Breaded triangular patty means fish.
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That’s a pretty good heuristic for old time campus dining, but now that you’re jogging my memory, I seem to remember some breaded circular patties that were supposed to be veal.
By the way, is this “the” Steve? If so, what an honor.
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My husband just told me that tonight was deep-fry night at our favorite cafeteria. They had deep-fried pickles (of course) and deep-fried pizza, among other options.
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It is getting close to holiday book list time.
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You can fry pickles? But why would you want to?
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Sewanee cut tuition 10% this year. Not that a determinedly eccentric college in the middle of the Tennessee woods is for everyone, of course.
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Most want to be in the middle of the woods with those who have more innate eccentricities.
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The first and only time that my husband leaves a comment on my blog and this is what he writes??? WTF, dear.
Yes, holiday gift guides are coming up soon, including Steve’s history book pix.
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“You can fry pickles? But why would you want to?”
From my husband’s report, it wasn’t a good idea.
Deep-fried okra is very good, at least compared to okra.
“The first and only time that my husband leaves a comment on my blog and this is what he writes???”
I thought it was brilliant. I was actually wondering if it was MH, because it had the same lapidary compactness.
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Actually, I am capable of great nuance when it comes to descriptions of breaded, fried animal parts.
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Speaking of tuition cuts, the local Catholic university made a big cut in tuition for teacher training.
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Of course thrown-out okra is even better than deep-fried okra.
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“Of course thrown-out okra is even better than deep-fried okra.”
Amen.
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Speaking of dubious food, reconstituted meat products, holidays, and the painful realities of poverty: The McRib is back.
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I feel a wild urge to try Spam.
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Here’s a Korean-style recipe for Spam and hot dog stew:
http://www.zenkimchi.com/FoodJournal/recipes/korean-recipes-recipes/kr-8-as-american-as-budae-jjigae/
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I just heard a guy on the radio talking about his $200k student debt. That’s for $90k of chiropractor (!!!) school, living expenses while he was in the program (the chiropractor school encouraged that), plus some undergraduate debt. The chiropractor practice hasn’t yet gelled and he’s clearing $500 a month. Oops.
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I believe that’s $500 before attempting to pay student loans.
This is an interesting phenomenon that I’ve encountered before–it costs as much to become a chiropractor as to become a real MD.
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Homeopathy is much cheaper.
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I think there’s a more general question that recurs in lots of contexts — assume you have correctly identified that a “bubble” is happening in an area that you want to be. What do you do?
I wanted to buy a house in 2002, but felt that property values were in a “bubble.” I guess I was kind of right, but I bought a house anyway, and prices bubbled up for 6 years, and then the bubble popped, and current prices are still somewhat above 2002 levels here.
So, it’s 2011, and you want to go to college, but think college tuition is in a “bubble” with people investing in education on margin. Assume you are right, and that the bubble will pop, but maybe not for another 10 years, and by then you’ll be 28 without a college degree, and can you really go to college with a two year old child?
Identifying a screwed up situation is kind of hard, but even if you successfully do it, it doesn’t tell you obviously how to fix it.
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In the housing example, you’d be more or less OK if you bought a single-family home that you could afford in an established neighborhood and then kept your hands off the equity, and if buying wasn’t feasible on those terms, rent and save as much as possible.
Higher education is a harder case than real estate (because not having a BA will hurt your employability and earning power), but the answer may be similar: get the education you can afford, and only that much education, and get the best deal you can for your money. And that is going to be very difficult to figure out.
I think that it’s very important with education not to go all-in at any point, because with our volatile economic situation, it’s important to leave enough slack in your budget to be able to go back to school or move or start a business, etc. I think it’s wise to expect to have a number of different careers, rather than just one that you can afford to pay big bucks preparing for. (I might make an exception here for an MD, but the way things are going, who knows?)
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Identifying a screwed up situation is kind of hard, but even if you successfully do it, it doesn’t tell you obviously how to fix it.
That’s a good rule for life except except that applying it in economics gets people yelling at you from both sides.
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Further believing in the possible powers of serendipity, just thought I’d toss this out there. Looking to move to Brooklyn after 4 years in Sydney. Living with relatives in Jersey now & desperate to get out. A pauper’s budget $1200-1400 for a studio/1br. In the event that a rockin’ place comes into your knowledge in which you’re not interested yourself because the place in which you’re ensconced is already so awesome, please think of a fellow foodhead.
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