*Reason* on the Higher Ed Bubble

Reason has a symposium on the future of higher education in its latest issue. For my money, the best contribution comes from Reason.com editor Nick Gillespie, who sounds remarkably Oakeshottian in this passage:

The real existential threat to higher ed comes from folks who conceive of college as a sort of high-end vocational-tech program. Right-leaning critics such as Naomi Schaefer Riley, Richard Vedder, and Charles Murray complain about feel-good majors that don’t help fill the nation’s need for STEM-related graduates. Left-leaning commentators such as Richard Arum, Josipa Roska, and Christopher Newfield fear that college is becoming more expensive for students even as it teaches them little or nothing of value.

These sorts of critiques are wrong for two reasons. First, they assume that education, especially college, should somehow be related to employment. While that has always been an expectation—most of America’s colonial colleges started as seminaries—it long ago stopped being the rule. In a 2011 Pew Research survey, 74 percent of college graduates called the experience “very useful” for their “knowledge and intellectual growth” and 69 percent said it facilitated their “personal growth and maturity.” A relatively puny 55 percent said college was very useful as “preparation for a job or career.”

As the proud possessor of no fewer than four English degrees (a B.A., two M.A.s, and a Ph.D.) who paid my own way through every stage, I think these graduates have it exactly right.

What troglodytes like Florida governor Rick Scott, who wants to subsidize STEM majors, fail to understand is that STEM degrees are private goods if any majors are: they are their own reward. Humanities and social sciences courses, if taught rigorously and well, provide public benefit beyond that to the individual; if anything should be subsidized, it is those courses. (Here I go beyond Nick’s argument, who expressly rejects the view that humanities education creates a better citizen.)

To be sure, liberal arts and social sciences are not necessarily taught well at many universities. But the places that do the best at teaching students how to think and write are the highly selective, challenging liberal arts colleges — places that tend to come in for lots of scorn from conservatives.

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The PhD Bust: America’s Awful Market for Young Scientists

Apropos my “Don’t Go to Grad School” post from a couple of weeks ago, here are some hard data on the employment difficulties of new PhD’s in the hard sciences and humanities.

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Don’t Go to Grad School

It’s that time of year again: sending in the last of the grad-school reference letters. Over time, my answers to students who request grad school reference letters, particularly for PhD programs, have become more and more emphatic: don’t do it. It doesn’t matter how smart you are, or how good your grades have been.

The job market for political science PhD’s is abysmal. It has long been pretty poor, though nowhere near as bad as that for historians and philosophers. But following the 2008 recession, the market has simply collapsed. At this point, there is such a backlog of underplaced and unemployed political science PhD’s that even a strong economic recovery, with its concomitant benefits for state budgets, can never clear it. Speaking from personal experience, you now need to have a better record (in an “annual average productivity” sense) to get an entry-level assistant professor job in political science at a directional state college than to get tenure at a Carnegie Very High Research institution.

If you get a political science PhD, you should be aware that you are buying a lottery ticket. If your number manages to come up — but it probably won’t — you can get a tenure-track job — eventually. Otherwise, you should see your five, six, or seven years of postgraduate education as a consumption good, and prepare your resume for entry-level private industry jobs. Then, if you’re one of the few lucky ones to get a tenure-track job, you might not get tenure. That used to mean that you dropped down to a lower-ranked institution and started over. Now it means that you have to change careers.

It’s not just PhD programs that aren’t worth it any more. Law school applications have plummeted. Full-time MBA’s in the United States are of doubtful value at best, especially when opportunity cost is considered. Even medical degrees are now a huge financial risk.

Instead of going to graduate school, students would be better advised to do more with their undergraduate degrees. The value of studying

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Saturday Afternoon Bemusement

Tyler Cowen makes the case that a large, inefficient public sector can be a good thing:

we should not be trying to squeeze the entire economy into the shoebox of the dynamic but risky “Economy I.” For public choice reasons, as well understood by Karl Polanyi (an underrated public choice theorist if there ever was one), the polity requires some respite from Economy I, whether we like that or not… Furthermore the more “sluggish” Economy II, by operating under different principles, often serves as a useful R&D lab for Economy I. Think MIT and Stanford, or note that Adam Smith ended up as a customs commissioner, as his father had been. Goethe and Bach worked for governments for much of their lives. It’s about balance and synergy, though it is perfectly fair to see contemporary Western Europe, especially in the periphery, as a region which has far too much Economy II and too little Economy I.

The first point in particular reminds me of Dani Rodrik’s argument for the welfare state under conditions of globalization: the government sector is relatively “safe” and can buffer dislocations due to global markets. Cowen isn’t referring exclusively to the public sector as “Economy II,” since the latter also includes labor-intensive, service-sector occupations, but he does imply here that the university system is a desirable public subsidy in part because it is inefficient and gives researchers respite from the private market.

I never really grasped that argument from Rodrik, and I still don’t. It seems to me that if you want inefficiency as a risk hedge, you could just bury some boxes of money and set fire to some of it in good times, then dig up what’s left in bad times. Less facetious: why not invest in a global equities index? Even better: why not push for globalization as a solution to its own problems? After all, there’s nothing about the economies we live and work in that’s inherently national. I live and work in the Erie County, New York economy. It’s a highly open economy. Why doesn’t Erie County, New York have an even bigger welfare state than the U.S.? Because we can buffer risk by investing in or, in the limit, moving to other parts of the country. So labor mobility and capital mobility are themselves solutions to the very risks posed by globalization of the merchandise trade combined with volatility in the terms of trade.

And you don’t have to set fire to any money.

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Greatest Thing Since Sliced Bread

For those of you who are trying to supplement your child’s schooling or wish to buck the entire public/private school system altogether, I’d like to recommend the Khan Academy.  Started by former hedge fund manager Sal Khan, the Khan Academy is essentially a free on-line school that teaches everything from basic addition to the French Revolution to statistics.  Here is a profile on the PBS Newshour:

This might very well be the greatest thing since sliced bread – at least for parents like me who are unhappy with the educational establishment and the local school.  The Khan Academy is a bit lacking so far in the humanities and social sciences, but the math and science offerings are deep.  I haven’t looked at the lessons on the more advanced subjects like the Geithner Plan or the Paulson Bailout - so my enthusiasm could decline as I start to explore the more politically charged lessons.  However, I’m sold so far on the basics and look forward to participating in this very liberating experiment in free on-line education.  I’ve been skeptical of the power of on-line education in the past, but I wonder if we are in for a revolution in education delivery at the K-12 level (and maybe in the realm of higher education as well….gulp!).

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Are These Facts Surprising?

From George Will’s recent column on gender politics: “At Bryn Mawr, 4 percent of 2010 graduates majored in chemistry, 2 percent in computer science. At Smith, half of 1 percent were physics majors; 1.4 percent majored in computer science. In 2009 at Barnard, one third of 1 percent majored in physics and astronomy.”

But does he cherry pick the data?  What is the percentage of physics majors at Bryn Mawr (it is apparently about 3%)?  Chemistry majors at Smith?  Chemistry and computer science at Barnard?  Should these numbers be surprising for liberal arts schools?  And what do they actually tell us (and do they tell us what Will thinks they tell us)?

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Rating Educational Institutions

It is approaching the time of year when high school students will be applying to college and university. That means that rating metrics will again be getting press. Of course there is the standard U. S. News and World Report ratings, which are the biggest, most influential, and among the least dispositive ratings available. (I think a case can be made that nearly every one of the criteria U.S. News uses to rate colleges and universities gives bad, or at least not very instructive, information. Perhaps in a future post I will make that case.)

There are many other ratings, however. Here are two:

1. Forbes.com has released its 2010 “America’s Best Colleges” rankings. Williams, Princeton, Amherst, West Point, and MIT are its top 5, with Stanford, Swarthmore, Harvard, Claremont McKenna, and Yale rounding out the top ten. With the possible exception of Claremont McKenna, the list at the top is not altogether surprising.

More surprises appear outside the top ten. For example: the University of Chicago is only #20, behind the likes of Whitman and Pomona Colleges (U of C is #9 on U.S. News); Dartmouth is #30, Notre Dame is #33, and Penn is #36, all behind Carleton College in Minnesota (#21) and Centre College in Kentucky (#24). Georgetown appears at #52, directly behind Colorado College; Chapel Hill comes in at #62, directly behind Pennsylvania’s Lafayette College; and Johns Hopkins doesn’t appear until #88, directly behind Virginia’s Sweet Briar College.

Forbes arrives at its rankings by claiming to investigate the extent to which colleges and universities meet student needs: “Will my courses be interesting? Is it likely I will graduate in four years? Will I incur a ton of debt getting my degree? And once I get out of school, will I get a good job?” They try to get at these factors by considering indirect, and often unscientific, measures, like teacher ratings on RateMyProfessors.com and graduates’ success as indicated by “the number of alumni listed in a Forbes/CCAP list of corporate officers,” but all ratings use indirect and sometimes dubious measures. If thus taken with a grain of salt—and especially if compared with other ratings—this one is interesting and informative.

2. A very different way of evaluating colleges and universities is by the courses they require students to take and the materials they require students to read and study. One attempt to measure undergraduate education in this way is whatwilltheylearn.com, sponsored by the American Council of Trustees and Alumni. This site allows you to locate schools by name, region, or state, and it grades them on the content of their required curriculum from “A” through “F.” The #1 school on Forbes’s list, Williams, for example, gets an “F” on this rating; my alma mater, Notre Dame, which comes in at 33 on Forbes (and #19 on U.S. News), gets a “B”; and my graduate school, the University of Chicago (#20 on Forbes and #9 on U. S. News), gets a “B” as well.

There were only 16 schools earning an “A” on this list. That list includes Baylor, St. John’s College, the Naval Academy and West Point, Thomas Aquinas College and the University of Dallas; it also, rather surprisingly, includes Kennesaw State University, the University of Arkansas–Fayetteville, and East Tennessee State University.

One of the FAQs they list is: “I’m confused. Are you saying that places like Midwestern State University and Brooklyn College, which get As, offer a better education than institutions like Cornell and Brown, which get Fs?” Their interesting answer:

In terms of their general education curricula, yes. Our report is not intended to offer a comprehensive assessment of all aspects of a university. That some of the best-known colleges earn poor marks for general education doesn’t mean that they don’t do other things well; it means that they are not demonstrating a commitment to a broad-based general education curriculum. Our grades do not place any value on prestige or reputation. Unique among the major college guides, our grades were developed based on applying objective criteria to institutions’ curricula.

Like other ratings, this one too must be taken with a grain of salt. Its criteria are based on a traditional conception of liberal arts, and the extent to which colleges and universities allow undergraduates to avoid taking standard and traditional courses in liberal arts and sciences, they get downgraded. They look for required and substantive courses in composition, literature, American history, foreign language, mathematics, science, and economics—not a bad list, all told, and not a bad idea for what an undergraduate education should include. Indeed, this approximates what most schools already claim they provide for their students; this ranking is evaluating them on their relative success at their stated goals.

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Coercion as freedom

In its usual flurry of end-of-term decisions, the Supreme Court issued an important opinion affecting liberty on college campuses (or what’s left of it).  The opinion concerned the lawsuit by a Christian group at the Hastings College of Law, a public school affiliated with the University of California.  The Christian group was denied the right to form an official student organization because they employed admission requirements that discriminated against homosexuals.  They are apparently the only student organization denied official status (and funds) in the history of the law school.  Many of the groups on campus support activities and causes that Christians and others find immoral.  At least they should be allowed to form their own group in opposition to these groups, but the Court upheld their right to form an official group.

I’m quite unclear about the best way to capsulize the arguments in this case and comment on them.  Perhaps Marcus can do that or someone else more knowledgable.  My gut tells me that Justice Alito’s conclusion that this case is “a serious setback for freedom of expression in this country” is the correct way to view the outcome.   Although anti-discrimination laws and policies sound nice, they seem to be frequently used by politically correct leftists to stamp out dissent by religious groups and others on the right.   In short, they usually end up supporting leftist orthadoxy in the name of non-discrimination.

But the more troubling point about this case to me was no one on the Court seems to be making the argument that any funding for all these student groups is Constitutionally questionable because they get their funding by coercing all students to pay required fees.

Just as the left wants to prohibit speech in the form of campus speech codes (or campaign finance restrictions), they want to force speech in the form of requiring students to fund the activities of these highly activist, overwhelming leftist campus groups.  And because these groups use campus buildings and resources in addition to the variable expenses funded by the fees, the taxpayers are also coerced into supporting them.

Why should highly political extracurricular associations be allowed to rely on coercion to fund their activities? If students can afford to pay the mandatory fees that fund these groups, then they can certainly afford to fund groups they actually support on a volunteer basis.  Of course, what is happening here is political activists using coercion to free-ride off the larger group.

The state frequently uses (in fact, is defined by) coercive power.  Thus public education as a whole is based on coercion.  Though I would run education in a much different way, I can live with the state having an interest in education (though I can’t say I see much of an argument for state-supported professional education; students at Hastings will go on to have careers and average salaries far higher than the average Joe-taxpayer who pays for their education).  But the coerced funding of extracurricular groups — especially political groups — is beyond any reasonable use of state power and is a serious violation of freedom of speech.  Forcing people to support speech is as wrong as prohibiting speech.

Apparently this issue is settled law.  Someone should unsettle it.

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Great Cover

My preferences run towards the Atlantic rather than the New Yorker (at least in the past given the Atlantic has been on a downward slide lately that makes it less and less part of my reading life), but I gotta give it to New Yorker for this very well done cover.

Curious how Pileus readers interpret it, aside from the obvious.

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Those Terrible Texans

The Chronicle of Higher Education is reporting on the latest brouhaha from Texas:

Faculty members and administrators in Texas are speaking out about a recent state law that requires them to post specific, detailed information about their classroom assignments, curricula vitae, department budgets, and the results of student evaluations.

A conservative group whose administrators have close ties to Gov. Rick Perry lobbied for the law, saying it offers important “consumer protection.” Opponents counter that it has created an expensive and time-consuming burden and offers little benefit to the public.

It might also be noted that, amazingly enough, “lawmakers did not consult with faculty governance groups when formulating the legislation.”  Now there is a shocker: legislators not respecting faculty governance.  Question: does anyone who is not a faculty member respect faculty governance, anywhere?

So, what should we think about this?  As usual, I have many options for you:

1. Transparency in government is a good thing, no?
2. This is just conservatives poking pointy-headed academics for electoral gains, like drunk hunters shooting the deer at their salt lick.
3. Given the leftist excesses of the professoriate, this is a means of the public better monitoring those academics who get paid by the state’s citizens but so seldom share the citizens’ values.  This would be silly argument, but for the fact that the professoriate really is incredibly out of sync with the political values of the electorate (even in Texas).
4. The general public has no ideas how universities function or what professors really do with their time (they only teach two hours a week and get their summers off—I wish!).  Legislators are little different.  This is just another case of a legislature sticking its nose into something it doesn’t understand well enough, ending up imposing unnecessary costs (another case of government failure).  No serious person really thinks this is going to increase value to students, do they?
5. Most of this stuff sounds like things most universities are already doing on their own anyway.  My department has had vitas and syllabi on line for years.  Isn’t regulating an activity that is already doing pretty well a waste, from any perspective?
6. Though I’m a fan of markets and the valuable information market signals provide, as an professor I’m very wary of adopting wholesale the consumer model of education, where our job is to provide services that students either buy or don’t, given their preferences.   If students knew what they really needed to know, they wouldn’t need to be at the university anyway.  Indeed, many of them think that they actually don’t need to be there, that they are being forced to jump through hoops to get a credential, and we should make their jumping easier for them.   I’d prefer to not give this brand of student any more ammunition than we already do.
7. At a more fundamental level, why are states running universities anyway?  One could possibly make a utilitarian or even a libertarian argument for a state promoting and even subsidizing education, but I can’t think of a reasonable argument for the state actually running universities (or any other school for that matter).

As FoxNews says, “We report. You decide.”

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