MORE ON WHY COLLEGE COSTS SO MUCH
Hint: It Doesn’t Have to
Most people are aware that college costs have skyrocketed over the past few years, but it’s harder to understand why and to what benefit. Will this steep investment really pay off for our young people? No one really started asking a lot of questions until the CCP virus hit and students found themselves paying these exorbitant sums for online classes. The college experience no longer seemed worth the money especially as online universities with a lot more experience in offering quality were available at a fraction of the cost.
What Changed?
Universities didn’t hire a ton of new professors. Instead, much like our government, the administrative “state” grew like a balloon bursting with helium. In one report, Yale hired managerial and professional personnel at 3x the rate of growth in the student numbers. How does that benefit the students who pay for this? In fact, all these hired hacks do is interfere with teaching, slow progress and create rules, regulations and guidelines that impact the students’ freedoms.
Some of the growth is due to complying with growing federal regulations, most of which are probably unnecessary or of little value. They only help to justify the rapidly growing federal staff. But a lot of it has to do with administrators wanting more power, as noted by Paul Campos, law professor at the University of Colorado.
The other cause is an increase in student demand for services which are not a regular part of campus life. Demand for mental health services has grown substantially over the years as pampered snowflakes find their first experience with independence and adulthood too daunting. Most people of my age managed to cope with a lot of life struggles well before starting college and we also knew that if we couldn’t hack it, we would have to simply go out and work. The “scope creep” involved in managing students’ desires takes away from the academic experience. The job of our universities is to educate students to be able to function as working, and presumably successful adults.
Those managing the schools own a lot of the blame. Even in the ‘70’s, we had a variety of majors that would lead to nowhere, most of which had lowered standards and requirements. While the topics might seem attractive to an 18-year-old, if your diploma is worthless in the marketplace, you have paid gold for dross. I am reminded of a sign carried by a woman at Occupy Wall Street—“I’ve got a Masters in Transgender, Hispanic, Ethnic Studies and I can’t find a job.”
The DIE Project – Diversity, Inclusion and Equity
As Jordan Peterson has so recently stated as he resigned his university position, “the administrative state now includes a large and expensive number of administrators who manage the DIE efforts.” (And yes, I know that it is supposed to be DEI, but DIE seems more appropriate. Thank you, Dr. Peterson.)
As an example, Ohio State University published in required financial documents that they had over 130 DIE employees. Their combined salaries took up $13.4MM of the school’s budget. An estimate showed that this would have paid for more than 1,100 instate tuitions because of the high pay for these administrators. Note that these people don’t teach, coach or in any way add value to the educational experience. All they do is “promote.” This reminds me of facilitator positions at companies. They don’t do anything; they just “facilitate.” Great pay for doing little.
Looking at 65 other schools, a study found that for every 100 tenured professors, there were 3.4+ DIE people. When I went to Cal, efforts were underway to help qualified minorities to apply and come to the university, without all these programs and overpaid administrators. It’s a laudable goal to help attract students who haven’t had the easiest path to navigate, but this program has jumped the shark.
As Dr. Peterson found out, the most important thing valued in today’s professors is not their teaching ability, their experience, or their research credentials. Instead, it is how they plan to comply with DIE initiatives. But oddly, despite all these efforts, the number of graduates qualifying for all these programs hasn’t markedly increased. In fact, it appears that most students take many more years to complete their education and many simply give up, especially as they can’t afford to keep taking on more debt. It appears that these programs have the opposite effect on the people they claim to want to help.
More Costs to Students
Studies have shown that many students are shortchanged intellectually by their colleges, being less qualified for the workforce than the generations before them. It makes sense. If you lower the standards and focus on protecting students instead of having them face their misconceptions, defend their beliefs and struggle to learn, you rob them of their right to a quality education.
Most have lost touch with what it means to be an American and what rights, privileges and yes, obligations they have as a citizen. When a few malcontents can force an invited speaker off the stage, you’ve taken away the rights of many who wanted to listen. When you create “safe spaces” and define many important topics as “sensitive,” you induce fear in students who should be fearless, daring and open at this stage of life. (Plenty of time to get fearful when you’re in your final years).
In my field of IT, it’s likely companies will drop college requirements for employment as they realize that their best candidates have already been creating world-beating apps in their spare time. Colleges need to step it up and focus on their core mission or become irrelevant. Need/want college – check out the many high-quality online schools available.
Excellent take.