Two decades ago, give or take a few years, a spate of books highly critical of higher education appeared: Charles Sykes’ ProfScam, Thomas Sowell’s Inside Higher Education, Martin Anderson’s Imposters in the Temple, and Allan Bloom’s best selling The Closing of the American Mind are four examples. These books were critical of the unproductive use of time and resources of faculty, on the alleged political bias of the academy, of the failure to teach important verities about life itself.
In spite of all of this, nothing really changed. The points Sykes made over 20 years ago hold more or less the same today, for example. While the academic muckrakers of the late 20th century had little impact, the muckrakers of the early part of the same century like Upton Sinclair (The Jungle) or Ida Tarbell (History of the Standard Oil Company) measurably impacted policies relating to food, health and anti-trust legislation. Is higher education inoculated against reform?
A new generation comes along, and a new bunch of books critical of academia are starting to appear. Two recently out include Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus’ Higher Education? and Mark Taylor’s Crisis on Campus. We are told colleges have lost their way, have lost sight of what is important, namely shaping young minds and turning immature adolescents into responsible young adults. The last round of muckraking had a decidedly conservative cast to it, while this one is more conventionally left wing or apolitical. But until there is mass indignation about the behavior of colleges–their obscene costs, their bloated bureaucracies, the scandalously low teaching loads, the tons trivial academic research, the corruption of intercollegiate sports (the University of Alabama has rescheduled classes for November 18 because they were worried classes might be a distraction for the Alabama-Georgia State football game that day), the high salaries of presidents, etc.–little will happen. Reform requires threats of reduced funding from the financiers of higher education.
As previously noted in this space, the pollster Scott Rasmussen perceptively argues that the nation’s Political Class (politicians, lobbyists, party operatives, etc.) believe radically different things than the People believe, and given the people’s ultimate control over the politicians, this spells big changes soon. One can argue that the Academic Class has radically different perceptions that the public that funds higher education. The public believes state universities have as their top mission the intellectual and leadership development of undergraduate students, while the Academic Class believes that research and graduate education is truly more important.
The public believe university presidents are public servants who should live comfortably but not luxuriously, compensated in part by their job security and the satisfaction derived from leading institutions of importance in furthering the continuation and development of Western Civilization. The Academic Class believes colleges must compete with corporations for top talent and thus pay salaries perhaps double what the public would view as justified.
The public believe faculty should spend a majority of their time teaching, advising students, preparing for classes and other instructional functions, whereas the Academic Class thinks that research deserves first billing, and that students should be limited in their access to professors.
How far can the Academic Class and the People diverge in the way they view higher education? Is a day of reckoning coming to higher education? Nothing happened in response to the academic muckrakers of c. 1990, but will the people of 2010 start demanding tough love towards American colleges and universities, tying funding to true reforms. Stay tuned.
30 Responses to The Public Be Damned
bscmath78 - September 8, 2010 at 2:24 pm
* Hasn’t the market already spoken?* Haven’t parents already, repeatedly, voted with their dollars?* Haven’t students already, repeatedly, voted with their feet?* Haven’t the high tech and industrial corporations repeatedly voted with their research dollars and lobbying?* Haven’t State governments repeatedly slashed funding to State Universities? Interestingly, Alan Bloom was quite clear in his book that he was just caring and talking about the very few, elite, private universities. On the surface it appears it was only the type of instituion that was ignored by Bloom that suffered. And the reaction of them was to become more market-driven.Aren’t “…university presidents…” really typically officers of some from of Corporation? Aren’t the rights of Corporations enshrined in the Constitution and backed by the Supreme Court? Given the free flow of information, the enormous publicity given to attacks on universities and given the enormous range of universities and colleges, it seems very telling that some of the worse offenders in the eyes of the critics have been rapidly increasing their tuition and turning even more students away. The market has spoken. Where it really counts, the majority have not chosen the alternatives. There are colleges and universities that for example offer “The Great Books” style programs. There are colleges and universities that offer professors who focus on teaching and not on research. They are not hard to find, many have always been that way. Freedom of choice exists and thrives in America. We may regret their choices, we may wish they choose differently, we may try to change their minds, we may change some minds, all because we are free. As Corporations, aren’t Universities and Colleges entitled to Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness at least as much as a human citizen? Aren’t univerisity presidents and professors?The fact that their “Pursuit of Happiness” is not yours or mine or that of others, is a part of what freedom, liberty and democracy are about.
bscmath78 - September 8, 2010 at 3:02 pm
The dislike of professors doing research is quite interesting. Think about all those professors working on the Manhattan Project or those that helped win World War II, the Cold War and the Space Race. This instead of working on the “intellectual and leadership development of undergraduate students”. Think about those who help create (or trained those who created) and expand Silicon Valley, Route 128 or other aspects of America’s high tech might.Think about Isaac Newton lecturing to empty class rooms, because his students didn’t like him. Think about his “wasting time” thinking about gravity and inventing calculus and other research that helped make the modern world. Did they snear at Albert Einstein, Kurt Godel, John Von Neuman and the others at the Princeton IAS?But then these are among the triumphs of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. There appears to be much less concern about MIT, Cal Tech etc.Many complaints seem to be about the Humanities or the Social Sciences or the BA.
bscmath78 - September 8, 2010 at 3:25 pm
Correction: the Institue for Advanced Study (IAS) isn’t organizationally a part of Princeton University, though it was originally physically located in a building there.IAS isn’t a university.Plus the correct spelling is John von Neumann.The above errors do not detract from the importance of doing research in STEM fields. In fact, it appears that Richard Feynman seemed to argue that IAS “great minds” would have been more productive (in research) if they had been in a university type environment.
mbelvadi - September 9, 2010 at 6:51 am
“We are told colleges have lost their way, have lost sight of what is important, namely shaping young minds and turning immature adolescents into responsible young adults.” I sure hope most people don’t think this is what higher ed is for. Perhaps it’s part of what high school is for, since they’re young adults when they graduate high school (generally at age 18, which is legally adult). Since less than 50% of the US population graduates from college, if the only citizens who are “turned into responsible young adults” are the college grads (and according to the criticism, only a small portion of them), then the vast majority of Americans are irresponsible citizens.
reisberg - September 9, 2010 at 7:27 am
Darth Vedder seems determined to position traditional higher education as a straw dog in order to build his case for for-profit alternatives. He so easily overlooks the successes of US higher education and the fact that the competition for admission at so many of our universities is more intense than ever. I would like to see Mr. Vedder use real data instead of gross generalizations. He seems so confident that he knows what the “public believes” but based on what? His essays reflect the worst tendency of current public discussions–go for issues that might provoke emotional reactions (the high salaries of SOME university presidents, for example) and overlook the rest. Encouraging divisions such as the “Academic Class” and “the People” will do nothing to increase our country’s position in a global knowledge economy.
impossible_exchange - September 9, 2010 at 9:08 am
With all do respect, Bscmath but there is no such thing as a vibrant research culture that is exclusively STEM. Further making sense of STEM advancments does not come from within the STEM world but from outside STEM departments.
schultzjc - September 9, 2010 at 10:44 am
Maybe muckraking succeeds when there’s a real problem. Maybe it doesn’t when the problem is fantasized by disgruntled faculty. Maybe we shouldn’t listen to economists about the value of higher education. This is about as well-refuted a piece as I’ve seen here in a long time.
marktropolis - September 9, 2010 at 10:49 am
Just echoing reisberg a tad: When one is reading Vedder’s posts, one muct keep in mind that his center (the Center for College Affordability and Productivity) lives within the American Enterprise Institute. Which kind if makes him a member of the so-called Political Class that he so easily dismisses. Of CCAP’s two “faculty fellows” one is an expert in venture capitalism, the other is an expert on the NCAA. Those are your two top research fellows on college affordability?As is often the case, for the folks at AEI (and any of the other right-leaning think tanks sprinkled across the country) the free-market is only a good thing when it works to your favor (echoing bscmath78′s remarks in part). Of course, this is the same place that hired Charles Murray after he published the Bell Curve.
richardgabriel - September 9, 2010 at 1:17 pm
“Political Class,” “Academic Class,” “The People” (Hey! I think I’m in all three groups– no wonder I’m so conflicted, constantly at odds over how much compensation to pay myself out for the meager work I do.) These ill-defined, hardly rigorous and invalid contructs at the heart of Vedder’s argument are the stuff of my first-year Composition classes. I’m not sure into which “class” Vedder inserts himself, but we can clearly rule out “academic.”
dank48 - September 9, 2010 at 1:35 pm
Of course research is important. I don’t think, pace Bscmath78, that anyone in the general public “dislikes professors doing research.” Scientific research and related technology obviously looms large in the public consciousness, and STEM cell research is just one of the more controversial aspects of this. But people, in and out of the academy, do have their priorities.Parents’ main concern vis-a-vis academia is their kids’ education. “Research” in the humanities seems to most people a great deal like sittassia readbooksia.One difference between the humanities and the rest of the curriculum, roughly speaking, is that public support of scientific research is more or less taken for granted. It’s understood, perhaps a bit vaguely, but still understood in a general sort of way, that public and private colleges and universities support a great deal of research that eventually affects people’s lives.In the humanities, on the other hand, undergraduate education really is what people are expecting out of college professors. Frankly, when it comes to “research” in the humanities, which may eventually result in an article in a professional journal that at most a few hundred people read, it’s not particularly reasonable to expect people who are in hock up to their eyeballs to get their kids through school to give a fat rat’s ass one way or the other. That’s not to say anything about the relative importance of various disciplines. But different people have different perspectives. And the person standing the closest to that which is being looked at does not always have the best view.
badformorale - September 9, 2010 at 1:43 pm
As a minor point, the more apt comparison between early century muckraking and what Vedder calls academic muckraking now would be the book Upton Sinclair actually wrote about universities: The Goose-Step: A Study of American Education. The fact is that if you compare the impact of The Jungle to the impact of The Goose-Step, you’ll find the same gulf as Vedder describes between early and late 20th-century muckraking, evidenced in part by our having mostly forgotten that Sinclair even wrote on the university. Just a little historical note to point out that the impact we can see right away on an institution from a particular cluster of criticism doesn’t necessarily indicate whether the criticism will eventually be listened to and acted upon or not.
bscmath78 - September 9, 2010 at 2:15 pm
Just to clarify, when I use the acronym STEM I am referring to: Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics.
bscmath78 - September 9, 2010 at 2:21 pm
Just to clarify (dank48 post 10), I was attempting to undermine the factual basis for what I saw as the general attack on research made in the blog entry, by citing research examples that I thought would be valued by most Americans.
dank48 - September 9, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Thanks, Bscmath78. I’m easily confused.
bscmath78 - September 9, 2010 at 8:22 pm
Isn’t “shaping young minds and turning immature adolescents intoresponsible young adults” the responsibility of parents? With some help from family, clergy, books and neighbors?
bscmath78 - September 9, 2010 at 8:23 pm
Don’t totalitarian, authoritarian and theocratic regimes,of all stripes, nearly all agree (except for “Year One”-types like Pol Pot) with this idea: “state universities have as their top mission the intellectual and leadership development of undergraduate students” and quickly “correct” those institutions that “have lost sight of what is important, namely shaping young minds and turning immature adolescents into responsible young adults.”
bscmath78 - September 10, 2010 at 2:45 pm
Doesn’t it seem like:”The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our universities, But in ourselves”Though students might well argue for: “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our universities, But in our parents” Though others might consider:”The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our universities, But in our trustees”With repeated apologies to the Bard.
bscmath78 - September 11, 2010 at 11:27 am
My posts, 17-24, in response to Richard Vedder’s August 13 blog entry “Colleges as Country Clubs”, http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Colleges-as-Country-Clubs/26210/might be of interest.My posts relate to issues such as the teaching of “virtue”, the motivation of students, the choices of university administrators, some Sophists and the amount study time, that relate, at least indirectly to some aspects of this thread.
fputnam - September 13, 2010 at 9:38 am
Hacker & Dreifus do not argue that research _per se_ is invalid–all of the arguments about the Space Race (&c.) are red herrings. They instead suggest that this issue is one of locus: colleges and universities exist for the welfare of students, not so that faculty can pursue research. Those who feel called to research can work at research institutes, laboratories, or the like, and leave the schools to those who want first to benefit their students.
perneb32 - September 13, 2010 at 10:29 am
The original text was ” … beware the military, industrial, academic complex…” I womder what Ike meant by that?
perneb32 - September 13, 2010 at 10:32 am
That word should be ‘wonder’. Please don’t take me to task on that. You’ll miss the point.
bscmath78 - September 13, 2010 at 6:32 pm
Ike was thinking of the RAND Corporation.
bscmath78 - September 13, 2010 at 6:35 pm
In particular, he was thinking about how RAND had help JFK win the election and the influence it would have in the new administration. This is based on Alex Abella’s “Soldiers of Reason”. He was thinking think-tanks not universities.
bscmath78 - September 13, 2010 at 6:43 pm
@perneb32 (post 20), are we supposed to remember quotations that weren’t even said? “The orginal text…” suggests that this discussion thread had already mentioned text or the speech. But I don’t see it. Or was this a little test for those who didn’t take 20th Century American History or have forgotten it? I ask because the speech is relevant, it is just that post 20 seems stylistically unusual.
bscmath78 - September 13, 2010 at 7:45 pm
Is the solution for research universities to spin-off their undergrad colleges, as for-profit corporations? Each in a multi-billion dollar IPO? *All the proceeds going to research. *All assets, including the endowment, retained by the research side.Wouldn’t the resulting corporations be much more subject to market discipline? Wouldn’t they be more nimble if highly leveraged, with 100% contingent staff? Sell undergrad spots to highest bidder? On e-Bay? It would be so much more profitable. I think I saw that somewhere. In a dream? A nightmare? Who is to deny market discipline?
bscmath78 - September 13, 2010 at 8:08 pm
It is just a modest proposal, but it seems so sensible.It would satisfy so many, at least in the beginning.It has the classic beauty of “Jupiter and the Frogs”.
bscmath78 - September 13, 2010 at 8:23 pm
@fputnam, post 19,Don’t LAC’s, SLAC’s, Community Colleges and PUI’slike the California State University system “exist for the welfare of students”? Don’t people have plenty of choices?Didn’t California create 3 different systems of public institutions to give people the choice?Why kill the Goose that lays golden eggs?Why are the Space Race etc. red herrings when disputing the attacks on university researchers? Why is a record of enormous benefits to the nation and the world to be ignored?Why are some universities called “research universities” if not to suggest that their primary purpose is to do research? Why does anyone pay to go to a “research university” if they don’t want to support professors whose interest is in research?Richard Vedder’s August 13 blog entry “Colleges as Country Clubs”, seems to show that students are not interested in studying and thus it would seem not interested in learning or education. Why damage a vital resource, the research university, for them (assuming you believe the blog entry)?
fcpiii - September 13, 2010 at 11:49 pm
Having just written one of MANY two score plus thousand dollar checks for a semester’s study for my son at a major IVY, I feel compelled to comment.I am all in favor of and excited by his working with the best minds in the world studying ( in his case) English literature for four years. What is a national disgrace is how much of that money will go to things that have nothing what so ever to do with education : the administrative costs… the three “deans” for his residential college, the PASTRY and SOUS chef in the cafeteria, the rock climbing wall… Not to mention how little the average tenued professor at his school will actually personally contribute to his education…”The Academy” should take a long hard look at itself and eliminate these outrageous excesses, or you will all find the public unwilling to pay your fees, demand govermental control and an end to your tax exempt status. Ask anybody in health care what excessive fees and insensitive bloated salaries do to the public’s perception of a profession.., I know as I have seen Medicine fall from similar heights during the course of my professional life.How far has our Academy fallen from Platos’ where ” Wealth does not bring goodness, but goodness brings wealth and every other blessing”
bscmath78 - September 14, 2010 at 11:41 am
@fcpiii post 28, * Why as a parent, you are you writing the checks?* Why provide aid and comfort to an organization that does all these bad things? * Why didn’t you send your son to a place with spartan dorms, no climbing wall etc.? * Why didn’t you send him to one of the places that has a “Great Books” program? * Since he is taking English Lit, are there not many Liberal Arts Colleges that would provide a better undergraduate education, without the distracting frills and luxuries, at a much lower cost? * Does your son really need to learn the latest fads and fashions of English Lit “theory”?* Does your son really need to be spoiled by luxury, idleness and excess?
bscmath78 - September 14, 2010 at 11:44 am
@fcpiii post 28, I meant to write: * Why, as a parent, are you writing the checks?