This op-ed in the NYT, by the editor of the Chronicle of Higher Education, tells us what is wrong with higher education in the US. The author argues that colleges are like record stores and newspapers that have been transformed by digital technology. He appears to support the position of the Board at UVA that fired its President because she has not embraced technology fast enough. Colleges need to lower their costs and adapt to digital technology or they will be history.
I have no idea what he means by the "lost decade" in higher education. This strikes me as the kind of hyperbole that we get from pundits like David Brooks, George Will and Tom Friedman. The only data that he provides about the lost decade is that there were only 2 colleges in 2003 that charged $40,000 for tuition, fees and living expenses. That number rose to 224 in 2009. That is a totally meaningless statistic. It would only make sense if we knew what the prices were at the 224 colleges in 2003. We really need to know how the prices have risen in relation to general inflation in order to gain a better understanding of how colleges are performing. He turned me off immediately with his lack of statistical sophistication.
He tells us that colleges have raised their prices because they have benefited from high demand for a college credential. They created some of that demand by advertising, providing enticing new academic programs and by improving their facilities. In other words, the have done a good job of responding to student needs. They also have benefited from the willingness of government to support student loans. Government does this because it believes that a college education is a public good. Moreover, families are willing to take out the loans because they expect to receive a return on their investment through higher wages upon graduation. He must believe that colleges which act rationally to create demand, and families that are willing to borrow because they expect a good return on their investment, is a bad situation. It is a bad situation, but is hardly a lost decade for the reasons that he indicates. If a college education is a public good, and the primary means by which we provide social mobility, we should be more concerned about increasing access to higher education, without requiring families to take on a huge debt burden. I suspect that his real interest is in promoting technology as a means to lower the cost of higher education. He may also be against government programs that improve access to higher education.
He makes his argument for cost reduction through digital technology by comparing higher education with newspapers, bookstores, record stores and book publishers which have seen their industries transformed by digital technology. The implication is that higher education will suffer the same fate unless it moves quickly into the use of digital technology. He refers to efforts being made at Harvard, MIT, Stanford and other prestigious colleges to explore ways in which digital technology can be used to deliver academic content. They are doing this because most of the current platforms for providing distance learning have deficiencies. Hopefully, they will find ways to better adapt technology to higher education. When that happens most colleges will be quick to make use of the technology. In the meantime, most colleges are already using digital technology, and it does not always lower cost. They have made expensive investments in networking and in large staffs that are needed to support students and faculty that are taking advantage of computers and the Internet. Furthermore, most colleges already use a low cost technology for many of their introductory courses. It is called a lecture delivered by a professor. The cost per student to deliver lectures is very low. They may easily be replaced by technology, but the real costs are in upper level courses where the cost per student is very high. Laboratory courses in the sciences also depend upon the use of expensive equipment and a well educated support staff. In summary, the argument by analogy that he used to conclude that colleges will suffer the same fate as other industries that sell commodity products is superficial. There is little difference between a print newspaper and a digital newspaper available over the Internet. In fact, digital newspapers are a better solution for most customers. The problem for print media is that their profits come from advertising. They have lost much of their classified ad revenue to digital media like Craig's List. Advertisers are less dependent on print media to reach their target customers. Higher education is not a simple commodity like print media that are easily replaced by digital technology. Harvard and MIT will look pretty much like they do now in the next decade. However, state supported higher education may look very different if their Boards continue to focus on cost reduction instead of educational quality. They will also suffer if their Boards continue in their efforts to transform governance into the corporate models they are more familiar with. That is the real crisis in higher education that we should worry about. These are the members of the UVA Board. None of them have a background in higher education. All of their experience is in business.
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