Re: Too many college students?
Sure its good for employers to have more applicants than vacancies. But I'm not sure even employers really want to see a ten to one ratio! Treacy: Friday's Population column in the Wall Street Journal carried word about a U.S. Cenus Bureau report that found in 1993 that the age 25-34 group had a lower ratio of both high school grads and college grads than the 35-44 age group. This suggests that the younger members of the work force are not as well education as the older age cohort groups. This might also mean we now have lots of students who diddle around at being students rather than finish formal education. This might mean we should look at some of the reforms that have been implemented in Danish Higher Education which recently has put testing points and time limits for completion of degrees. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Michael -- Michael J. Brun ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 408 W. Elm, #3, Urbana, IL 61801, USA, (217) 344-5961
Re: Too many college students?
Sure its good for employers to have more applicants than vacancies. But I'm not sure even employers really want to see a ten to one ratio! The marginal benefit to them of additional job seekers must decline, and the effects of demoralization and social unrest must be seen as some kind of cost. If the whole system loses its legitimacy, that is not good for employers. Michael -- Michael J. Brun ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 408 W. Elm, #3, Urbana, IL 61801, USA, (217) 344-5961
Re: Too many college students?
People have spoken of "grade inflation" for decades, and also sometimes of degree inflation. We may now be reaching the stage where the college degree is what a high-school diploma once was. More than that, in the new environment of temporary private sector jobs, personal connections will be more important even than they used to be. Maybe the incredible rise of fraternities and sororities is not the sign of idiocy we'd like to take it for. The connections made through such groups may be the most valuable thing that all but the most highly performing individuals will get out of being at college. But at some point, the "scissors crisis" of rising tuitions and falling rewards will send people away from college and back to churches, where the bonding comes cheaper. Michael Brun -- Michael J. Brun ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) 408 W. Elm, #3, Urbana, IL 61801, USA, (217) 344-5961
Re: Too many college students?
Well, if it's any consolation, here at O$U we're consolidating and downsizing our communication and journalism departments in favor of "core social sciences" like economics (!), political science, sociology and psychology (all with a quantitative focus). At least this university is trying to avoid the overproduction of Dan Rathers. reacy Sidney Smith in the Edinbugh Review of 1809 saw that ancient universities might be reluctuctant to change their ways: "When an University has been doing useless things for a long time, it appears at first degrading to them to be useful. A set of lectures upon political economy would be discouraged in Oxford, probably despised, probably not permitted. To discuss the enclosure of commons, and to dwell upon imports and exports, to come so near to common life, would seem undignified and contemptible." From Corelli Barnett, The Pride and Fall: The Illustion of Britain as a Great Nation, 1986. [EMAIL PROTECTED] Tom Schumacher Dept. of Communication Ohio State University
RE: Too many college students?
I am also inclined to think that higher education should be freely available as well as publicly rather than privately funded. But I also think that this requires that we have a strong system of vocational and secondary education. As far as I can tell, for a great many in the US, that is often not the case. There is no apprentice system, and the secondary system is often the first place where cuts are made to balance state budgets, something which I find almost incomprehensible. What I was responding to in Richard Clark's post were the parallels between some of his arguments and the liberal positions that have now come to dominate in New Zealand, where I'm from, and which I see as driving ongoing efforts to privatise the education system. And I think it is correct to see much of the turmoil in higher education as being linked to the expansion in participation by previously excluded groups (as charted in Mike Davis's Prisoners of the American Dream). The vast expansion in college numbers comes overwhelmingly from what were traditionally non-participating groups. In that respect, de facto efforts to reduce the numbers in college can be seen as a kind of return to the previous status quo. Now, that is fine if there are other avenues available for education and the collection of the credentials required for entry into the workforce. But I am skeptical that these currently exist or are likely to appear any time soon. Where is the political force that might produce such a change? What is more likely is that such resources as currently go into higher education will simply disappear, and the needed expenditure on other forms of training and what have you will not appear. So where does this leave us? I am not inclined to see the redistrib- ution of leisure time as the answer, if only because I can't see this as a purely US problem. The redistribution of our leisure time means only that certain kinds of labor will be carried out elsewhere, usually at very low wages and in poor conditions. We purchase more leisure time for ourselves by shift- work onto others. Moreover, the kind of guaranteed minimum standard of living that would be required to enable people to live is not likely to be made available in this country any time soon (oh no, not another federal bureaucracy will be the cry). Redistribution of work, as per Schorr's argument, then leads to simply the proliferation of part-time, low-waged jobs with (maybe) health insurance and (maybe) tax rebates for the working poor. Is that the kind of solution we are looking for? So, where does that leave us, in our quest for a more 'rational' public policy for higher education? Certainly, the lust for 'core social sciences, for example, is mainly a nonsense, at least with respect to the kinds of skills required to carry out many of the occupations administrators presumably think they are preparing students for. In fact, as a one-time political philosophy graduate who worked in New Zealand's trade bureaucracy, such 'core sciences' seem more like a down-right hindrance to clear thinking and such. It was the liberal arts graduates who tended to be the high flyers, not the accountants and other 'technical' types. Certainly, some basic forms of technical literacy are increasingly necessary, but beyond that, it is right I think to see the undergraduate degree in many areas, certainly liberal arts, as teaching how to think. That function could be placed elsewhere. But that would require a re-thinking of at least secondary education, as well as massive investment in teachers. I guess for me the issue comes down to the prior question of 1) what is education for, and 2) what is the university? Depending on how you come down on those issues, answers vary dramatically. The simple fact of the burden subsidising education places on taxpayers (to the extent it does -- what kind of numbers are we talking here?) does not justify the kinds of changes we are talking about. There may be other benefits of higher education that out- weigh that concern, depending on the size of the burden. Mark Laffey Department of Political Science Kent State University
Re: Too many college students?
Does education only serve the purpose of producing human capital, which, if not realized through employment, is an inefficent use of resorces? Does not higher education have a use-value that cannot be reduced to a quanitative measure/its exchange value in the labor market? Peter Bratsis CUNY Graduate Center.
Re: Too many college students?
I appreciate the very thoughtful replies to my postings. My reply follows. I'm not saying that "_any_ form of federal, tax-payer support for access to higher education should be done away with," as Mark Laffey understands me to say. As long as the economy has any need for additional people with certain kinds of professional skills, let there be federal, tax-payer support so that such people are trained. All I'm objecting to is that working people with falling wages continue to be taxed to as to support the current charade wherein a _huge oversupply_ of college graduates, and people with more or less useless professional/technical credentials, are being cranked out. If "many employers won't take someone without a college degree," what does that mean? It means that they are using this bogus criterion as a rather arbitrary sorting mechanism, in order to choose from a huge oversupply of people who are all perfectly capable of doing the job! Remember, BLS says that 20% of all college grads are now working at jobs that don't really require a degree to perform well. (These are jobs that have never required a degree, in years past.) And in ten years that figure (20%) will jump by more than half, to 33%, says BLS, if current trends hold. Given these realities, how much sense does it make for tax-payers to spend many millions each year to assist mediocre college students to jump through the requisite hoops, so that employers can use this very arbitrary and obsolete sorting mechanism? (Studies have shown that re: the vast majority of jobs that college grads take, IQ is a better predictor of job success than are academic credentials. So why should employers be allowed use this demonstrably inferior---and, to the rest of us, very expensive---sorting mechanism?) Contrary to Mark's suggestion, I am not casting aspersions about the "gullibility or crass materiality of these students." I think the students are doing the best they can to keep from ending up in that group of laborers which American society is, increasingly, consigning to a sort of ThirdWorld-style underclass. The problem here, is that young people have an increasingly irrational and increasingly unjust system within which to make their life decisions. The median income of 18-24 yr olds has fallen by 50% in the last dozen years . . as the incomes of the top 2% have multiplied. Many of the young people at the bottom are, quite understandably, desperate. (Hence their growing rate of participation in crimes of violence, drug abuse, and suicide.) For an answer, I'm afraid we'll have to look to Harvard professor of economics, Juliet Schor: The only real solution to the problem is to redistribute the available work that needs to be done, so as to create more jobs of all kinds, at higher hourly rates of pay, with more leisure time for all workers. As soon as sufficient numbers of non-college grads can again make decent wages, of the kind that will (again) allow them to buy a decent house and pay for health care---without man and wife working/commuting a total of 90+ hrs/wk---a lot of these kids will lose their incentive to waste our money jumping though hoops on college campuses. Once again, if they want to go there to improve their minds, fine. But not to jump through hoops created by Creeping Credentialism and the employers who buy into it. BTW, there are lots of ways for people to improve their minds without going to a university and pursuing some cooked-up curriculum that's supposed to lead to some upper echelon position. Patrick Mason points out that "the relative return of a college degree has been increasing since the early 1980s," as has the "differential" between college grads and non-grads. Notice that this finding is entirely consistent with a scenario in which the incomes of the graduates of top universities have gone up at a very steep rate while the incomes of mediocre students from mediocre colleges and universities have foundered. A sharp enough rise in the first group will more than offset the gradually falling wages of the second group. Meanwhile, through no fault of their own, the incomes of blue collar workers have continued to slide---at least in America---as their productivity (the highest in the world) has continued to improve!
Re: Too Many College Students
_The Economist_ recently ran an article (August 20-26, p44) on Germany's much admired dual system of education -- two tracks, one academic, one vocational. It's running into trouble. The need for highly skilled blue collar workers is declining, the demand for more flexible generalists with greater social and managerial skills is rising. Now students all want to go to the university. Do we KNOW what sort of education is needed here? Cindy Cotter [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: Too many college students?
Well, if it's any consolation, here at O$U we're consolidating and downsizing our communication and journalism departments in favor of "core social sciences" like economics (!), political science, sociology and psychology (all with a quantitative focus). At least this university is trying to avoid the overproduction of Dan Rathers. Tom Schumacher Dept. of Communication Ohio State University
Re: Too many college students?
Although I appreciated much of the passion behind Mark Laffey's post, I do think there are important questions to be raised about the public subsidy of higher education. In one sense, I think it is inadequate, since I would like to see higher education freely available to anyone interested. (Whether they are pursuing job skills or intellectual pleasures.) On the other hand, with a _given_ budget for education spending I would find it much more justifiable to allocate spending to children's education and vocational education. Funds spent on higher education are largely a subsidy of people who already have a disproportionate share of societies resources and valued intellectual talents (i.e., they're already richer and "smarter" than average). It looks like a regressive redistribution of resources. So in this era of tight budgets, I say expand the loan programs for higher education but shift the grant and tax subsidy monies elsewhere in the educational system. --Alan G. Isaac
RE: Too many college students?
Sometimes I have serious reservations about the "left." Richard's remarks on education are precisely the same as though of Milton Friedman and others circa 1968-1973. This was precisely the point in time colleges and college financing were forced open to accommodate working class students -- especially African American students. But, if we are going to take this giant step backwards why stop with public funding of a college education? Let's abolish all public assistance for any level of education!!! Let education be a fully private good. That way, corporations and foundations will provide scholarships to the most meritorious students. Average students can receive an education by having their education financed through equity loans on their parents' home. If a student's parents do not a home or some other asset which can be used for collateral, then let the student borrow from private banks based on the expected future earnings from obtaining a high school diploma, college degree, etc. Under a fully private system, only those students that are willing and able to pay the cost of an education will receive one. And, no one is forced to subsidize someone else's education. 18th century liberalism? I'm down with it!!! patrick l mason
RE: Too many college students?
Richard: I think that there are two flaws in your posting. One, the relative return to a college degree has been increasing since the early 1980s, i.e., the college graduate - non-college graduate differential has been increasing -- especially for people with advanced degrees. Two, undergraduate degrees are designed to teach people to think, i.e., to develop analytical skills. Accordingly, specific majors aren't that important per se. peace, patrick l mason
Re: Too many college students?
If I understand this correctly, you are suggesting that any form of federal, tax-payer support for access to higher education should be done away with. The argument is that there is no room (or very little) in the higher echelon, which is where these people think they are going, so they should not receive any tax monies in order to attend college. Well then, what *should* they be doing? Should they be going to technical college? Is it justifiable to give them tax monies for that? Should they just join the (noble?) working poor? After all, who needs an education to operate an elevator, right? That's your argument if I understand it. Aldous Huxley give a pretty vivid picture of what an eficient elevator requires in the way of intelligence. It seems to me that plenty of college students are well aware that the jobs are not there, but also that such positions as are available are often based on certain skills which they need to get somewhere, and many employers won't take someone without a college degree in any case. So, I am not as convinced as you seem to be of the gullibility or the crass materiality of these students. If you are so convinced of the lack of meaning in what academics do, then the current downsizing of the academy should be of considerable pleasure for you. The market determines how many departments, how many professors etc. In the meantime, the well-off will keep sending their kids to college (they can more readily afford it), and the reproduction of structures of privelege will continue apace. But at least the poor tax-payers won't be paying for it... I think this entire argument rests on 1) a denigration of the rationality of people who choose to be students, especially those who 'aren't too bright'; after all, why should people who have been let down by the high school system, and American education generally, be supported by the poor old tax payers to learn some basic skills -- like reading and writing? God, it almost sounds like socialism. Let them learn at home, the same as they learn about sex. 2) an assumption that the kinds of skills that these people may be looking for -- which includes as a necessary by-product, not an either/or, clear thinking and the like -- are just beyond them in a college environment. Let them look for these elsewhere so that college profs can teach the smart kids -- who just happen to be easier to teach anyway. How convenient not to have to educate the also-rans. 3) assumes that the mission of the university is somehow settled, and not subject to revision in the context of structural change outside it. These people are then to be denied access to the resources -- of all kinds -- that the modern university contains unless they can pay for them themselves. Like the well-to-do can. See above. Surely it is at least arguable that the role of the university is to provide these people with information which will benefit them. That can take all kinds of forms. But why should not the wider society pay for it? Don't we all benefit from a better informed, better educated populace? Or are the merits of education only to be judged by whether you can get a good job at the end? I wonder how that plays for those who have traditionally been excluded from the institution. Presumably we shouldn't pay for them either. Althusser had it right, I think, when he said that the universities were sites of struggle. It is a pity that you have given up.
Too many college students?
I have no problem with students choosing to attend a university for the purpose of improving their thinking skills, to expand their breadth of knowledge in whatever subject gives them the most pleasure, or to simply enrich their consciousness and their appreciation of the human drama. But unless they can figure out a way to get wealthy patrons to pay for their academic endeavors, let them enroll on their own nickel, not at the expense of the beleagured taxpayers whose real incomes are lower every year. In any case, such noble educational goals are demonstrably not the ones that motivate the large majority of students to attend a university. You can tell that by the kinds of courses they choose. What the vast majority of these students are obviously looking for is some means to avoid ending up among that assemblage of ever lower paid workers in this country whose purpose is to make life ever easier for those in the upper echelons. So, above all, don't ask these poor wretches to help finance this charade---especially since most of the students will end up among those with falling incomes who are forced to help pay for the charade to continue! Let's face it: colleges and universities are increasingly engaged in the business of selling bogus tickets into the upper echelon. Without this continued fraud, there are a great many professors who would be out on the street.If the only way these professors can avoid this nasty fate is by helping to continue the fraud, then I'm afraid it will continue. But to ask educated working stiffs to _help_ continue the fraud is simply going too far.
Re: Too many college students?
Your point is well taken.
Re: Too many college students?
one benefit of "too many college students" is that *employers* can see a queue of job-seekers and then pick and choose the ones that are best for their purposes. This gives the employers quite an advantage in their relationship to employees. in pen-l solidarity, Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Econ. Dept., Loyola Marymount Univ., Los Angeles, CA 90045-2699 USA 310/338-2948 (daytime, during workweek); FAX: 310/338-1950
Too many college students?
How do we address the problem that many American students of limited talent are now spending huge amounts of time and money pursuing some brass-ring occupation, only to (inevitably) see their dreams denied? The fact is that we are educating many more prospective managers and professionals than we are likely to need. There are more students majoring in journalism at any given moment than there are journalists employed at all the daily newspapers in the country. A few years ago there were more kids in law school than there were partners in all U.S. law firms. In community colleges, vastly more students learn skills like AutoCAD (computerized drafting) than are ever hired to use those skills. Each graduate which fails to get a suitable job is led to blame themselves for their failure. Nowadays, colleges have to hustle for students by truckling trendily. If the students want media-studies programs so they can all fantasize about becoming TV news anchors, then media studies will abound. (There are, in any given year, about 300,000 students enrolled in undergraduate communications courses. Realistically, how many of them will ever have jobs in that industry?) In a sense, many colleges & schools are now selling an increasingly illusory and false promise of a well paid career. As the Bureau of Labor Statistics has pointed out, an ever larger percentage of these college enrollees will NOT make above-average wages. So what's the point in spending billions of our tax dollars to continue fostering this delusion? There are very real limits to the "American Dream." It seems to me that higher education is not facing up to that fact, and instead continues to sell illusions to the contrary.
