Back to the future

Throughout the semester, I have been looking at articles about the current state of higher education, and the financing of it. As instructed by our professor, I have focused primarily on articles that have been written in the past few years; most within the past year.

But now, I’m interested in taking a look backwards. I have heard the famous quote; often attributed to Georges Santayana, but sometimes cited as coming from Edmund Burke, "Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it."

So, I wondered – how long have some of the prognostications about crises in higher education financing been around? Well, I found an article by Henry Wriston, President of Brown University (at the time) titled “ How to Finance Higher Education in the Future” written in 1955 in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science.

What strikes me about Dr. Wriston’s work is the extent to which so much of it could just as easily be written today. He complains about student’s lack of writing skills, the need to use more technology, the need to do away with the classic lecture/textbook method of instruction and the need for students to engage in more group work.

He also discusses the costly nature of accreditation and the need to assess what students actually learn, rather than what the institution offers. Amazingly, only 56 years later, it appears that WASC (and presumably other accrediting bodies as well) are finally coming around to that notion.

It makes me scratch my head in wonderment, that universities are supposed to be the place of innovation and forward thinking and new knowledge, but in many ways we are stuck in a sort of bureaucratic purgatory, having a sense of what may lead us to the great beyond, but still not sure if the beyond is heaven or hell.

Along with his proposals mentioned above, Wriston also hopes for greater corporate donations to institutions of higher learning. Together with new technologies, better pedagogy and more efficiency on campus, this should all solve the financing of higher ed, right?

 
But no, here we are 56 years later with all these things and more, and higher ed is more expensive than ever.

What next, Dr. Wriston?

Open Source Education: Free for all, or freeforall?

Open Source Education

I was thinking about this in Statistics class recently, when our instructor was discussing the institution’s attempt to cut costs by moving away from expensive software and seeking out open source (in other words; FREE) materials. In a time of constrained budgets and expensive licensing agreements, this makes sense. In the case of that classroom, the specific effort is to move away from programs such as SPSS (and presumably SAS) which charge large amounts for licensing their software on a college campus and finding open source material that is free for the institution and the students.

In looking up this a little more, I found this organizations website: http://www.saylor.org/about/

The mission of Saylor.org as noted on their website:

"Our Vision, Our Mission, Our Strategy

We believe that everyone, everywhere should have access to a college education. This website will serve as a zero-cost alternative to those that lack the resources to attend traditional brick-and-mortar institutions and, if they are willing, a complement to mainstream education providers."

This is a radical notion that could change the idea of access to college education worldwide. At the moment, I can already think of ways that I can use it to help our low income students finish out their degrees. Routinely, I will tell students about completing some of their general ed requirements via the CLEP exam (http://clep.collegeboard.org/). It’s the fastest, cheapest way to get college credits. Go in, take an exam in the subject of your choice, and voila, college credits (fi your school accepts them, which we do). CLEP sells study guides fairly cheaply, but I can see students taking advantage of saylor.org and not even having to pay for the study guide. It may not get them all the way to a degree, but it can significantly reduce the time and expense if someone is willing to put in the time to learn what they can through this avenue.

The potential problem, as always, is “who will take advantage of this first, and to what degree?” One can only surmise that those who already have some wealth, and access to high speed internet will be the first to notice, and most likely to utilize this source. How do we get this information to the people who need it the most? Ahh, the great conundrum of higher education providers since the beginning of higher ed….

Majors and unemployment

This week’s blog is on two articles that are hardly articles. Well, one is an article in the traditional sense, the other is just a slide show with statistics, but in our visual world, I guess that passes in some quarters for an article.

Anyway, the first article is “The 10 college majors with the lowest unemployment rates” found on Yahoo news. The really good news for this class? Educational Administration is on the list with a 0 percent unemployment rate. The other interesting thing? Most of the top 10 are in the scientific or medical fields, so it’s obviously a wise move for little Chaminade to go into the nursing education business. Another interesting thing is that school counseling is listed among those with the lowest unemployment rate, but in the slideshow on the majors with the highest unemployment rates (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/08/the-11-majors-with-the-hi_n_1081625.html?ncid=edlinkusaolp00000003), different types of psychology show up as majors with high unemployment, most notably Educational Psychology. How is is that educational psychology has a high unemployment rate but school counseling does not?

I wondered how many universities will look at this information and decide to alter their offerings based on these scant reports. And how many faculties, especially those in the humanities and psychology, will argue that colleges are not just employment factories meant to feed the corporate machine. While I’m reading this, I’m also listening to the TV in the other room as my wife watches an Oprah episode that specifically addresses young Americans and skyrocketing debt.

I’m thinking about how often that in my advising capacities I’ll tell young people that they should follow their passions and study what they enjoy. Is that the right message?

Have we engaged in an unhealthy  indulgence of America’s young generation when we sell college as an experience and give them the idea that they can do anything they want, and major in whatever they want and it will all turn out okay? Are we serving some higher purpose to ensure that the next generation has critical thinkers and poets and protesters? Or are we engaged in some irresponsible advising when we are not honest about a student’s ability to pay debts and pay for necessities such as housing and food?

Just in case you’re interested, here are the majors from the article with the lowest unemployment rates. I have a friend who is an actuary. He is insanely wealthy.

Majors and their unemployment rates:

1. Actuarial Science—0 percent

2. Astronomy and Astrophysics—0 percent
3. Educational Administration and Supervision—0 percent
4. Geological and Geophysical Engineering—0 percent
5. Pharmacology – 0 percent
6. School Student Counseling—0 percent
7. Agricultural Economics—1.3 percent
8. Medical Technologies Technicians—1.4 percent
9.Atmospheric Sciences and Meteorology—1.6 percent
10. Environmental Engineering, Nursing, and Nuclear Industrial Radiology and Biological Technologies—2.2 percent