Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives

Can you imagine a student earning a BA degree for a mere $10,000?  That’s not $10,000 per year, but total cost for a 4-year BA or BS degree.

This is the latest proposal for educational “reform” by Texas Governor Rick Perry, whose Higher Education Commissioner Raymund Paredes endorsed the plan this week, claiming that “It’s entirely feasible. It’s something we are going to pursue aggressively.”

The plan apparently would involve the following elements:

• online classes
• e-textbooks
• variable-length courses
• limited electives
• two-year study at community colleges before transfer into universities
• paid internships for students

These stripped-down degrees would not replace existing degrees, but would targeted for low-income students.

Governor Perry and his educational staff claim that quality could be maintained while instituting the low-cost degrees.  Many faculty who have experience working with online classes and transfer students from community colleges would dispute this assertion.  Higher education administrators familiar with university budgets will also be skeptical of this educational “reform” done in the name of cost-cutting and “efficiencies.”  Online classes have proved inefficient and incredibly expensive to maintain.  Low-income students often lack computers, internet connections, and computer skills necessary to complete online classes.  Paid internships are already incredibly difficult for students to find, so increasing the number of students needing them will only make them more competitive.

I personally disagree with the corporate model of education that underpins Governor Perry’s proposal, but since that is the language of this “reform” plan, let’s bring in basic business realities: you get what you pay for.

A $10,000 degree simply could not offer the equivalent of a full bachelor’s degree.  The current average cost of a bachelor’s degree in Texas is $31,696, according to the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.  This is already a very low cost for a bachelor’s degree, compared with universities in other states (which is only made possible by the state’s petroleum based Permanent University Fund). A low-cost degree would necessarily deliver low-quality education.

Governor Perry’s plan is clearly not intended to save money, but to further strip public higher education.  The plan is instead geared toward shifting students into community colleges and for-profit “educational” institutions.

Texas, already near the bottom of U.S. public education at the K-12 level, may now be entering a race to the bottom of higher education, too.

The Austin American Statesman and the Chronicle of Higher Education both report on this story.

Students in Northern Illinois University’s Teacher Certification program will want to follow this developing story, since state-based educational reforms often influence other states’ policies.

Are you sure that you want to take business education as a model?

Many businessmen and higher education “reformers”, such as Jeff Sandefer in Texas (see previous post), argue that business education points the way to “transform” academics for the 21st century.

The Chronicle of Higher Education now reports that: “Business majors spend less time preparing for class than do students in any other broad field, according to the most recent National Survey of Student Engagement: Nearly half of seniors majoring in business say they spend fewer than 11 hours a week studying outside class. In their new book, Academically Adrift: Limited Learning on College Campuses, the sociologists Richard Arum and Josipa Roksa report that on a national test of writing and reasoning skills, business majors had the weakest gains during the first two years of college. And when business students take the GMAT, the entry examination for M.B.A. programs, they score lower than do students in every other major.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education then asks: “And what about employers? What do they want?”

“According to national surveys,” the story continues, “they want to hire 22-year-olds who can write coherently, think creatively, and analyze quantitative data. They’re perfectly happy to hire English or biology majors. Most Ivy League universities and elite liberal-arts colleges, in fact, don’t even offer undergraduate business majors.”

The Chronicle of Higher Education points out that even some business education leaders have doubts about the utility of a business major: “Back in 1980, J. David Hunger, the St. Benedict/Saint John’s fellow, wrote a monograph about the travails of undergraduate business education. He has never quite resolved his ambivalent feelings about the field. ‘At some times in my life,’ he says, ‘I’ve argued that we don’t really need a business major.'”

Want to reduce the costs of higher education?

Reexamining the costs of business schools within university budgets would a good place to start.  According to the recently released AAUP Faculty Salary Survey, which examines academic salaries across the nation, Professors of Business Administration and Management earn on average 50.9% more than Professors of English Language and Literature.

Another place to save money?  Soaring administrative costs.   But, that’s a story for another post.

Meanwhile, read the full story in the Chronicle of Higher Education.