This thread of posts follows from my last, in which I looked at the new conservative critique of higher education, as articulated by Jackson Toby and Richard Vedder. Their argument focuses on whether a college education, like K-12 schooling, should be a social entitlement, funded in one way or another by the government. Both Toby and Vedder conclude that it can’t be: that the government—state or federal—can’t afford it, and that, in any case, not everyone belongs in college.
I then looked at the traditional liberal defense of the college-for-everyone idea, and found that even the staunchest defenders of broad access to public higher education, such as former University of Michigan president James Duderstadt, have the same worries about finances as Vedder does—worries that are only being exacerbated in the current economic climate.
Today I would l like to resume that discussion in a somewhat oblique way: I’ll start by revisiting the ideas that 1) college may or may not be for everyone, and 2) that college costs too much—but I’ll end up, as my title indicates, reflecting on for-profit colleges.
First, some basics. The U.S. currently lags behind other developed nations in college-graduation rates. This is now a well known fact. We’re currently 12th in the percentage of 25-34 year olds who possess at least an associates degree. Numbers one through six are: 6. Ireland, 5. New Zealand, 4. Japan, 3. Russia, 2. South Korea, and 1. Canada. We also lag behind Norway, Britain, the Netherlands and Belgium. The Obama administration has chosen to see these rankings as a national embarrassment. In February, 2009, Obama set out a plan to graduate 5 million additional community-college students (the American Graduation Initiative) and for the U.S. to retake the lead in college graduation rates by the year 2020.
From my perspective, there are serious conceptual problems with this plan. First, it presupposes that college should be a social entitlement, and Toby and Vedder have made me skeptical about that notion. Second, it presupposes that formal higher education is the single biggest factor in professional and social success. That’s just not true: my plumber, my electrician, and any contractor I’ve ever hired make more money than I do as an associate professor of English at Ohio State; were I more vain I’m sure I could find a hair stylist who would also fit into that category of high earners.
The fetishization of formal education reminds me of the assumptions, fashionable among social scientists at the turn of the 20th century, that intelligence, as measured by IQ, is the single most important factor in determining whether a person would succeed in life. So I question whether the uncritical support of higher education, and of the Obama administration’s notion that we should participate in an international “college race” (much like the space race of the 1960s) is even a reasonable idea.
I’m also fascinated by the fact that Obama sets the bar where he does: the associates degree. That signals a huge and significant concession: The administration is essentially abandoning the idea that the federal government could fund four-year degrees for everyone. It is right do so. So long as four-year tuition prices continue to skyrocket, it’s simply not feasible that the government should foot that bill. So Obama has thus settled for a push to enroll 5 million more people in community colleges, which have over the last two decades remained relatively affordable, and which require only a two-year investment of time.
So it’s possible to discern a downward push in American higher education. Increasingly, only the affluent can afford four-year degrees. Those who can’t are increasingly opting to attend community colleges, with the federal government’s blessing. But community colleges are being stretched to the breaking point when it comes to enrollment. A remarkable development in Ohio is that Columbus’ biggest two-year college, Columbus State Community College, last year ran out of physical space, and had to lease classrooms from nearby Franklin University. Where are the additional 5 million students supposed to go? More and more they are choosing to enroll at for-profit universities.
According to a report by the Education Trust, between 1998 and 2009, enrollment at all non-profit institutions (including two-year colleges) increased by 20 percent, while enrollment at for-profit colleges and universities increased by 236 percent. More facts and figures next time, and from there a look inside these new but robust institutions.
