Monday, March 14 Rethinking College – An Examination Of Higher Education

Jerry commented on The Emily Rooney Show on 03.15.11
Thanks to Kara, her guests and callers for an interesting show. I think it is mistaken to speak of college or college education generically, as if the difference between state schools and private schools is seamless but for cost and prestige. Rather, state schools have a far different role to play in American society than do private schools. My understanding of land grant institutions, which comprise many if not most of the institutions of public higher education, is that they were provided by states with state funds to educate their citizens so that those citizens could then replenish the state with their newly acquired education. In other words, the states were investing in their citizens who, upon graduation, would repay the state with productive lives contibuting to the states overall wellbeing. States could expect such repayment by keeping tuitions low, by virtue of public taxes that supported individual educations pitching forward to the collective good. It is even conceivable that with such a quidproquo an excellent education for a small percentage of its actual cost institutions could demand more of their students, of the investments, and perhaps got it. It wasnt important what any one graduate did or what any groups of graduates did, but rather what the institutions were producing as a whole, that is, an ever unfolding culture of arts, entrepeneurship, science, invention, etc. To the extent that state institutions educated students in all areas is the extent to which the public who supported them became the richer. Perhaps state institutions supported such unprofitable pursuits as music, theater, the fine arts, and even the much lampooned English degree because it was understood that advanced societies and cultures need music, theater, art, literature, etc., as well as more hardnosed pursuits, and that the state was willing to pay for their apprenticeships. Today, with most state governments turning their backs on state institutions, sometimes cutting back their commitment to public education down to single digit percentages, and thereby shifting the burden of cost onto the backs of the students via tuition and fees, the role of public education has also shifted, and with it, what we, as a society, can expect from our public institutions. One of the questions that results from this state abandonment of its own educational institutions is, where will our future musicians, actors, artists, writers, and so forth come from? Who, for love of craft, can plunk down $100k or $150k to learn to play violin? How many parents would support such a course of study, even if they could afford to? And so where is the room to roam, to risk? Better to get the college degree in an area of study valued by "business" whatever that is , as it is in business that one will likely make the money to pay back student loans, and make a living. You cant blame students or their parents for such practical thinking. And so we have "business" setting the criteria not only for what counts as a valuable educational curriculum but also how we measure education, what is actually learned. Hence, when we talk about "critical thinking" or "problem solving," I fear that what we mean is critical thinking and problem solving in a business environment. Business is driven by profit, and its successes achieved by those who creat profit, not by violinists or actors or poets. If American society, whether as a whole or as series of discrete state entities, hopes to recapture the vast creative power of our citizenry for those things which enrich us all rather than profit a few, we need to reverse the publics abandonment of public education and renew our commitment to public education as the gift of citizens to themselves.