Posted on 08/05/2007 12:25:01 PM PDT by SirLinksalot
Is a bachelor's degree in English (or history or philosophy or political science or any other subject in the liberal arts) worth over $30,000 a year? As the sticker price asked by more and more private colleges crosses that threshold, many families are asking that question.
The liberal arts education I received enriched my intellect (though not my pocketbook), but if I had a college-age child today, I couldn't justify paying over $100,000 for a bachelor's degree. It boggles my mind when I learn of a 22-year-old owing over $50,000 with only a B.A. to his name.
Apparently, I am not alone in my opinion. Enrollment is declining at many private colleges. Many families balk at paying such daunting fees. Increasingly, the significantly lower expenses of attending a taxpayer-subsidized state college or a rarity like Grove City College (2007-2008 annual cost under $18,000) present the only affordable options for middle-class families. It seems clear that the over-$30,000 per year colleges must find creative ways to reinvent themselves if they are to prosper or even survive.
This is easier said than done. Colleges tend to be some of the most change-resistant institutions in the country. Over the past quarter-century, the pace of change in American business has been breathtakingly rapid, producing massive changes in structure and practice. Many new companies and industries have emerged, while many companies that thrived in the 1980s have ceased operations or been merged into other companies. By contrast, if you were to sit in a liberal arts college classroom today for the first time in 25 years, you would notice a few superficial changes in the classroom (the presence of personal computers and a couple of other high-tech gadgets) and a modest updating of the curriculum (e.g., the addition of a computer science department), but otherwise, everything would seem comfortingly familiar to you. However, the winds of change are about to blow through American colleges.
Market forces, in the form of declining enrollments in the face of increasingly unaffordable tuition costs, will compel colleges to undergo major changes, just as other businesses have been forced to change.
Yes, I wrote "other businesses." Most college professors don't like to think of their schools as businesses. In fact, at many colleges today, it is the fashion for liberal arts professors to denounce business as a sordid, morally and intellectually inferior activity - even when their own college's business department has more majors than any of the liberal arts subject areas. These intellectuals need to curb their ideological or romantic opposition to business both for the good of their colleges and for the sake of preserving their jobs. Like it or not, a college is a business, and if a college doesn't give its customers (students) good value for their money (a degree that pays a decent return on a $120,000-plus investment), then the college's customer base will shrink. If the customer base shrinks too much, the college/business may close and those anti-business professors will have a chance to learn how much their own sheepskins are worth in the job market today.
Unfortunately, the needed attitude adjustment hasn't penetrated some faculties yet. For example, I know of a college in the over-30-grand category where proposals to establish majors in areas with excellent employment prospects, such as broadcast journalism, are routinely shot down by committees of professors in the traditional liberal arts curriculum. On what grounds? That the proposed majors are "too vocational." The rule of thumb seems to be that if an academic curriculum makes one readily employable, it is unacceptable. That is a shortsighted, suicidal position to take today when American families seem increasingly less willing to pay for a liberal arts degree and then watch junior have to sell insurance to earn a living.
The trend is not in favor of the private liberal arts colleges. A century ago, 80 percent of college students attended private colleges; today, 80 percent attend the less expensive, taxpayer-subsidized public universities. Several hundred private colleges have folded in the past few decades.
Economically, colleges can't continue to pay the salaries of tenured professors who have only a handful of students majoring in their discipline. Unless a college has a rich endowment, such economic inefficiencies are an unaffordable luxury, and these colleges may have to cease offering these unpopular majors altogether. Instead of employing two or three full-time professors in a department with six majors, colleges may need to downgrade such majors to a minor served by one full-time professor supplemented by an adjunct part-timer or by having students take courses at another college in the area or perhaps taking courses offered over the Internet or by private enterprises such as The Teaching Company.
One way to repackage the liberal arts curriculum would be to move away from majors such as history, sociology, political science, and philosophy to something like "Asian studies." There will be abundant employment opportunities in business, government, nongovernmental organizations, missionary work, etc., for students educated in an Asian language and a comprehensive understanding of the history, belief systems, social structure and traditions, etc., of Asian countries. It makes more sense today to offer courses in Chinese language than in French.
It will be fascinating to see how higher education evolves to cope with current economic realities. Change is in the air. The status quo will go.
We are not getting that in too many universities, who seem to focus on political indoctrination
Got to wonder why college is considered so important for so many. A journeyman ticket in plumbing, welding, or electric would be worth something although it would take some actual work to get.
I’ve seen figures (source no longer recalled, but recent due to tuition increases at my local university) of 12% annual increase in tuition, and 25% in textbook costs. I believe every dime of it!
Good for you.
People who send their kids away to a 4 year college are guilty of child abuse. These places are brainwashing centers for leftist ideology and moral corruption.
There are perfectly good online universities for getting the basic courses.
You seem to be stuck in the wrong century. Many college graduates today can barely read and write. People don’t go to college for education; they go because their parents tell them to go in order to get a good job afterwards. The entire system ought to be scrapped in favor of internships and apprenticeships for occupations from masons to marketing students.
As others here have noted, a good education is available online and at the library. What colleges provide these days is more like indoctrination.
It makes more sense today to offer courses in Chinese language than in French.
That doesn’t work -— not with hundreds of millions of Chinese who sometimes do better with the English language than native born people.
All true, but not fundamental.
Want to clean up Academia?
Abolish tenure.
While he's right to them businesses I do not believe they will change as long as there are govt. subsidies (in the form of grants and loans) to these colleges.
I also believe there is no justification for the increases in tuition over the last decade. It's a fraud, pure and simple.
My son just finished his Freshman year at Notre Dame. I'm delighted to be sending him there, and amazed at the experience he enjoyed in his first year.
Your contention certainly doesn't describe his 4 year college.
who will abolish tenure? the colleges won’t because they can get away with it and all their professors want it.
Having been in public higher ed for many years...I agree.
Ditch the whole sordid thing...it stinks from top to bottom except for the training components in the schools and community colleges who train mid level technologists and support people to professionals: nurses, therapy assistants, drug abuse counselor assistants.
Then the best and most ambitious of these can go on to professional schools in accounting, engineering, medicine etc.
Above all get rid of teacher training schools...they are a waste at best.
Your point is valid of course. Abolishing tenure will not be easy nor is it on the immediate horizon. But in the spirit of being optimistic one must not overlook the impact the alumni can have. Further, if we could ever elect a truly conservative majority to the Congress, that Congress could simply make abolition of tenure a condition for an institution to receive federal grants. That would pretty much do it in a flash.
Non-profit and state/fed jobs, is my educated (based on experience at a former job) guess, so they can change policy toward their Socialistic ideals, attend conferences all over the place, and hold self-congratulatory awards ceremonies.
I was wondering why most fast food is of poor quality these days compared to previous years. That would explain it.
It makes me sick. Last fall, I had a student who blew her $400 book budget on "the cutest Coach bag EVER!" and neglected to buy any of her course books. Predictably, she flopped spectacularly -- but by complaining to Admin and having her daddy throw a fit, four profs (including myself) had their final grades overturned and amended.
That is good news about Notre Dame. There are a few schools that haven’t been taken over by the secular humanist/Fabian socialist/moral relativist crowd, but they are few.
It makes me sick. Last fall, I had a student who blew her $400 book budget on "the cutest Coach bag EVER!" and neglected to buy any of her course books. Predictably, she flopped spectacularly -- but by complaining to Admin and having her daddy throw a fit, four profs (including myself) had their final grades overturned and amended.
Sounds like fraud to me. I'd bet that the campus newspaper would love to publish an expose. I'd further bet that the students who worked their tails off for their grades would be outraged. The University administrators who signed off on this ought to be forced to resign over such abuse.
Our son gained a full year of credit while he was in high-school through AP classes and exams. But, he decided on ROTC first, so he's going all 4 years to complete the military science program, and will have two minors along with his major.
One daughter spent two years at a local CC after she could not make up her mind where to go and what to major in. Then she ended up getting a Master's degree in something else anyway because she didn't want to pursue employment in her undergrad major
And the other daughter stayed with the same major all four years, graduated in four, and is quite happy doing something totally unrelated to her major. There is no way she is going back to school.
So college for your kids is probably going to be just like the rest of parenting. Good luck!
Non-technical schools of any price aren’t about education, they’re about making connections to be a member of the good old boys’ club.
Wow! Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, MIT aren't businesses in the worst sense of the word? They are not about teaching undergraduates how to think. They are about branding.
For instance the dirty little secret of admissions at these places is that the admissions committees are run by recent graduates. Do you KNOW what kinds of students graduate from these places and want to hang around? Usually they are a bunch of rich kids who don't want to grow up, don't have any direction in their lives, don't know what they want to do and because of Daddy's money, they don't have to.
Scuttlebut is that Larry Summers was fired because the faculty rebelled against undergradute instruction reform. He wasn't trying to radicalize it, he was trying to make it a focus of a faculty member's existence, and they didn't like it.
These guys have a very focused business indeed. Their income is derived from alumni contributions, foundation grants and federal research grants. It is very very big business indeed.
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