Higher Education - An Investment In Their Future?

I'm a college professor. I also have a couple of teenagers headed off to college in the next few years. This gives me pause, although perhaps not for the reasons you might expect.

Yes, there are the usual concerns regarding foul companions leading them astray. Drinking, drugs, sex, rock-and-roll ... Of course, I lived through all those and worse, so I imagine my kids will too. I just don't want to know about it.

No, what I'm really worried about is that college is no longer the institute of higher learning it was in my day. Admission standards have been lowered. The curriculum has been watered down. The administration considers students to be "customers" and insists that they be treated as such. State and federal funding for universities is governed by a formula that places undue emphasis on graduation rates. Faculty salary and benefits are influenced to an extreme by student evaluations. The net effect of those last two is tremendous pressure to retain and graduate students, regardless of their performance.

Add to this the culture in which most of today's students grew up (the so-called Trophy Generation -- "This generation was treated so delicately that many schoolteachers stopped grading papers and tests in harsh-looking red ink.") and you have a host of students with unrealistic expectations, coupled with an incentive system that punishes high standards and rewards throughput.

The institutional goal is to maximize attendance, which in turn maximizes revenue. The increase in federally subsidized student loans, while noble in intent, "has only exacerbated this problem since in addition to helping a relatively small number of kids who couldn’t go to college be able to afford it, its also let colleges get away with continually jacking up tuition costs."

These two factors have contributed to the number of students in college who often are not equipped or capable of doing what used to be considered college-level work. This is not an elitist position, but rather an acknowledgement of the fact that different people have different abilities. Just as everyone is not equivalent physically - not everyone is capable of running a 4-minute mile - not everyone is equivalent in terms of mental ability, maturity, and preparation. Bottom line: there are an awful lot of kids in college that shouldn't be there (and I think most of them end up in my classes).

But that doesn't prevent them from having 'high' expectations.

Do College Students Spend More Hours Drinking than Studying?

Do you have a teen going to college soon? If so, you may want to check out Iain Murray’s new book entitled Stealing You Blind: How Government Fat Cats Are Getting Rich Off of You. There is an excellent chapter on “The Education Bubble” that discusses how grade inflation has “significantly devalued the academic worth of an education. Professors have an incentive not to give realistic grades, because if they do, their enrollment will drop and, thanks to the higher education funding system, they will suffer as a result. A 2009 article for the National Association of Scholars (NAS) reveals the effect of such easy marking:”

A recent survey of more than 30,000 first year students revealed that nearly half were spending more hours drinking than they were studying. Researchers from the University of California, Irvine found that a third of students surveyed expected B’s just for attending class, and 40 percent said they deserved a B for completing the assigned reading….

In today's environment, with shrinking government support and increasing tuition, plus the worst job market for recent college grads in 30+ years, something has to give. Here in Texas we are seeing calls for more vocational schooling, at both the high school and community college levels. That's a step in the right direction.

Another step is the return to higher standards for higher education. Students must realize that they are not there to be entertained. Rather, they are there to be educated. I believe in the mission of a higher education - to teach students how to think and reason, not to memorize and regurgitate irrelevant and insignificant factoids. I am old school, curmudgeonly, and nearing retirement. Consequently, I will continue to maintain fair and reasonable standards for my students until I am dragged kicking and screaming out of my classroom.

Someday they'll thank me for this...