It is generally true that you get what you pay for, but not necessarily when it comes to higher education.
A study scheduled for release Monday about the value of a college education, at least when it comes to the basics, has found the opposite to be true in most cases. Forget Harvard and think Lamar.
Indeed, the Texas university, where tuition runs about $7,000 per year (Harvard’s is $38,000) earns an A to Harvard’s D based on an analysis of the universities’ commitment to core subjects deemed essential to a well-rounded, competitive education.
“Students given so many choices aren’t likely to select what’s good for them…. Given human nature, they’ll choose what’s fun, easy or cool…. It’s up to universities to guide them away from the dessert tray to the vegetable courses they need to develop healthy minds.”
That’s one reason why liberal-arts colleges may be a better investment than large universities. At least at a smaller college the courses in the catalog tend to be more basic and comprehensive: History of Christian Thought to the Reformation, for example, rather than a narrow slice of a professor’s research.
But a qualification regarding even that statement: it’s not quite so simple as that. Often a course that sounds narrow and specialized–too much so, you’d think, for a Core course–may lead the student into a subject to greater depth and with a better acquaintance with the research tools of the discipline than a large survey course. Trust me, History of Western Civilization sounds better than Women’s Lives in the 1450s because we overlook the fact that students simply won’t learn much of anything from the former, once-over-lightly survey approach. The latter, if taught in rich context and with authority by an expert in the field, may also be a real turn-on to students who will then take at least one or two more courses in history, say.
“It’s ludicrous to take an 18-year-old and give them hundreds of choices when they don’t have any basis for making a decision.”
The author’s general point that a student’s best education may well not be at Harvard is exactly right, as well as her point that there is not a strict positive correlation between how much you pay and how much value you receive.
And her other basic point–that basics are the point–is extremely important. This summer three humanities professors at Hood College decided that our one-course writing requirement is not–given what we’re seeing in students’ writing–enough for our students. So we issued a call to anyone interested to join a task force this summer to talk about the problem and work toward a solution.
More than a quarter of our entire faculty showed up, from all disciplines, including career fields. We are moving toward beefing up basic requirements in reading / critical thinking / writing. We recognize that these skills are important for all disciplines and crucial to success in the workplace.
Perhaps because of the Internet and the new electronic-media applications, students are not undertaking in-depth thinking the way they used to. And faculty need to address that problem.
Researchers sometimes talk about what students are good at instead–but I have not come across any of those attributes as important as good reading, thinking, writing, and speaking skills.
Long story short: yes, colleges are giving value when they have faculty willing to keep coming back to basics to address the actual needs of undergraduate students both in college and in the real world.
Can you say “Education Bubble”? An abundance of easily available borrowed money at low interest will almost invariably drive up prices in the object of that lending, relative to prices in the economy as a whole.
Many of the basics are well taught at the local community college for at least an order of magnitude less than the Ivies and the eastern liberal arts schools. Degrees from places like Middlebury now cost over a quarter million dollars, which is quite unlikely to be self-liquidating.
Two-word majors, from anywhere, are especially worthless, particularly if the second word is “studies” or “literature.”
I’m old enought o remember when colleges and universities had high entry requirements and every really enlighening course had a list of pre-requisits. And I well remember when, in the seventies, students were demanding the right to determine their own curriculum. Our faculty generally referred to this phenomonen as “kicking the slats out of the cradle”. Suddenly it seemed that “under water basket weaving” really could be offered for college credit. 1973 was also the year our university dropped its entry requirements with the argument that “the student has the right to fail.” It was the first year I ever had to try to teach technical writing to students who couldn’t string 5 words together to make a complete sentence. The students who actually had a high school education, not just a diploma or certificate of attendance, were the ones who were short changed educationally in the classroom; when some students can’t comprehend the fundamentals of the subject matter the teacher has to spend valuable time explaining the easy stuff and simply hasn’t classtime left to teach the hard stuff to the students who are ready to learn it.
This study shows exactly what I would expect…given the course of events from the pst 40 years. Students can specialize in “Women’s Studies” or “Black History” and acquire no context in which to understand how these topics relate to the rest of human history.
With a good basic college education, one might study the same subject matter over lunch break for a few months and have a much better educational grasp of how women or blacks…or any other specialized human group fit relationally with the rest.
Wouldn’t it be grand if this study, and others like it, actually resulted in a return to educational programs that led the student to be, well, educated?
Frances Scott
Some educational things are important and some things are trivial. Some educational things pander to existing prejudice and some force reflection. Some educational things require adults to take charge and children to obey. Some educational things require educators to sublimate their egos and advancement to the intellectual care of children.
You really can educate young and old human beings more than adequately with a conference table, some folding chairs around it, and the Great Books of Western Civilization. And yes, those books exist and the time-tested list is readily available.
Legitimate Gender Studies will happen between classes and around the keg. Always has.