Is a College Degree Worth it? The Wrong Debate Continues

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There are two dominant views concerning the value of a college degree currently circulating in American culture.  One view is that on average, people with college degrees make much more money over their lifetime than people without degrees.  The other view is that the over-production of college degrees has deflated their value, and we now have taxi drivers and baristas with PhDs.  I have often presented a third view, which is that a value of a college degree should not be equated with future earning power or job prospects, and instead of seeing higher education as a private good, we must see it as a public good.

The first problem with the idea that a college degree means higher earnings is that this correlation can have multiple causes.  We know that on average, students with wealthy parents and more social connections to high-paying jobs graduate from college at a higher rate.  Likewise, SAT scores are highly correlated with the wealth of the parents, and college rankings are highly correlated with SAT scores, and even financial aid is now often linked to SAT scores. The system as a whole thus reinforces class privilege, and so it may be that people who attain college degrees earn more because they start off with more and are given more opportunities and advantages as they move through the education and job systems. 

On the other side of the coin, the over-production of college degrees can be directly related to the under-supply of good jobs.  What we are seeing in many different job markets is that due to the lack of unionization, the increase in automation, and the globalization of labor and consumption, employers are able to depress wages and benefits.  One interesting test case for this theory is in higher education itself where we have witnessed a significant decrease in ?good? jobs.  In just a few decades, we have moved from a system where the majority of the teachers had full-time, tenure-track positions to a situation where the majority of the faculty have part-time, non-tenure-track positions.  During this period, enrollments have increased, so we cannot say that there is a decrease in the demand for people with PhDs.  Instead, universities and colleges have decided to de-professionalize the professoriate.  As I have pointed out before, one cause for this problem is that the same institutions that produce the PhD degree do not require a PhD to teach undergraduate students. 

In other fields, this casualization of the labor force has been pushed by the use of technology to reduce compensation.  Due to the Web and the new media economy, professionals in journalism, entertainment, and other services have been replaced by citizens who are willing to work for little or nothing.  This reduction in earnings was once countered by the recognition that workers in a domestic economy must be paid enough to participate in the local consumer economy, but now in a globalized economy, there is always another person willing to consume our products.

What this analysis tells us is that we cannot expect higher education to fix our employment problems since so many of the labor issues are derived from the power of employers to reduce the compensation and benefits of their workers.  Just as the current funding model of higher education is rigged to reinforce class inequality, our failure to protect workers from destructive labor practices functions to enhance economic stratification.  When we throw high student debt into this mix, we see that our entire economic and social system is programmed against the future.    What we need is better labor laws and better employers.  Once all of the income gains stop going to the top 1%, we will see more good jobs, but education alone cannot fix this issue.

The Quality of Education Problem

In my book Why Public Higher Education Should be Free, I argue that universities and colleges can only reduce costs and improve quality if they concentrate on their core missions of instruction and pure research.  When schools fail to focus on these basic activities, they end up spending enormous funds on side projects; in other words, when quality education is not the main priority, there is no way to contain costs.  However, the problem remains of how do you define and monitor educational quality?

This question of educational quality became a topic of debate at a recent meeting at Governor Brown?s office.  The objective of this stakeholder?s meeting was to discuss how best to implement Assembly Bill 94, which calls for the UC and CSU to report on the following performance measures:  the four-year graduate rate, the six-year graduation rate, the two-year transfer graduation rate, the number of low-income students, the number of transfer students from community colleges  enrolled, the number of degree completions in the STEM disciplines, the number of course credits accumulated by undergrad students at time of graduation, and the total amount of funds received per undergraduate degree.

At this meeting, I argued that while I applaud the governor?s focus on the state?s university systems, his metrics will be counter-productive if the quality of education is not protected.  For example, to increase graduation rates, the UC can simply increase the size of classes, inflate the credits given to particular classes, and offer more credit for non-UC classes.  Although I do not think we should push for standardized tests to see what students are actually learning in their classes, I do think the state can motivate universities to focus their attention on undergraduate instruction by reporting on the following: percentage of the core budget spent on direct instructional activities, student credit hours generated in courses of less than 26 students, and student credit hours generated in courses taught by full-time faculty (whether tenure-track or not). The universities should also report on the increased costs related to administration on each campus. 

Like President Obama?s recent push for more accountability measures in higher education, the state?s focus on inputs and outputs does not look at what actually happens in the classroom.  What I propose in my book is that higher ed institutions need to monitor the quality of education by using the model of assessment that is presented in the UC lecturer?s contract.  All higher ed teachers should be able to demonstrate that they can communicate their course material in an effective manner, that they have a clear and effective method for assessing student learning, and that they are current in their field. The idea here is not to dismiss the important role of research, but rather, to tie research to teaching and to make sure that minimal standards for instruction are met.     

Obama?s Liberal Band-Aid for Higher Ed

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President Obama has announced a new plan for restructuring higher ed, which represents a collection of some of the worst conservative and ?moderate? ideas currently circulating in public policy circles.  Although he does recognize the need to control tuition increases and limit student debt, he wants to use a ranking system to punish schools that fail to meet economic-based goals.  Moreover, his plan promotes the use of MOOCs, competency-based education, and credit for non-educational activities, and while he argues that we must concentrate on student outcomes, none of these goals deal with actual learning or teaching.

 

As I argue in my book, the only solution to the problems facing American higher education is an integrated strategy centered on improving instruction and reducing expenses by forcing schools to fund their primary missions of education and research.  I have also shown that we are already spending enough money through federal, state, and institutional aid and tax breaks to make all public higher education free to the students, but what we lack is a belief in our ability to do something big and comprehensive.  

Our current neoliberal problem is that conservatives have been successful in labeling any moderate liberal program as socialistic, and so, liberals tend to present conservative policies as liberal solutions.  Since both sides are afraid of proposing any real, comprehensive policies, the result is the presentation of small, short-term fixes.  Moreover, due to the liberal belief in the goodness of the meritocracy, they fail to see how the wealthy have turned the meritocracy into a new aristocracy. For example, Obama loves to affirm how the system must work because someone like him has made it to the top.  Thus, instead of seeing himself as a rare exception, he believes that the exception proves the rule, and therefore there is no reason to address the fundamental flaws of our education system.

When I made a presentation last year at the White House on how to control college costs, my main point was that the federal government should tie funding to increasing the number of full-time faculty, decreasing the size of classes, and increasing the percentage of institutional budgets spent on direct instruction and research.  In other words, all reforms of higher education have to begin with a focus on the core mission of these institutions; unfortunately, my arguments fell on deaf ears, but let us hope that as the problems get worse, the solutions get more radical.     

Free Public Higher Ed or the Regents? Way

My book Why Public Higher Education Should be Freeis now available, and its central claims address many of the issues brought up at the last UC regents meeting.  My main argument is that if we just used current state and federal funding for higher ed in a more rational way, we could get rid of the need for tuition, student aid, and student loans.  I also argue that anything short of this holistic solution will fail to solve any of the basic issues.  Of course, we now live in a time of diminished political expectations, and so it is hard for most people to even imagine any large new governmental solution.  In short, after forty years of anti-government government, even our leaders can only think about short-term solutions and half-measures.

President Yudof?s farewell speech at the regents meeting was a great example of leaderless leadership.  Form his perspective, all that we can do is manage each crisis and try to find a way to maintain the status quo.  While he still holds out some hope that online education will be a real game-changer for higher ed, he is now even doubting the effectiveness of this possible solution.  In fact, during the regents? discussion  (minute 28) of the new new UC online program, Yudof brought up the recent problems with Udacity and San Jose State University.  He even stated that distance education might not work, and we need to ask the students and faculty on the campuses if they even want online courses.

Yudof?s doubts were ignored by a series of regents who pontificated about the need to do this online thing faster and to use the money provided by the governor to ramp up the provision of online courses for UC students.  Of course, the governor never really provided additional funds for online education; instead he simply earmarked $10 million from money that was already going to the UC.  Next, the governor vetoed his own earmark, but the regents have seemed to have forgotten this fact.  Worst off all, Lt. Governor Newsome continued his promotion of all things digital by urging the UC to stop moving at a glacial pace.  In other words, he wants the UC faculty to give up its shared governance in order to quickly move to a system of education that is unproven and could result in both significant cost increases and reduced quality.

As I argue in my book, all of the problems in higher ed start with the failure to make high-quality education and research the major priority of these institutions.  My central point is that if you do not dedicate most of the funding to these core missions, you end up spending most of the money on expensive side projects like athletics, sponsored research, administration, and amenities.  Moreover, this lack of attention to the core mission results in non-educators running the show, and in the UC case, this can be witnessed by the regents?, the new president?s, and the state politicians? lack of higher education experience and knowledge. 

Without a focus on improving the state of actual education, we end up with huge classes, reductive multiple-choice exams, and disengaged students and faculty.  In turn, this poor instructional quality opens the door for massive online courses and the call to move more students through the system in a faster and cheaper way.  Yet, on a positive side, the whole debate over MOOCs is helping to create a public conversation about how we define quality teaching and learning, and so it is possible that we may be able to rededicate our institutions of higher education to high-quality instruction and research.

While some will interpret my book as another attack on useless academic research, I try to make it clear that I also want to defend the importance of academic research, but I want to distinguish between corrupted sponsored research and the academic pursuit of knowledge and truth.   Just as our political system has been corrupted by the way we fund campaigns, our academic system has been distorted by the way we fund research.Study after study has shown that many research experiments in the sciences cannot be replicated, and one reason for the failure of science to be scientific is that researchers are beholden to the people paying for their research.  In order to correct this system, we need a commitment by the states and the federal government to provide funding for pure research; we also have to stop the hidden process of subsidizing expensive research programs by siphoning money out of undergraduate instruction.

None of these problems will be fixed if we continue to be led by leaders with no commitment to basic research and instruction.       

The Neoliberal Attack on CCSF

In one of the most dramatic and devastating developments in higher education this year, San Francisco City College has been warned that it will be stripped of its accreditation an forced to close next summer if does not convince its accreditors that it has made certain required changes.  The California Federation Teachers, which represents over 1,000 faculty at this college is protesting this potential disaster, which could throw close to 90,000 students out of higher education in the Bay area.    

Reading through the accreditation report, I was struck by the lack of discussion of recent state budget cuts to higher education in California.  In a now classic neoliberal two-step move, the state first reduces the funding of a public institution, and then later, someone applies some arbitrary assessment measures to declare that the institution is failing its public mission. 

In another neoliberal gesture, the report bemoans the relatively low level of upper administration and the high level of shared governance and faculty involvement.  Not only does the report believe that too much of the school?s money is being spent on faculty and staff, but the accreditors believe that only a top-down management style can deal with the college?s fiscal and academic shortcomings.      

If CCSF is forced to close, you can be sure that the students will be pushed towards for-profit schools that live off of governmental funding, student debt, and empty promises of future employment.  For more info, click here. 

Privatizing UC

Several recent moves of privatization in the UC system should push us to ask what is behind this movement and what is wrong with it.  While the privatization of part of the UCLA Anderson business school has received some attention, very few people have examined the new private entity UCLA has established to help cash in on innovations. Moreover, it looks like Senator Steinberg?s attempt to push public institutions to use private online providers is still alive.  All of these changes rely on the same transformation of a public good into the hands of a private or private-public management. 

In the case of UCLA Anderson Business School, the main change is that the program, in consultation with the president of the UC system, will be able to set tuition levels and keep all of its revenue except for 15%, which will  go to central administration. Some of the problems with this move are indicative of issues facing the privatization movement in general: 1) there is a loss of being part of a shared public institution; 2) after years of state support, high tuition costs may force out state students; 3) this process is being driven by upper-management and goes against the explicit recommendations of the system-wide faculty senate; and 4) it is unclear if the self-sustaining entity will actually be self-sustaining.  Even though the school will have to pay 15% of its tuition revenue to the university, we do not know if this is enough to cover the cost of financing the debt for building construction, the use of administrative services, or other day-to-day expenses. 

In the case of the new UCLA innovation center, the East Bay Express has a long article on how this push for privatization may place the fruits of university research in the hands of private individuals. At the last regents meeting, a vote was taken to create Newco as a private entity lodged within the university to help monetize university-sponsored research.  Like the privatization of the UCLA business school, this move could change the priorities and structure of a previously public entity.  For example, a new body of outside corporate administrators may not only privatize the profits from this public university, but they could also prevent new discoveries and innovations from reaching the broader public.  There is also the fear that outside corporations will profit as the university takes on the most expensive and risky parts of the research and design process. 

In the neoliberal tradition of privatizing profits and socializing losses, we see how contemporary capitalism is focused on privatizing previously public institutions.  For instance, the recent push for online education is motivated in part by the idea that large amounts of money can be made if public resources go to private companies.  Although Senator Steinberg has claimed that SB 520 prevents public funds from going to private online providers, it is clear that these private companies are not getting into the education business to simply provide a public service.  

The underlying threat in all of these privatizing moves is that the university loses its meaning and purpose.  Instead of being a public institution that stands outside of private interests, the university can no longer offer an alternative to market-based values and thinking.  Ultimately, in the quest to generate more non-public revenue, the university loses sight of the common good.