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[daniel_von_flanagan]

I concede that the traditional view of academia as existing for the sole purposes of creating the next generation of academics

Whenever did anyone believe this, at least in the US? - DvF

[der_gadfly]

perhaps the sarcasm didn't adequately shine through the rhetoric...... BUT, from what I have seen in these fora.....

[watermarkup]

Awesome. If the Left has embraced the consumer model of education, then the knee-jerk conservative pushback will be along any minute now. Then we can all tell our state legislators, high-rolling trustees, and fat-cat donors that our university has not been seduced by liberal fads like 'student-centered education,' 'higher education consumerism,' and nonsense like that.

[farm_boy]

(Sung to the tune of "Misty"):


"On my own
As I wander through this wonderland alone
Never knowing my right side from my left
My red from my blue
I’m pre-postmodern
O what shall I do?"

[high_energy_photons]

I am rather confused.  What is wrong with informing students of their return on the investment in an education?

For example, I see individuals claiming often to be uninformed about the poor job market in Field X here on the forums.  Why would telling students that majoring in X is unlikely to result in a job be a bad thing?

I think it is essential for colleges to make it clear that they provide an education, not a job.  But it is also beneficial to provide employment rates for graduates.

For example, let us say Field Y is a hot field, with lots of jobs.  Institution A has a 80% employment rate and Institution B has a 20% employment rate for graduates in Field Y.  Wouldn't that be important for students to know?

I realize there is this idealized view of the Ivory Tower and its pure separation from all things monetary, but that is not a realistic approach.  Most people go to college to help get a better job when they graduate.  If they happen to become a better person along the way (whatever that is supposed to mean), then that is all well and good.  I appreciated all the nice things I learned in college, but it wouldn't amount to much if I were starving now.

Make it clear to students if you are preparing them for jobs, careers, or self-betterment.  Assess it, if you can.  Why not?  I see no problem with this.  I am not saying any particular purpose is better than another, but it is important to know what one is getting into when one goes off to college.

[kedves]

I am rather confused.  What is wrong with informing students of their return on the investment in an education?

One such measure already exists:  GPA.  Like all measures, it is flawed, but it is a number representing investment by students of time and effort in an education and in a degree.  The main return on investment in college comes from finishing it with a diploma.  Students know that.  Success converting the degree to a desired career is a separate issue--but there are significant differences in students' social networks that will make those successes vary considerably regardless of the quality of their education.

I don't see anything wrong with providing information to students about the job market.  Particularly in the liberal arts, colleges should do more to make students aware of the need to be more imaginative and self-directed than students in many other majors when planning, gaining experience for, and communicating to employers the relationship between the student's education and the desired job.  But don't you think that the following would be a problem?

From Inside Higher Ed:

The document, "Putting the Customer First in College," calls on the U.S. Education Department to create an Office of Consumer Protection in Higher Education that would (1) pressure colleges to produce significantly better data on how well they serve students, (2) develop a system for making that data available for students to use in choosing a college, and (3) direct students unhappy with their colleges' educational practices to federal, state, or accrediting officials who can help them resolve their complaints."

(1) means assessment and regulation; (2) is a US News-type list.  In (3), notice how the new federal office would direct students to complain, but not provide support for taking down these complaints.  We've had to fire school teachers and police officers throughout my state.  Who is going to take down and respond to the complaints of students who have "unfair" professors, or the 2.1 GPA graduates in psychology or sports management with work experience consisting of lifeguard or Gap who can't get a salaried job "in their major," or any full-time job, the first year after graduation? 

Doesn't this sound the least little bit like creating a government agency, increasing burdens on existing government offices, and shifting responsibility for students' college and career success from students to colleges, for the sake of public relations?   College gives students the opportunity to make something different of themselves, and have wider choices in work and life, than are given to most people who don't earn a college degree.  It doesn't provide those benefits directly or automatically.  If we are thinking about it in terms of consumer services, paying for college is more similar to hiring a coach than to hiring a dentist.  There is a need to crack down on for-profit education scams, but is this the best way to do it?

[magistra]

Undergrad and grad are very different.  It's the liberal arts degree as a whole, not the individual major, that counts.  What you're talking about might work for Engineering, but how is an English degree substantively different from a History degree when the student goes on to become a real estate agent?  And there are so many other factors in play, it's statistically problematic to try to quantify these things.  The regional economy alone could skew the data badly.

Also, there's the danger (as has been mentioned previously) that the more we wring numbers and "facts" out of what we do, the less students, their parents, and society in general understand that we're not here to get students a job, we're here to educate them -- make them better citizens and more successful persons in all aspects of their lives.

Anyone else think that part of this comes from the American perspective that what you do = who you are?

[jonesey]

Anyone else think that part of this comes from the American perspective that what you do = who you are?

Partly.  I also feel that this is part of America's lingering and disturbing anti-intellectualism streak and distrust/dislike/fear of so-called "elites."  I'm so tired of hearing people say they want to vote for so-and-so because "He's a 'regular guy' just like the rest of us." 

The romanticising of blue-collar America is getting old (and it's inaccurate).  30 Rock tackled this very well in its last episode, where Jack goes to Stone Mountain, GA to find a "Real American" comic for the show because "Real Americans" don't like New York Liberal and Cultural Elites with their College Degrees. 

[educator1]

Where did we get the strange notion that the workers are the "customers". It is my students that are doing the heavy lifting to get an education. They are doing the studying, writing the papers, doing the research, learning the applications, etc. I am certainly a guide, mentor, etc. but I cannot, in any way, simply place an education into a student's head. They have to do it for themselves.

If society wants graduates who are educated and prepared to make their own contributions to society, then we measure the quality of a university with standardized exams & measures, professional exams, performance evaluations, placement rates & quality, and so on.  If society wants graduates who are happy with themselves and blissfully ignorant, then our current system works fine - use student evaluations to measure educational quality.

Mad doctor has got it right, society is the customer and we have methods of measuring a student's preparation for life outside the big U and for follow-up analyses of their contributions and abilities. I think that my students can evaluate the education that I have tried to lead them to very well, five years after they leave the University. I doubt that they have much of a clue while they are here!

[cgfunmathguy]

I think that my students can evaluate the education that I have tried to lead them to very well, five years after they leave the University. I doubt that they have much of a clue while they are here!

Infinite chimes on this.

I use myself as an example of this regularly, and I believe have done so on these fora (maybe the poetry-engineering thread). As an undergrad, I routinely questioned the need for an engineering major (such as myself) taking humanities classes. They were not going to make me a better engineer, and besides that, they were boring. I could NEVER see the symbolism that the instructors saw in whatever we were watching or reading, and I thought it was a bunch of hooey. Even people who were majoring in these subjects couldn't tell me why these classes were useful to me.

Fast forward five years from graduation. I'm back in school to become a math teacher. Several peers and I are having a discussion. In the middle of this discussion, I made a reference to one of the theater productions I had attended for humantiies credits six years earlier. The production is a fairly common and well-known one, but none of my classmates had any idea about it. Once I explained the reference, they understood what I was trying to say, and it helped the discussion along.

So much of what is discussed publicly relies on allusions to literature and the arts. If we focus on customer service and job training, a significant portion of that will be very hard to defend. And I, as a mathematician with an engineering degree, want to help defend it as much as my humanist colleagues do (I think).

[russ38]

This appears to simply be another step in an unfortunate direction. Students are no longer conceived as apprentices; rather, they are understood as consumers, who can select for themselves what constitutes a proper education. The whole point of assuming a status of student is to enter into a relationship where you are defined as knowing less than your professor or instructor. One enters into such a diminished capacity in order to acquire knowledge that he or she fails to possess. Therefore, how could a student possibly be in a position to complain to accreditation agencies without first acquiring the knowledge necessary to make such a determination.

This is going to result in more even lower standards or standards that reflect the interests of corporations in the economy, not standards derived from the ethical imperatives that shape the liberal arts. Students should enter into higher education in order to be transformed through intellectual cultivation. By letting the student dictate the curriculum, we are abandoning the liberal arts model, because the student is not being existentially altered, in order for the student to better recognize the good life; instead, the student is merely reinforcing prejudices that the student already possesses.

I have had students complain about their bad grades, because they had "paid for the class." This type of attitude is indicative of the culture we are fostering by adopting a 'customer relations management' approach to our dealings with students.

[der_gadfly]

(1) means assessment and regulation; (2) is a US News-type list.  In (3), notice how the new federal office would direct students to complain, but not provide support for taking down these complaints.  We've had to fire school teachers and police officers throughout my state.  Who is going to take down and respond to the complaints of students who have "unfair" professors, or the 2.1 GPA graduates in psychology or sports management with work experience consisting of lifeguard or Gap who can't get a salaried job "in their major," or any full-time job, the first year after graduation? 

Doesn't this sound the least little bit like creating a government agency, increasing burdens on existing government offices, and shifting responsibility for students' college and career success from students to colleges, for the sake of public relations?   College gives students the opportunity to make something different of themselves, and have wider choices in work and life, than are given to most people who don't earn a college degree.  It doesn't provide those benefits directly or automatically.  If we are thinking about it in terms of consumer services, paying for college is more similar to hiring a coach than to hiring a dentist.  There is a need to crack down on for-profit education scams, but is this the best way to do it?

Hmmm, yet another interesting conundrum...... a federal agency that can collect dta, then do nothing with it. BUT, the accreditors, while not federal agencies, but who are given the mano sante of the government, can force institutions to collect and AUSe data......

If left up to the academics, the discussions on HOW to implement such a plan would last a century or longer, since the embedded parochialism and demand that "I am paid to do research, not teach, or measure my effectiveness, and furthermore, have the right to do research on the public dime but will NOT cowtow to anyone because I have academic freedom to do so, and there is nothing that anyone can or will say or do that will ever make me change, even though society is not the same as it once was, and I will stick to my dinosauric guns simply because I have been so empowered to do so...."

Nothing wrong with a few numbers. had academics been doing this when FIRST asked to do so (over 20 years ago), this discussion would be moot, BUT see above for WHY they did not.

[madhatter]

If left up to the academics, the discussions on HOW to implement such a plan would last a century or longer, since the embedded parochialism and demand that "I am paid to do research, not teach, or measure my effectiveness, and furthermore, have the right to do research on the public dime but will NOT cowtow to anyone because I have academic freedom to do so, and there is nothing that anyone can or will say or do that will ever make me change, even though society is not the same as it once was, and I will stick to my dinosauric guns simply because I have been so empowered to do so...."

Nothing wrong with a few numbers. had academics been doing this when FIRST asked to do so (over 20 years ago), this discussion would be moot, BUT see above for WHY they did not.

Right on target, if a bit hyperbolic.

What I think most people miss in this debate is that the "accountability" movement did not start with higher education. You could trace back to Watergate or the Vietnam War the tipping point at which public mistrust of the pillars of society became dominant meme. Every now and then, you get a scandal -- check-kiting in Congress in the early '90s, the United Way misuse of donations in the mid-90s -- that leads to a burst of new calls for accountability and transparency. Higher education has rarely been the focus of this movement, but it is not immune. And it's not a right-or-left issue.

[high_energy_photons]

From Inside Higher Ed:

The document, "Putting the Customer First in College," calls on the U.S. Education Department to create an Office of Consumer Protection in Higher Education that would (1) pressure colleges to produce significantly better data on how well they serve students, (2) develop a system for making that data available for students to use in choosing a college, and (3) direct students unhappy with their colleges' educational practices to federal, state, or accrediting officials who can help them resolve their complaints."

(1) means assessment and regulation; (2) is a US News-type list.  In (3), notice how the new federal office would direct students to complain, but not provide support for taking down these complaints.  We've had to fire school teachers and police officers throughout my state.  Who is going to take down and respond to the complaints of students who have "unfair" professors, or the 2.1 GPA graduates in psychology or sports management with work experience consisting of lifeguard or Gap who can't get a salaried job "in their major," or any full-time job, the first year after graduation? 

Doesn't this sound the least little bit like creating a government agency, increasing burdens on existing government offices, and shifting responsibility for students' college and career success from students to colleges, for the sake of public relations?   College gives students the opportunity to make something different of themselves, and have wider choices in work and life, than are given to most people who don't earn a college degree.  It doesn't provide those benefits directly or automatically.  If we are thinking about it in terms of consumer services, paying for college is more similar to hiring a coach than to hiring a dentist.  There is a need to crack down on for-profit education scams, but is this the best way to do it?

I have no problem with #1 or #2.  I am not anti-assessment.  After all, assessment can take a variety of forms, and we already do assessment in education.  Making it relevant would be positive.  I am also not against rankings.  I think broad rankings of X college is better than Y college are pointless, but relevant rankings such as College X has a graduation rate higher than College Y in major Z are helpful to students.

I also do not agree that #3 means forming a large governmental agency.  What it does suggest is requiring colleges to provide students with the proper information to guide change.  For example, let's say that College Y has degrees that are not preparing students properly in Z.  Contrary to popular belief, many students would be angry once they determine their degree was not worth the paper it was printed on.  Where would they go to complain?  College Y certainly doesn't care.  Why not provide a venue for students in this situation to bring it up to the accreditation agencies?  What about the student who witnesses student loan fraud?  What about the student who believes his or her state institution is misusing state appropriations?  Where do these students go?  Most of them do not have the experience with higher education to know who to talk to about serious institutional problems, and the institution isn't going to help.  Why not provide a small sized service independent of a specific college that simply directs students to the correct service that already exists?

Yes, students are responsible for their own college success, but colleges have responsibilities as well.  Just because an education is a liberal arts one doesn't mean that it is unmeasurable, ephemeral, or perfect.  Why is there so much fear of measurement?  Also, for-profit aren't the only ones running educational scams, they are just the only ones getting press for it.

[lizzy]

This appears to simply be another step in an unfortunate direction. Students are no longer conceived as apprentices; rather, they are understood as consumers, who can select for themselves what constitutes a proper education. The whole point of assuming a status of student is to enter into a relationship where you are defined as knowing less than your professor or instructor. One enters into such a diminished capacity in order to acquire knowledge that he or she fails to possess. Therefore, how could a student possibly be in a position to complain to accreditation agencies without first acquiring the knowledge necessary to make such a determination.

This is going to result in more even lower standards or standards that reflect the interests of corporations in the economy, not standards derived from the ethical imperatives that shape the liberal arts. Students should enter into higher education in order to be transformed through intellectual cultivation. By letting the student dictate the curriculum, we are abandoning the liberal arts model, because the student is not being existentially altered, in order for the student to better recognize the good life; instead, the student is merely reinforcing prejudices that the student already possesses.

I have had students complain about their bad grades, because they had "paid for the class." This type of attitude is indicative of the culture we are fostering by adopting a 'customer relations management' approach to our dealings with students.

When I encounter this attitude (which is quite frequently) I point out that the student has paid for the opportunity to learn the course material. The grade reflects the extent to which the student has been able to demonstrate command of the coruse material.