Declining by Degrees: Higher Education at Risk

March 9, 2010 | By In Article |

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5 Comments so far

  1. Johny Kevin on March 9th, 2010

    BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Several people in my family, including me, have college degrees. I received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 2005 from an average state university. In addition, I was awarded an associate’s degree in 2002 from a school that everyone says is the easiest junior college. Also, my father received his bachelor’s degree in political science from UCLA around the year 1966. UCLA did not have the level of prestige that it has today, but it was still a well respected university. Likewise, my mother completed her first year of college at UCLA and then transferred to Boston University to complete the rest of her bachelor’s degree. She received her degree in sociology around the year 1968.

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    In this video, John Merrow claims that higher education in America has declined in standards and quality over the past 25 years. However, based on what my parents have told me, I seriously doubt it. After they described their experiences, I have learned that the quality of higher education today is just as good if not better than it was 40 years ago.

    First, higher education critics complain that the college students today receive less work compared to forty years ago, but my father telling me about his college years has made me believe otherwise. Today one can usually get by without doing any of the assigned readings, because usually the exams are mainly based on the class lectures. However, this was also true when my father went to UCLA. Furthermore, I had about the same amount of reading that he had even at the junior college. We both had about 30 pages of reading per week in each course.

    Not only have I not received any less work than my parents, they told me that throughout my college career, I actually received more work than they did. At the junior college alone, I was given more writing assignments than they were. While I attended this junior college, I had a term paper in almost every class (excluding math courses) even though my father had a total of only about 3 papers throughout his entire time as an undergraduate. This is despite everyone saying that this school is easier than all the other junior colleges. In addition, at the four year university, I was required to do a major research project at the end of my senior year (called the senior thesis). I was supposed to write a 20 – 30 page paper on my research for this project. My father never had to do any project like that.

    In addition to describing their college education, my father has concluded based on his experience teaching law school for the past 30 years that today’s college graduates are just as educated as they were yesterday. During that period, he taught only first year students, all of whom had bachelor’s degrees, and he has not noticed any change in the quality of his students over the years. This is despite the fact that college is supposed to prepare one for law school by teaching one how to think. For example, an undergraduate education is supposed to develop ones own critical thinking skills, analytical skills, etc. These skills are needed to succeed in law school. Given this and that he taught only first year students, if undergraduate education has really declined, my father would have noticed it. He has not.

    Overall, this video does not seem to match up to reality. I have learned by talking to my mother and father that the quality of higher education in America today is at least as good as it was yesterday. Therefore, I know that the entire premise of this video is false. Don’t waste your money buying it.
    Rating: 1 / 5

  2. John A. Wielmaker on March 9th, 2010

    This two-hour analysis of contemporary American higher education articulates several critical issues in a coherent and trenchant manner.

    Within a two-hour period, the producers very effectively manage to brush an integrated issue-centered portrait of higher education. The picture they paint presents viewers with a disconcerting sense that something is deeply and structurally flawed in the American academy.

    Specific issues include:

    1) The commercialization of higher education, especially in college sports;

    2) the decline of teaching in favor of “research”;

    3) the increasing cost of higher education for students;

    4) the lack of coherence and structure within public higher education entities;

    5) the reality of “uneducated” college graduates; and

    6) the suboptimal levels of dog-eat-dog competition among peer institutions for ever-higher (perhaps spurious) rankings.

    These and other issues are given concrete expression in the several case studies of widely varying students over a one year period. The sometimes abstract issues are brought closer to home when we see what, for example, higher costs mean for folks who are not born into privilege.

    Also very useful was the insertion of commentary by experts – I found the very articulate Lara Couturier’s remarks particularly helpful and insightful. However, all the experts assembled by the producers were dead-on in their analyses (my bias!).

    One criticism I have perhaps may reflect less on the substance of the documentary than on what was excluded from the work. Of particular relevance is the perennial issue of faculty work load. It is no secret that faculty, especially tenured faculty, have considerable amounts of….free time.

    Research clearly shows over the last few decades there has been a declining number of hours spent teaching in the classroom among tenured faculty at large universities. If faculty are teaching less, and student enrollment is increasing, then the effective demand for instruction increases while the effective supply of instruction decreases. The result is the costs of instruction increase, and this increase is passed on students and state legislatures (taxpayers).

    The faculty, after all, are the productive human capital producing educated & degreed individuals. Students “consume” the faculty’s profession of knowledge!

    To be fair, the documentary skirted the issue by noting a professor at Amherst makes $113,000 per year to teach four classes.

    An excellent documentary!!

    Rating: 5 / 5

  3. Anonymous on March 9th, 2010

    As a non-tenured college professor struggling between trying to maintain scholarly excellence, inspiring students to work, and appeasing increasingly unreasonable demands from administration, I thought I’d do myself AND students a service by, perhaps, showing them this film. It was not what I had hoped it would be. While the documentary starts strong, with some fun yet somewhat disturbing interviews with students who seem to find plenty of time to party, yet sleep in classes and end up having to drop out, it soons fizzles out into a boring, often disconnected narrative about the beurocratic system and its budget-based decisions.

    What is most disconcerting is a manipulative “cheap-shot” at one especially inarticulate professor, who, when posed with the question, “One would say that it is because you are boring that students are not interested in studying” cannot seem to muster any better of a response than “I think you’re playing devil’s advocate. I don’t think I am boring.” In fact, an appropriate response would have been to pose this question: “Education has never been more entertaining than it is today; yet learning outcomes have steadily declined almost a la par with the rise in “entertaining” education.” Or better yet, “Why does neuorsurgery or nuclear physics or even comp studies have to compete with PS2 and Ninja Turtles?” To reinforce the idea that it is professors who are boring and are to blame, the narrative switches to one astronomy professor endowed generously enough with technological equipment to make most liberal arts professor balk, and apparently endless time on his hands to make cute little overhead displays and multiple choice questions that, one presumes from the documentary set up, regular features of every lecture. Quick shots of students laughing give the impression that students are actually “engaged” when, as a veteran professor, I got the distinct impression that they were “entertained” — a term which has no definitive connection to learning outcomes.

    While the documentary talks about professors having the pressure to publish, it does not bother to remind the viewers what the reason for that pressure is: that a college professor needs to stay informed in her discipline in order to ensure quality of education. A professor who has fallen out of touch with her discipline/field, because, say, she didn’t have time to attend conferences, read what others have published and/or contribute articles and research of her own, is of no use to the university or the students.

    The discrepancy between state professors shown teaching 120 students and earning 65k in institutions of dubious prestige and private college professors teaching 18 students and earning 130K in highly prestigious private institutions is glossed over at supersonic speed in this otherwise slow and mostly drawn out drama of higher education.

    THE POINT THAT THERE IS A DIRECT RATIO BETWEEN HOW MANY STUDENTS A PROFESSOR HAS TO TEACH AND THE OUTCOME OF THAT TEACHING IS NEVER EVEN TOUCHED UPON, even though this is perhaps the most trenchant culprit of declining education.

    The rest rants on about the complex politics of college moneys – interesting only to those who understand the field or are in it (like professors and administrators) but, I suspect, largely boring for the general public and too complex to be understood in even these drawn out segments.

    Overall this was a disappointment. Someone ought to do a better job.
    Rating: 2 / 5

  4. Matthew Curtis on March 9th, 2010

    In response to the original reviewer: maybe you should have watched the movie before showing it to your students. It’s teaching of this nature that this movie highlights. And perhaps teachers in higher education aren’t that great lately is due to — as this documentary highlights — the fact that they’re under paid, over worked, and poorly treated. I know, I’m a college instructor, too, and I coordinate a tutoring center, so I have a very clear idea of what the current state of affairs is. I think this movie brings up some very current important issues that a lot of people outside of academia — and even some inside — just don’t even realize.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  5. Amy Smith on March 9th, 2010

    discussion of higher education, a little narrowly focused on certain kinds of institutions (large not highly selective state schools).
    Rating: 4 / 5

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