America's Colleges: Are They Really So Bad?

Critics are calling higher education “a rust belt industry,” asserting that colleges and universities are failing to prepare students for jobs in the “new economy.” But is the mission of undergraduate education simply to prepare citizens for a job?

Such technocratic and business-oriented demands marginalize the Socratic tradition of learning – that it is a lifelong pursuit vital to democratic citizenship. If the dream is still to cultivate a Garden of Eden in America, don’t the roots need to be firmly established in a liberal arts foundation?

Author David Foster Wallace called the elite college "a veritable temple of Mammon . . . congratulating itself on its diversity and the leftist piety of its politics while in reality going about the business of preparing elite kids to enter elite professions and make a great deal of money, thus increasing the pool of prosperous alumni donors."

Too Much Emphasis on Vocational Education?

College tends to introduce students to the stark realities of class and economic stratification. Perhaps that explains why so many students in recent years became all business. In hopes of securing a high-paying job, many students traditionally opted for a business major. This choice may have paid off for those students dreaming of a life in accountancy.

Most business recruiters, however, seek candidates who are proficient communicators and who have learned to think critically. Learning the life-long joys of reading, writing, sound thinking, and self-expression, i write essays are the basic components of any Liberal Arts education. These skills, abilities, and sensibilities can only be learned in college, certainly not by texting or e-mailing.

For whatever reason, the percentage of students who chose a business career dropped between 2009 and 2010 from 16.8 percent to 14.4 percent, according to Inside Higher Ed. The last time interest in a business major was lower was back in 1974, when it accounted for just 14 percent of student choices.

The Problems with Higher Education in America

Has the American university really gone into free fall since 1987 when Harvard Dean Henry Rosovsky called it the world’s best? How could things have gone so wrong so fast?

First, things are not so bad as the critics would have Americans believe. The spending power of American colleges is still the envy of the world.

In their book, Higher Education? How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids – And What We Can Do About It?, Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus declare that our intellectual institutions have “lost track of their basic mission.” They are not alone.

Professor Robert M. Rosenzweig, president emeritus of the Association of American Universities, has proclaimed that universities are trapped in a competitive commercial market, which undermines academic norms and programs.

It’s Easy to Blame the Professor and the Student

Mr. Hacker and Ms. Dreifus pin the crisis on everything from entrenched tenured professors who are more concerned with publishing and parking spaces than quality teaching to 22-year-old students with unrealistic expectations that some company will put them in a management position the moment they graduate with six-figures of debt. The authors also point to football teams siphoning money away from academic programs, forcing student tuition to increase in order to compensate.

The admissions sticker price is indeed impossibly high for most students. In the competition for the best and brightest, both private and public schools drive up enrollment costs by buying and installing the expensive amenities and facilities that the best and brightest grew up with.

Because the college business model is corporate, some critics recommend more vigorous competition for customers. The Schumpeter blog in The Economist asks, “Why don’t some universities compete by hiring teaching superstars? And why don’t others slash prices?”

The blogger answers, “The big problem is that high-status institutions such as universities tend to compete with each other on academic reputation (which is enhanced by star professors) and bling (luxurious dormitories and fancy sports stadiums) rather than value for money. This starts at the top: Yale would never dream of competing with Harvard on price.”

Public universities have been forced to raise tuitions to make up for collapsing support from their states even as the governors brag about an undying commitment to higher education. State budgets are in dangerous condition and education is an easy target. The American commitment to public higher education has been set aside.

Are the Critics' Recommended Remedies Realistic?

Because the university model is corporate America, its management seeks a hungry, competitive labor force. Many critics are demanding restructuring and rigorous regulation along lines already recommended for Detroit and Wall Street. Who is supposed to do the regulating?

Does some cost-benefit equivalent of “no child left behind” really make any sense? Higher education is relatively autonomous and as messy as American society itself. It is not a system that can be reasonably regulated.

As for varsity athletics, perhaps the football program is a worthy target, but it’s impossible to shoot it down. The alumni may rally against tax increases to help fund their alma mater, but they will threaten to cut off all support at any threat to lay off their favorite sports team. Still, it's a fact that the athletic departments at mid-level schools run up huge deficits every year. The only big money winners are those major football programs that compete every year for BCS standings.

As for tenure, the selection of faculty by peers who know they are as permanent as the football program still makes better sense than any alternative. Should the hiring and firing really be left to the politics of the administration?

Like American society, universities have proved a genuine commitment to quality and to greater social justice. What other institution has matched it for inclusiveness and affirmative action despite a continuing history of anti-intellectualism and popular know-nothingness?

Take a Walk on the Paths of the Closest College Campus

Here’s what you’ll see: a population that looks more like America than you’ll see at any corporate campus. Universities have been a powerful force for the democratization of American culture, traditionally emphasizing the value of talent over inherited privilege. Unfortunately, they can do little to combat the trend toward inequities in American society.

Since the 1960s, universities have made themselves dramatically more democratic. Their gates are open to the disadvantaged. The wealthiest institutions claim a “need-blind” admissions policy.

Yet, none of this democratization can persuade society to commit to economic fairness. Nor can it silence critics who make conditions worse by shouting that so many faculty and students are a waste of money.

Photo gallery