“Our leaders don’t consider their offices duties, but rewards to enjoy and exploit. Our people don’t view government as a place to work through compromises for the common good, but arenas to defend their interests, extract concessions, and punish enemies.”
I’d quibble with the second bit. People see their government that way because that’s how it actually functions in practice. I think most people would actually prefer it to operate on a more bipartisan and cooperative basis, but I’m not sure that’s possible in our current culture where the moral framework governing society is itself a site of conflict. Without agreed upon values it’s pretty hard to agree on anything else.
I agree 100% that there is a LOT of "bloat" in the contemporary university--some internal, some externally imposed. But I think there are also a lot more costs than meet the eye to running even the "bare bones" university sketched here. For example, any university will need, at an absolute minimum, a president, a dean, and a registrar (to schedule classes and maintain transcripts). And you'll have to have a library, with both books and periodicals, which are head-swimmingly expensive, and a librarian or two. And, if you're going to do cutting edge science, you'll need more than just a well-equipped classroom--you'll need labs, supplies, and equipment. And the equipment will eventually break, so you'll need to set aside funds for repair and replacement. And you'll need someone to set up and tear down the labs and be in charge of ordering supplies and in complying with EPA rules about hazardous chemicals and biological materials. Plus computers (and in academia, computers--at least for student use in the classroom--do not generate efficiency, they are a cost center because to be competitive you need to constantly update licenses and therefore to upgrade the hardware to run the more advanced software, but since the purpose is to train, not to streamline the work process, there is no productivity benefit). Also, technology means you'll need IT professionals to build, maintain, and secure your network. Also, you'll need housekeepers to keep the place clean and maintenance workers to fix the lights and HVAC. Plus, of course, you have to pay for heating and cooling and insuring the buildings. And you'll need someone to recruit students and someone to administer their financial aid. If you would have music and theater (not necessary but I think generally expected) in your university you will need instruments, performance venues, lighting, sets, costumes and performance licenses. And if you have a full music program, you are going to have adjuncts, unless you want to hire a full time professor to teach every instrument in the orchestra. If you have art, you'll need materials, equipment, and more specialized spaces. None of this qualifies as "bloat" in my book, but it will drive the cost of providing this education much closer to the price of a non-elite university (a regional midwestern liberal arts school, for example) than the amount estimated here.
However, all that being said, I think that the reform ideas at the end are really intriguing. I especially like the national credentialing board--it would allow colleges to compete on quality, not reputation, networks, or performance in the NCAA basketball tournament*!
* a "cinderella" team advancing to at least the Elite Eight experiences a marked uptick in applications in the few years following the tournament.
I realize that the $1,800 per course is pretty bare bones. A university is going to need some physical plants and some administration. The idea was just to put into perspective how much more you could do with the actual education if you reduced the rest to something reasonable. I also wanted to show that this 1,800 was at a quality a doubt people would do. They would find great professors who would work for less, and classes could be bigger than 20, and you would have tons of money to spend on teaching.
“If voting changed anything [in favor of the poor and disenfranchised] they’d have made it illegal.” (‘Calamity’ Jane Bodine, in Our Brand Is Crisis)
.
Regardless of who runs and gets elected — especially when it's through the first-past-the-post ballot system (like governments notably are in England, Canada and the U.S.) — we live in a virtual corpocracy that masquerades as a real democracy. While the FPTP may technically qualify as democratic within the democracy spectrum, it’s still particularly democratically weak.
But FPTP does seem to serve corporate lobbyists well. Perhaps it's why such powerful interests generally resist (albeit likely clandestinely) grassroots-supported attempts at changing from FPTP to more proportionally representative electoral systems of governance, the latter which dilutes corporate influence on government policy and decisions.
Low-representation FPTP-elected governments, in which a relatively small portion of the country's populace is actually electorally represented, are the easiest for lobbyists to manipulate or ‘buy’. It's largely an insidiously covert rule by way of potently manipulative and persuasive corporate and big-monied lobbyists.
At least here in Canada, corporate lobbyists write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and have implemented, supposedly to save the elected officials their own time writing them. The practice may have become so systematic that those who are aware of it, including mainstream news-media political writers, don’t find reason to publicly discuss or write about it. ‘We are a capitalist nation, after all,’ the morally lame self-justification can go.
Do you need a chick-fil-a or a Buffalo shaped pool? The vast majority of expenses are garbage that has nothing to do with education at all. It is creature comforts for wildly entitle low-ability students. $5000 a class? That is what segments I know get payed for running an ENTIRE class.
The whole college experience with ALL of the things you mentioned wouldn’t come close to the cost of a cheap college.
I agree with you that our educational system should put more emphasis on cultivating civic virtue, but I disagree that it should be done primarily on the university level. Civic virtue is necessary for all young citizens, not just the top students. I believe this mission should be done primarily on the K-12 level (where it was done in the past, but this goal has eroded over the last 60 years).
And I disagree that we should be trying to get even more students into university. I believe that we already have too many students going to college, and it is resulting in a very high drop-out rate, grade inflation, and declining academic standards. Encouraging more students to go to college will only drive up tuition and college debt.
I agree we need to do more of this at the K-12 level too, but honestly little kids aren't going to get it. They're still learning to write their names and add. You're not going to get far explaining separations of powers and why it's important and why democracy means you don't always get your way. You're definitely not reading the Federalist or Locke, at least not until deep into HS.
I think we probably do have too many people going to college as it's currently conceived. Few people need what they're teaching. But a different kind of higher education would be good and needs to be widespread. The thing I'm concerned about is how you get a majority of citizens capable of managing their democracy, both in knowledge and judgment. You don't just want an elite. You want a population prepared to rule itself. If you don't do this with a majority it doesn't do any good.
I agree that K-12 should not be reading primary texts like the Federalist Papers and John Locke, but I think that are plenty of age appropriate means to teach civic virtue, separation of power, American traditions, etc. Most K-12 students are well beyond “learning to write their names and add.”
In fact, I think that covering it in K-12 is the only means to reach the majority of youths.
And I am skeptical that most youths will voluntarily choose to dedicate four additional years of study to these principles if they do not get some sort of a credential that provides material benefits in the long run. My guess is that only a small minority will enroll in such an education anyway.
The administrative bloat and “extras” that some commenters are mentioning are often a function of having to drag marginal students across the finish line. Why enroll these students? Rankings (where diversity and Pell ratios still matter, plus values), the need to hit yield targets, and the importance of those 4-6 year grad rates.
Why so many marginal students? It’s mostly organic demographic decline and demographic shifts, which pushes institutes to recruit more non-trads and overseas, but some of it is absolutely self-inflicted.
What do they do when they get too deep into the red? They actually do jettison the underperforming departments and superfluous roles - colleges and programs that produce grads with low salary starts (another important metric), DEI roles, etc.
I think the best long term solution offered is probably the one that Claudia Golden and Lawrence Katz pushed in their book “The Race Between Education and Tech.” Their historic model is the secondary Ed revolution from the late 19th-early 20th century, where schools were locally controlled, linked to community needs, and where tracking and a rigorous curricula equipped an industrializing America with the workforce it needed.
One thing I’d add might be the need to shift metrics from more short term ones to longer term ones, like how well are students doing 5-10 years after graduation. How well is the institute serving local economic and social needs?
Right now things are too student focused, with this idea that each student is some snowflake consumer around which to organize a bunch of bespoke high touch services. Sometimes this hits comic proportions, with large R-1s setting up wrap around centers for the “unwell” and struggling where they can get financial and mental health counseling while picking up food aid and basic hygiene products, like it’s some NGO in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Until these institutes are repurposed as strategic assets of the state, they’ll likely continue on their race to the bottom trajectory, because as market oriented institutes this is what makes the most sense. Want customers who want a credential? Go get ‘em. Is dependency and short term gain the goal? Then this is what they build and operate towards for.
For what it’s worth, I see a lot of promise in Trump’s DoE and DoS. Going after predatory admissions by targeting affirmative action and scaring away the foreign students and forcing institutes to look harder at people in their own backyard is a good start.
This article is very provocative; it provides an abundance of thought on what the role of universities should be. In doing this, it provides reasons why the shortcomings of higher education in the USA is one of the causes for our government not solving the big problems of our country. Namely, it describes the importance of citizens being educated in matters needed for them to know how to demand effective and principled leadership from those whom they elect. Thanks for the effort of composing it.
Way too many people, perhaps an all-time-high percentage, have to choose between which necessities of life they can afford. A very large and growing populace are increasingly too overworked, tired, worried and rightfully angry about housing and food unaffordability thus insecurity for themselves or their family — largely due to insufficient income — to criticize or boycott Big Business/Industry, or the superfluously wealthy, for the societal damage they needlessly cause/allow, particularly when it's not immediately observable.
I tend to doubt that this effect is totally accidental, as it greatly benefits the interests of insatiable greed. Apparently, the superfluous-wealth desires of the few, and especially the one, increasingly outweigh the life-necessity needs of the many.
.... A few social/labor uprisings or revolutions notwithstanding, it seems the superfluously rich and powerful have always had the police and military ready to foremost protect their big-money/-power interests, even over the basic needs of the masses, to the very end.
Even in modern (supposed) democracies, the police and military can, and perhaps would, claim — using euphemistic or political terminology, of course — they have/had to bust heads to maintain law and order as a priority during major demonstrations, especially those against economic injustices. Indirectly supported by a complacent, if not compliant, corporate news-media, which is virtually all mainstream news-media, the absurdly unjust inequities/inequalities can persist.
Perhaps there were/are lessons learned from those successful social/labor uprisings, with the clarity of hindsight, by more-contemporary big power/money interests in order to avoid any repeat of such great wealth/power losses (a figurative How to Hinder Progressive Revolutions 101, maybe).
Another very thoughtful article Frank! I think I'd tend to agree with the general sentiment of some of the other commentators that it is highly unlikely that universities would be reformed anytime soon.
The first area of university bloat is definitely administration -- if you look at California for example with its once vaunted University of California system (UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego et al) - most of the increase in tuition for these schools is due to the insanely high levels of administrative hiring -- I went to UCLA 35 years ago for a few thousand dollars and it was a bargain (and not a complete indoctrination center as it is now). But it will be exceedingly hard to change these dynamics especially in blue states like California because the Public Employee Unions (both K-12 and Higher Ed) are financially wed to the Progressive Party which runs the entire state. No legislation is passed and no politician is elected without the blessing of all of the Public Employee Unions there. sad...
I really liked Frank's use of the writings from the Federalist Papers because in theory I agree that the university system should have a role in creating a more virtuous citizenry. However, I think the other structural problem with Higher Ed in the US is very similar to the structural problems we see in other bloated institutions across the country (Congress, Big Business, Entrenched Bureaucracy, Military Industrial Complex, Big Healthcare, etc)--> Absolute Power corrupts absolutely. As institutions become larger in size, receive more money and become concentrated power centers (like monopolies), they become less beholden to their constituents (voters, employees, patients, etc.) and more interested in their own self-preservation and accumulation of power.
The latest example of this is the kimono-opening at the Fed recently-- why on earth does that institution need 400 PhD economists to keep prices low and employment high? Just one of many examples of bloat. I'm not all critique though - the answer to me is allow states more room for innovation to change their institutions (like how Florida is outlawing DEI for example).
Post-secondary education is a lot more messed up than primary and secondary schools. There's just so much more money flowing through and to them plus there's that opportunity to indoctrinate. I'm not sure it can be restored to what it once was through trying to change the existing system. People have failed to do that in primary and secondary schools for decades now. It's only been since the advent and growing popularity of homeschooling and microschooling curricula the past few years coupled with the non-liberal online options that there's been much movement in that realm, and we've all seen how the teachers' unions and leftists are screaming bloody murder at that. I'd bet that to achieve real "change" in the post-secondary world, it's going to take a similar methodology--establishment of new, very well-funded colleges and universities that are specifically non-liberal in structure, administration, and curricula. That then gives the graduates of the high school homeschools, microschools, and non-liberal online options a place to matriculate. Lots to think about and outline there.
I also was under the impression that a lot of the price increases of post-secondary education went to fund administrative positions. The brick-and-mortar costs can't have grown that much over the past few decades. I remember when I was a kid and my dad got some access to some budgetary data at the university at which he taught that that's what he learned.
I'm trying to write one article a month on the K-12 version of all this, and the next one is slated to come out this Saturday. Maybe that will be helpful to you and your readers . . .
The administrator problem is very bad. It's true this is the growing portion. The facilities were already out off control. Now administrator are about 30% of the budget and equal to or exceeding faculty and instruction. It's outrageous.
The challenge with universities spending money on garbage is so widespread it is shocking. I am looking at the moronic buffalo-shaped pool at UC Boulder for example.
A lot of this needs to start with companies who preferentially hire low-skilled graduates of the highest ranked colleges. I know they are low skilled, I interview them now. Instead of the college rankings use the difference in how the student is doing relative to how they started. A student who has four published articles from a satellite state school is far more impressive and higher skilled than a graduate of MIT with no published articles. But right now the low-skilled MIT grad has their pick of well paying jobs and the high-skilled student is lucky to have a job.
Right now the elite tend to be shockingly low skilled and society is suffering. They don’t need to be experts in anything really but they do need basic competence in many subjects IMHO. Right now, they definitely do not and the state of society reflects this lack of elite skills.
Technology does not help. Older high-skilled elite delegate power to a low-skilled youth. This is likely because the state of change is shocking right now.
I think the college consider their budgets almost unlimited because of the availability of loans plus donations. Then they spend it on anything that raises their prestige. There is no downward pressure that most institutions have because of budget to be sensible. What's shocking however isn't ow much they spend, but what they choose to spend it on. That silly pool instead of in the classroom.
If colleges charged more but the educational value also had risen with cost, that would be different. I am paying a lot more than my parents did for telecommunications but my the value I am getting is also much higher.
The problem I am seeing is that the education students have when applying to jobs is far less than it should be for what they have paid. Many kids don’t even have the most basic life skills. When was in the military this was common for people at the very bottom of the income distribution. Which is reasonable in many ways. However, one would not expect kids raised with essentially unlimited resources to be in the same state and think it is normal.
To sum up, my beef with colleges is that one needs to increase value with cost. Not degrade value and raise cost. Right now they are delivering little other than credentials and charging ever more.
“Our leaders don’t consider their offices duties, but rewards to enjoy and exploit. Our people don’t view government as a place to work through compromises for the common good, but arenas to defend their interests, extract concessions, and punish enemies.”
I’d quibble with the second bit. People see their government that way because that’s how it actually functions in practice. I think most people would actually prefer it to operate on a more bipartisan and cooperative basis, but I’m not sure that’s possible in our current culture where the moral framework governing society is itself a site of conflict. Without agreed upon values it’s pretty hard to agree on anything else.
I agree 100% that there is a LOT of "bloat" in the contemporary university--some internal, some externally imposed. But I think there are also a lot more costs than meet the eye to running even the "bare bones" university sketched here. For example, any university will need, at an absolute minimum, a president, a dean, and a registrar (to schedule classes and maintain transcripts). And you'll have to have a library, with both books and periodicals, which are head-swimmingly expensive, and a librarian or two. And, if you're going to do cutting edge science, you'll need more than just a well-equipped classroom--you'll need labs, supplies, and equipment. And the equipment will eventually break, so you'll need to set aside funds for repair and replacement. And you'll need someone to set up and tear down the labs and be in charge of ordering supplies and in complying with EPA rules about hazardous chemicals and biological materials. Plus computers (and in academia, computers--at least for student use in the classroom--do not generate efficiency, they are a cost center because to be competitive you need to constantly update licenses and therefore to upgrade the hardware to run the more advanced software, but since the purpose is to train, not to streamline the work process, there is no productivity benefit). Also, technology means you'll need IT professionals to build, maintain, and secure your network. Also, you'll need housekeepers to keep the place clean and maintenance workers to fix the lights and HVAC. Plus, of course, you have to pay for heating and cooling and insuring the buildings. And you'll need someone to recruit students and someone to administer their financial aid. If you would have music and theater (not necessary but I think generally expected) in your university you will need instruments, performance venues, lighting, sets, costumes and performance licenses. And if you have a full music program, you are going to have adjuncts, unless you want to hire a full time professor to teach every instrument in the orchestra. If you have art, you'll need materials, equipment, and more specialized spaces. None of this qualifies as "bloat" in my book, but it will drive the cost of providing this education much closer to the price of a non-elite university (a regional midwestern liberal arts school, for example) than the amount estimated here.
However, all that being said, I think that the reform ideas at the end are really intriguing. I especially like the national credentialing board--it would allow colleges to compete on quality, not reputation, networks, or performance in the NCAA basketball tournament*!
* a "cinderella" team advancing to at least the Elite Eight experiences a marked uptick in applications in the few years following the tournament.
I realize that the $1,800 per course is pretty bare bones. A university is going to need some physical plants and some administration. The idea was just to put into perspective how much more you could do with the actual education if you reduced the rest to something reasonable. I also wanted to show that this 1,800 was at a quality a doubt people would do. They would find great professors who would work for less, and classes could be bigger than 20, and you would have tons of money to spend on teaching.
Also thanks for the kind words about the reforms!
“If voting changed anything [in favor of the poor and disenfranchised] they’d have made it illegal.” (‘Calamity’ Jane Bodine, in Our Brand Is Crisis)
.
Regardless of who runs and gets elected — especially when it's through the first-past-the-post ballot system (like governments notably are in England, Canada and the U.S.) — we live in a virtual corpocracy that masquerades as a real democracy. While the FPTP may technically qualify as democratic within the democracy spectrum, it’s still particularly democratically weak.
But FPTP does seem to serve corporate lobbyists well. Perhaps it's why such powerful interests generally resist (albeit likely clandestinely) grassroots-supported attempts at changing from FPTP to more proportionally representative electoral systems of governance, the latter which dilutes corporate influence on government policy and decisions.
Low-representation FPTP-elected governments, in which a relatively small portion of the country's populace is actually electorally represented, are the easiest for lobbyists to manipulate or ‘buy’. It's largely an insidiously covert rule by way of potently manipulative and persuasive corporate and big-monied lobbyists.
At least here in Canada, corporate lobbyists write bills for our governing representatives to vote for and have implemented, supposedly to save the elected officials their own time writing them. The practice may have become so systematic that those who are aware of it, including mainstream news-media political writers, don’t find reason to publicly discuss or write about it. ‘We are a capitalist nation, after all,’ the morally lame self-justification can go.
Do you need a chick-fil-a or a Buffalo shaped pool? The vast majority of expenses are garbage that has nothing to do with education at all. It is creature comforts for wildly entitle low-ability students. $5000 a class? That is what segments I know get payed for running an ENTIRE class.
The whole college experience with ALL of the things you mentioned wouldn’t come close to the cost of a cheap college.
I agree with you that our educational system should put more emphasis on cultivating civic virtue, but I disagree that it should be done primarily on the university level. Civic virtue is necessary for all young citizens, not just the top students. I believe this mission should be done primarily on the K-12 level (where it was done in the past, but this goal has eroded over the last 60 years).
And I disagree that we should be trying to get even more students into university. I believe that we already have too many students going to college, and it is resulting in a very high drop-out rate, grade inflation, and declining academic standards. Encouraging more students to go to college will only drive up tuition and college debt.
I agree we need to do more of this at the K-12 level too, but honestly little kids aren't going to get it. They're still learning to write their names and add. You're not going to get far explaining separations of powers and why it's important and why democracy means you don't always get your way. You're definitely not reading the Federalist or Locke, at least not until deep into HS.
I think we probably do have too many people going to college as it's currently conceived. Few people need what they're teaching. But a different kind of higher education would be good and needs to be widespread. The thing I'm concerned about is how you get a majority of citizens capable of managing their democracy, both in knowledge and judgment. You don't just want an elite. You want a population prepared to rule itself. If you don't do this with a majority it doesn't do any good.
I agree that K-12 should not be reading primary texts like the Federalist Papers and John Locke, but I think that are plenty of age appropriate means to teach civic virtue, separation of power, American traditions, etc. Most K-12 students are well beyond “learning to write their names and add.”
In fact, I think that covering it in K-12 is the only means to reach the majority of youths.
And I am skeptical that most youths will voluntarily choose to dedicate four additional years of study to these principles if they do not get some sort of a credential that provides material benefits in the long run. My guess is that only a small minority will enroll in such an education anyway.
The administrative bloat and “extras” that some commenters are mentioning are often a function of having to drag marginal students across the finish line. Why enroll these students? Rankings (where diversity and Pell ratios still matter, plus values), the need to hit yield targets, and the importance of those 4-6 year grad rates.
Why so many marginal students? It’s mostly organic demographic decline and demographic shifts, which pushes institutes to recruit more non-trads and overseas, but some of it is absolutely self-inflicted.
What do they do when they get too deep into the red? They actually do jettison the underperforming departments and superfluous roles - colleges and programs that produce grads with low salary starts (another important metric), DEI roles, etc.
I think the best long term solution offered is probably the one that Claudia Golden and Lawrence Katz pushed in their book “The Race Between Education and Tech.” Their historic model is the secondary Ed revolution from the late 19th-early 20th century, where schools were locally controlled, linked to community needs, and where tracking and a rigorous curricula equipped an industrializing America with the workforce it needed.
One thing I’d add might be the need to shift metrics from more short term ones to longer term ones, like how well are students doing 5-10 years after graduation. How well is the institute serving local economic and social needs?
Right now things are too student focused, with this idea that each student is some snowflake consumer around which to organize a bunch of bespoke high touch services. Sometimes this hits comic proportions, with large R-1s setting up wrap around centers for the “unwell” and struggling where they can get financial and mental health counseling while picking up food aid and basic hygiene products, like it’s some NGO in Sub-Saharan Africa.
Until these institutes are repurposed as strategic assets of the state, they’ll likely continue on their race to the bottom trajectory, because as market oriented institutes this is what makes the most sense. Want customers who want a credential? Go get ‘em. Is dependency and short term gain the goal? Then this is what they build and operate towards for.
For what it’s worth, I see a lot of promise in Trump’s DoE and DoS. Going after predatory admissions by targeting affirmative action and scaring away the foreign students and forcing institutes to look harder at people in their own backyard is a good start.
This article is very provocative; it provides an abundance of thought on what the role of universities should be. In doing this, it provides reasons why the shortcomings of higher education in the USA is one of the causes for our government not solving the big problems of our country. Namely, it describes the importance of citizens being educated in matters needed for them to know how to demand effective and principled leadership from those whom they elect. Thanks for the effort of composing it.
Thanks Tom!
Way too many people, perhaps an all-time-high percentage, have to choose between which necessities of life they can afford. A very large and growing populace are increasingly too overworked, tired, worried and rightfully angry about housing and food unaffordability thus insecurity for themselves or their family — largely due to insufficient income — to criticize or boycott Big Business/Industry, or the superfluously wealthy, for the societal damage they needlessly cause/allow, particularly when it's not immediately observable.
I tend to doubt that this effect is totally accidental, as it greatly benefits the interests of insatiable greed. Apparently, the superfluous-wealth desires of the few, and especially the one, increasingly outweigh the life-necessity needs of the many.
.... A few social/labor uprisings or revolutions notwithstanding, it seems the superfluously rich and powerful have always had the police and military ready to foremost protect their big-money/-power interests, even over the basic needs of the masses, to the very end.
Even in modern (supposed) democracies, the police and military can, and perhaps would, claim — using euphemistic or political terminology, of course — they have/had to bust heads to maintain law and order as a priority during major demonstrations, especially those against economic injustices. Indirectly supported by a complacent, if not compliant, corporate news-media, which is virtually all mainstream news-media, the absurdly unjust inequities/inequalities can persist.
Perhaps there were/are lessons learned from those successful social/labor uprisings, with the clarity of hindsight, by more-contemporary big power/money interests in order to avoid any repeat of such great wealth/power losses (a figurative How to Hinder Progressive Revolutions 101, maybe).
Another very thoughtful article Frank! I think I'd tend to agree with the general sentiment of some of the other commentators that it is highly unlikely that universities would be reformed anytime soon.
The first area of university bloat is definitely administration -- if you look at California for example with its once vaunted University of California system (UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego et al) - most of the increase in tuition for these schools is due to the insanely high levels of administrative hiring -- I went to UCLA 35 years ago for a few thousand dollars and it was a bargain (and not a complete indoctrination center as it is now). But it will be exceedingly hard to change these dynamics especially in blue states like California because the Public Employee Unions (both K-12 and Higher Ed) are financially wed to the Progressive Party which runs the entire state. No legislation is passed and no politician is elected without the blessing of all of the Public Employee Unions there. sad...
I really liked Frank's use of the writings from the Federalist Papers because in theory I agree that the university system should have a role in creating a more virtuous citizenry. However, I think the other structural problem with Higher Ed in the US is very similar to the structural problems we see in other bloated institutions across the country (Congress, Big Business, Entrenched Bureaucracy, Military Industrial Complex, Big Healthcare, etc)--> Absolute Power corrupts absolutely. As institutions become larger in size, receive more money and become concentrated power centers (like monopolies), they become less beholden to their constituents (voters, employees, patients, etc.) and more interested in their own self-preservation and accumulation of power.
The latest example of this is the kimono-opening at the Fed recently-- why on earth does that institution need 400 PhD economists to keep prices low and employment high? Just one of many examples of bloat. I'm not all critique though - the answer to me is allow states more room for innovation to change their institutions (like how Florida is outlawing DEI for example).
Post-secondary education is a lot more messed up than primary and secondary schools. There's just so much more money flowing through and to them plus there's that opportunity to indoctrinate. I'm not sure it can be restored to what it once was through trying to change the existing system. People have failed to do that in primary and secondary schools for decades now. It's only been since the advent and growing popularity of homeschooling and microschooling curricula the past few years coupled with the non-liberal online options that there's been much movement in that realm, and we've all seen how the teachers' unions and leftists are screaming bloody murder at that. I'd bet that to achieve real "change" in the post-secondary world, it's going to take a similar methodology--establishment of new, very well-funded colleges and universities that are specifically non-liberal in structure, administration, and curricula. That then gives the graduates of the high school homeschools, microschools, and non-liberal online options a place to matriculate. Lots to think about and outline there.
I also was under the impression that a lot of the price increases of post-secondary education went to fund administrative positions. The brick-and-mortar costs can't have grown that much over the past few decades. I remember when I was a kid and my dad got some access to some budgetary data at the university at which he taught that that's what he learned.
I'm trying to write one article a month on the K-12 version of all this, and the next one is slated to come out this Saturday. Maybe that will be helpful to you and your readers . . .
The administrator problem is very bad. It's true this is the growing portion. The facilities were already out off control. Now administrator are about 30% of the budget and equal to or exceeding faculty and instruction. It's outrageous.
FYI, I just discovered this new education-related channel on here. You might enjoy her perspective on things. I am.
https://substack.com/@maggierenken
Thanks, subscribed!
Just gotta take the decades to build private alternatives and let the market work its wonders like it’s already doing decently well in K-12 land.
The challenge with universities spending money on garbage is so widespread it is shocking. I am looking at the moronic buffalo-shaped pool at UC Boulder for example.
A lot of this needs to start with companies who preferentially hire low-skilled graduates of the highest ranked colleges. I know they are low skilled, I interview them now. Instead of the college rankings use the difference in how the student is doing relative to how they started. A student who has four published articles from a satellite state school is far more impressive and higher skilled than a graduate of MIT with no published articles. But right now the low-skilled MIT grad has their pick of well paying jobs and the high-skilled student is lucky to have a job.
Right now the elite tend to be shockingly low skilled and society is suffering. They don’t need to be experts in anything really but they do need basic competence in many subjects IMHO. Right now, they definitely do not and the state of society reflects this lack of elite skills.
Technology does not help. Older high-skilled elite delegate power to a low-skilled youth. This is likely because the state of change is shocking right now.
I think the college consider their budgets almost unlimited because of the availability of loans plus donations. Then they spend it on anything that raises their prestige. There is no downward pressure that most institutions have because of budget to be sensible. What's shocking however isn't ow much they spend, but what they choose to spend it on. That silly pool instead of in the classroom.
If colleges charged more but the educational value also had risen with cost, that would be different. I am paying a lot more than my parents did for telecommunications but my the value I am getting is also much higher.
The problem I am seeing is that the education students have when applying to jobs is far less than it should be for what they have paid. Many kids don’t even have the most basic life skills. When was in the military this was common for people at the very bottom of the income distribution. Which is reasonable in many ways. However, one would not expect kids raised with essentially unlimited resources to be in the same state and think it is normal.
To sum up, my beef with colleges is that one needs to increase value with cost. Not degrade value and raise cost. Right now they are delivering little other than credentials and charging ever more.