A good many of you have written to remind me that I write about the experience of the elite institutions, not about “higher education” generally. I know that, of course, but I teach in an elite institution and most of my career has been spent in comparable universities. It is the world I know from first-hand experience. But I am frequently reminded of the range of experiences even across the leading institutions simply by comparing notes with my two children — one teaching at New York University, and the other at the University of California at Santa Barbara.
But last week I attended the second session of a new seminar for scholars of higher education that meets monthly in New York City. I had made the presentation to lead off the first seminar in March, and was a little surprised (we were meeting in the Century Association, where the Gotham elite meet to eat) at how vigorously many in the group objected that the problems of Harvard, Princeton and Stanford were not indicative of the real problems of higher education. In response, the organizers asked Paul Attewell and David Lavin of the City University to talk about the findings in their important new Russell Sage volume, Passing the Torch: Does Higher Education for the Disadvantaged Pay Off Across the Generations?
To say the least I learned a lot, mostly by way of giving concrete reality to aspects of popular higher education that I have an intuitive feel for at best. I suppose the most important message is that we should stop talking about the “traditional” student, since what we used to think of as traditional students — those who go to college immediately after graduating from high school, reside on campus, attend school full time, and graduate in four or five years — constitute no more than one-fourth of all those in the four-year higher education systems. More than half of postsecondary students are of course in community colleges, and many of them will not proceed beyond the AA degree. But even those who do will be part-time students, working at least half-time, and frequently dropping out to earn enough money to continue their education. One-fourth of these students live on campus. They will attend several institutions before receiving a bachelor’s degree — 60 percent will earn a B.A. from a different institution than the one they started college in. And it will take them a long time to receive a degree. Over the long term, though, 60 to 70 percent of students will in fact earn a degree. Overwhelmingly, their problems are economic — no one is offering them the sort of aid that Harvard and Princeton provide to all their admits.
Moreover, these “new traditional” students are making very different sorts of curricular choices. Only about one-third will major in academic (arts and letters) subjects, for they are mostly (and for obvious reasons) opting for what Attewell and Lavin call “career” majors — those with the most obvious and immediate economic payoffs. Fewer than 10 percent are majoring in the arts and humanities and even fewer (3 percent) major in mathematics and the physical sciences. Further, given the explosive growth in college attendance, most (75 percent) of our postsecondary institutions are nonselective — despite the focus of the press on the pressures and importance of selectivity. The norm is closer to open enrollment than to Amherst College.
I learned a lot more, and I would encourage anyone who cares about the relationship between economic disadvantage and higher education to read Passing the Torch. But to say the least, those of us (whether or not we are in truly selective institutions) who care about the arts and sciences tradition and the viability of liberal education need to think more broadly than I have been doing.
