Blogging is about instantaneousness, but there are times a blogger has to sit on something before knowing what’s bothering her. About two months ago, The Chronicle Review ran a question-and-answer forum entitled, “Are Too Many Students Going to College?” Nine experts in higher education — drawn from economics, political science, public-policy analysis and career counseling — responded to such questions as, “Who should and shouldn’t go to college?” and “At what point does the cost of going to college outweigh the benefits?”
The experts offered a variety of oftentimes conflicting opinions. Postsecondary education (especially that which leads to a B.A.) correlates with higher income, although there are some who think this correlation won’t last much longer. The best jobs of the future will require going to college, but some believe the B.A. degree is inherently worthless. Individual students have to decide for themselves whether going to college is their best option, but many believe everyone should acquire at least some postsecondary education. While the cost of higher education outpaces the ability of students to pay for it, cost-benefit analysis demonstrates that college is still worth the investment. A democratic society should permit everyone access to post-secondary education, but who should pay for it is subject to dispute.
These are important questions, and no doubt they need to be asked. The answers were intelligent and even provocative — as far as they went. But there’s an elephant in this forum. No one should forget that our society uses colleges and universities to warehouse the young. Perhaps it wasn’t the best way for us to handle the disappearance of skilled, high-paying manufacturing jobs, but it’s what we’ve done. Those who don’t belong in college — for whatever reason — are there because there’s no place else for them to go. Were they all to suddenly drop out and head for the employment lines, the current recession would be made to look like a picnic.
Even the dullest tools in the shed we call “high school” understand the reality that underlies modern economic life: Society doesn’t need them — at least in any meaningful sense. Young people encounter what lies in store for them whenever they read Dilbert or watch such TV shows as The Office and Parks and Recreation. While drolly funny when played out in art, that future is not so funny when lived. Many high-school students check out early — turning to drugs and alcohol, or endless submersion in pop culture, or simply abandoning trying to do well in their studies. Others stick with the program, even though they know that the best they can hope for is a life spent in a spirit-crushing cubicle job.
In the 1960s, the problem was alienation. Today, the problem is still alienation. The only thing that’s changed is our decision to drop the word “alienation” and replace it with the cheerier-sounding words, “lack of success.” To the extent that we continue to talk about higher education as if it’s nothing but a “route to success,” and refuse to argue the case for it being a route to a more meaningful life, “lack of success” will forever hound our students. And who, pray tell, should we blame for that?
3 Responses to The Road to Success
macheath - January 2, 2010 at 5:30 pm
Sigh. I realize Professor Fendrich teaches art, but is it to much to ask for some facts about the subject you blog about? It may look like some of your slacker students are being “warehoused” in college because of the “disappearance of skilled, high paying manufacturing jobs,” but the facts instead are that jobs in the American economy have shifted dramatically to requiring some post-secondary education (not necessarily a four year degree).In 1973, 28 percent of workers had some post-secondary education (some college, an AA degree, a BA, or post-graduate). Now it is 59% according to Anthony Carnevale at Georgetown, a great source on this topic Dr. Fendrich, here’s a link for you: http://www.smallschoolsproject.org/PDFS/meetings/feb08/college-for-all.pdf White collar office jobs, health care and education, technology–all have grown as a share of the labor force. And many manufacturing jobs now require some post-high school training as well. Workers with some college enjoyed a growing wage premium over those with only a high school education–up to 78% by 1999. Wage growth has slowed for those with some college, but wages continue to plummet for those with only a high school education, and especially for those with less than high school, so the gap continues to widen. Women are now the majority of college students, and they were not in the main displaced from manufacturing jobs or careers.It is true, as the Obama Administration and others have recognized, that a four year liberal arts degree may not be the best route–hence the emphasis on community colleges, occupational training, and “stackable credentials.” And education alone won’t solve the American wage problem–better labor laws, smarter trade and industrial policy, and public investment also are needed. But getting post-high school training is still a very good and sensible investment, on purely economic grounds.Of course, maybe everyone could be an art professor instead of spending their lives in what Dr. Fendrich describes as “spirit-crushing cubicle job(s).” (I always preferred Dylan’s “twenty years of schoolin’ and they put you on the day shift.”) Or maybe we could look instead look at the waste in four year colleges, especially private ones, and focus our funding for students more tightly on financial needs related to learning useful skills. We could provide students with information about what the relative returns are for different courses of study, by linking wage records with college transcripts, so they know what the economic prospects are for different courses of study. We could even tilt student lending in that way, although that’s unlikely.There are important issues about the economics of post-high school education, who gets it, what it is and whether it should be solely determined by a combination of tenured faculty and uniformed student borrowers, and how we pay for it overall. But they aren’t dealt with very effectively by worrying about the “warehousing” of alienated college students, as in Dr. Fendrich’s blog.
goxewu - January 2, 2010 at 7:12 pm
It seems to me that there isn’t really much of a disagreement between Prof. Fendrich and macheath. He says that the jobs have shifted from manufacturing to what might be called the skilled service industry, and that’s why there are so many students in college. She says that there aren’t enough manufacturing jobs to employ people with only a high school diploma, and that’s why there are so many students in college. This are not mutually exclusive propositions. Macheath’s proposition requires only the additional information–that, in general, jobs in the skilled services industry require a college education–in order to ring true. Prof. Fendrich’s proposition needs only the additional information–that, rather self-evidently, not every person with a high school diploma is qualified to go to college. But those persons know they need a college education in order to have a shot at a job in the skilled services industry, so they go to college. They couldn’t go to college, of course, unless the colleges let them in. And for perfectly understandable reasons (which amount to: it’s better for the college to have more students than fewer), the colleges do let them in, even though the colleges have more than a hunch that these students won’t be able to make it through. So, the colleges effectively “warehouse” them.
goxewu - January 2, 2010 at 7:58 pm
“These are not mutually exclusive…”