Higher Education?: How Colleges Are Wasting Our Money and Failing Our Kids—and What We Can Do About It

August 6, 2010 | By In Article |

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5 Comments so far

  1. Norm on August 6th, 2010

    It is a good book for higher education reform but not really helping parents with kids going to college soon. Parents can only choose the less bad choice with significant financial and geographic restrictions. To be clear, there are more systematic problems in America, higher education is only one of them.

    We happened to toured 8 top Ivies a week ago (Harvard and MIT last year). Although the total cost is high but the real cost depends upon family financial ability. It may not cost much, much more to attend the top school.

    The real education is through interaction with most intelligent and diverse people including world class professors. The prejudice against non-English speaking teaching staff from one reviewer is totally wrong. Many world class scholars are not native English speaker and they work and teach at top research universities.

    The conclusion of useless research at universities is totally wrong too! The best learning experience is independent research under the supervision of world class professors. It is not like going to your favorite church and reinforce your belief with like-minded people. you have to accept different point of views.

    I read this book for its very different view and embrace their ideas. I do not see this book as a guide for higher education. I have reservation for their picks of best colleges. Parents and kids, please visit the college and talk to the people to find out what is the best for you.
    Rating: 3 / 5

  2. AdamSmythe on August 6th, 2010

    The title of this more-interesting-than-I-expected book has a question mark at the end. That’s appropriate, because the authors spend most of their time and effort questioning the cost and effectiveness of American higher education. The book is interesting, I hasten to add, not simply because the authors ask and address these questions, but because they combine a lot of pertinent information in a relatively short and highly readable work. I don’t think it will take you long to read, in part because it’s hard to put down.

    The cost of a college education at a decent state university represents serious money for most American families, yet few of them know what to expect from universities. The four-year costs at many private schools can top $150,000 when you include all the incidentals–and that assumes your student graduates in only four years. All told, higher education is a $420 billion industry. That should be enough to produce high quality education for a large number of students, but that’s not always the case. Indeed, the authors make the case that “higher education has lost track of its original and enduring purpose–to challenge minds and imaginations of this nation’s young people.”

    How could this be, you ask? Consider this (say the authors): There is the equivalent of a caste system among university instruction: The highest caste includes associate and full professors, most with tenure. The second level includes assistant professors, most on “tenure track.” The third caste is represented by other full-time faculty, and these individuals typically handle introductory courses. The fourth class is part-time adjuncts, and the fifth class is graduate students. The authors make the case that at many universities the lowest two castes do the bulk of undergraduate teaching, while the upper three classes (sometimes more interested in research, writing and publishing) control what happens on many a campus–too often guided by self interest, not the students’ interest.

    Here are two more examples: The authors cite a relatively small private college in Massachusetts, where over 70% of its employees (695 out of 984) do something other than teach. For example, there are 84 athletic coaches, 93 fund-risers, etc. Then there’s the small section seminar courses at a well-known college where the professors don’t even read student papers (teaching fellows do).

    Okay, hopefully you’ve got the picture of what the authors have set out to do. I’m not going to address the whole book and spoil it for you. I’ll just add that the authors not only research and discuss a number of important issues regarding higher education, but they also propose specific suggestions to make higher education in America more effective and affordable. (Although they point out a number of problems in higher education, they recognize that there are many highly devoted professors and truly effective schools in America. There just aren’t enough.)

    In sum, this is an important book, because so much of our national character and international competitiveness depends on the quality and availability of higher education. The book is well researched, well written and can be easily understood by most readers. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in higher education. I’d say it’s a must read for parents of students.

    Rating: 5 / 5

  3. Julia Cass on August 6th, 2010

    I admire the authors of this book for their fearlessness and directness. Those who went to college years ago, as I did, will be stunned by the changes – primarily the growth of all sorts of things, some very ridiculous, that have nothing to do with teaching and education. The authors make the case that the qualities important to educating students – like good teacher to student ratios and more professors than adjuncts teaching core courses – are the first to be cut while coaches for obscure sports, resort style gyms, and a panoply of counselors and centers are being added, at great expense. They take on the perks of tenured professors – who wouldn’t like lifetime job security, high pay in comparison to hours worked, and a paid vacation every seven years! – and trendy, post-modern courses. Read some of their examples from college catalogues and you wonder, what IS this? All of their targets have advocates ( many, of course, benefiting from the status quo) and they are sure to howl. This is a shoot-em as they see ‘em book – it would be hard to peg it as conservative or liberal. That alone is rare in this hyper polarized era. The book is well written, even entertaining, and their recommendations seem sound.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  4. Donne on August 6th, 2010

    My family has just been through the college applications ordeal (twice), and this excellent book hits a raw nerve. We went through endless talks and tours about everything from branding to food courts, thinking, “Where’s the education?” These two authors have taken a no-holds-barred look at the American university system, and what the result isn’t pretty. It’s just good solid reporting (so one question is, why hasn’t someone done it before?)

    They show us many of the problems “behind the curtain.” One is the quiet scandal of the teaching industry, in which tenured professors minimize undergraduate contact, and underpaid adjuncts and ill-prepared graduate students shoulder the real teaching burden. Another issue involves the swelling, costly armies of administrators, serving ever-expanding categories of political correctness. (How many paid staff do you need to serve various communities on an individual basis — minority, gay, part-time, etc etc etc? Are they really better served in the end?) Then there are the multi-million dollar sports facilities, along with the myth that they bring in revenue for the colleges. (Very rarely, report the authors; they’re usually an economic drain.) Why isn’t the “brand” of the institution associated with the quality of the undergraduate teaching? One reason, we learn, is that the big prestigious institutions place more emphasis on research, graduate schools and the comfort of tenured faculty over the undergraduate curriculum. (Yes, Ivies, they’re talking about you. And as an Ivy grad, I can only agree.)

    The real tragedy is that there are all kinds of crises in undergraduate education that aren’t being addressed by colleges: legions of liberal arts grads facing a hostile job market. A binge drinking epidemic of historic proportions. The staggering loads of debt that burden many recent graduates.

    This book is highly readable, provocative, and a much-needed reality check. My only real criticism is that occasionally the authors overreach themselves in terms of the issues they tackle. Online learning, for example, is a large and complex question, and their cursory chapter can’t really do justice to the broader discussion of how and when it works. The book’s real strengths are in the economic analysis, where it tracks tuitions and revenues and shows us where the money is going.

    I’m sure Higher Education? will hit some raw nerves in the academic establishment — but it’s about time universities answer for the vast cost increases they’ve been imposing on middle-class American families. Overall, the book is not written to be a definitive scholarly assessment — it’s more of an opening salvo in an urgent national debate that must take place if U.S. higher education is going to remain solvent and competitive in the years to come.
    Rating: 5 / 5

  5. Loyd E. Eskildson on August 6th, 2010

    U.S. higher education is a $240 billion business, and $250,000 is the going cost for four-years at most top-tier colleges. Even four years at Michigan State’s ‘in-state rate’ can run $100,000. Graduating with a six-figure debt is becoming increasingly common – and not a good way to enter today’s job market. Authors Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreifus are also upset that over half of this is for vocational training – nursing, resort management, sports management, fashion merchandising, etc. Like medicine, higher education is responsible to no one – yet, both sometimes also offer the world’s best product. ‘Higher Education’ contends that our system of higher education is broken, and does a good job of proving it.

    Over the past 30 years the inflation-adjusted’ cost of higher education has risen 300% for public schools, 250% at their private counterparts, and it isn’t hard to see why. Professors are well-paid for not much teaching. Average pay for a full professor (usually reached in one’s early 40′s) was $109,000 in 2008-09, compared to salaried lawyers ($91,000), chemical engineers ($80,000), and financial analysts ($72,000); their average pay has grown about 50% after inflation in recent years. Yet at eg. Kenyon College in Ohio, professors teach only five courses/year and receive a sabbatical every 7th year. This amounts to an average 381 classroom and office hours/year for $92,000. At Yale, its three courses/year, with a semester off after five semesters – amounting to 213 hours/year for $174,000. On a per-hour basis this comes to $242 at Kenyon and $820 at Yale, plus free tuition for professors’ children, and subsidized rent or mortgage in some instances (eg. Princeton, Stanford). As for other duties, some is taken up in useless committee meetings, preparing for class, grading exams and papers, and research. Hacker and Dreifus, however, also report the story of a student sitting in the back of class and not taking notes – turns out she had her mother’s notes taken years earlier from the same instructor, and the material hadn’t changed. At Yale, grading papers and exams is done by $20,000/year teaching assistants.

    ‘Academic research’ is the reason most often given for low teaching loads. Harvard, for example, gives even non-tenured a year off to complete a promotion-worthy book. The hidden question, however, is how useful are the results? Curing cancer is one thing, says Claudia Dreifus, but “when 3,000 people are writing articles on William Faulkner, that’s not exactly curing cancer.” Twenty years ago “Science” reported only 45% of articles in the 4,500 top scientific journals were cited within the first five years; in a 2009 “Online Information Review” article, Peter Jasco found this had fallen to 40.6% from 2002-06 for the top science and social-science journals. The result – the added useless verbiage makes subsequent researchers’ job more difficult (Bauerlein, Gad-el-Hak, McKelvey, and Trimble – “The Chronicle of Higher Education,” 6/13/2010). Even cited research is often useless – Julious Axelrod, 1970 Nobel-winner in medicine, points out that “99% of the discoveries (read ‘important and useful’) are made by 1% of the scientists.” Then there’s the thousands of university economists who can’t agree on much between themselves except that ‘Smoot-Hawley tariffs prolonged and deepened the Great Depression’ – mathematically impossible since net trade then was less than 1% of GDP. (Nonetheless, the Free Trade myth lives on, and millions of Americans have lost their jobs, benefits, or financial security as a result.)

    In 1975, 43% of undergraduate college teachers were classified as ‘contingents’ – instructors, visiting professors, teaching assistants; now it is 70% – the growth is presumably needed to cover sabbaticals and research duty of tenured staff.

    Overhead growth is another major cost contributor. The authors use Williams College, 2nd oldest in Mass., as an example. Over 70% of its 984 employees are non-teaching – 84 athletic coaches, 73 fund raisers, 20 art museum staff, 42 IT, 244 buildings and grounds and cafeteria workers. Swarthmore has 253 administrators for 1,472 students, and Wilmington (much lower endowment) only 81 for 1,490.

    Dropout rates is a topic that needs more attention from the authors. U.S. Dept. of Education figures report about half never graduate – a major waste of time and money.

    “Higher Education” ends with several recommendations, such as ending tenure, and provides a list of colleges/universities the authors’ like – eg. MIT (treats their teaching assistants well), and Arizona State University (improved scholarship). However, the authors probably were unaware that ASU pays its teaching staff so much that the library is starving for new books, has added innumerable administrative and support staff in recent decades, has atrocious undergraduate graduation rates (30% – 4 years, 56% – 6 years), and its College of Business Dean’s attention is diverted by several (presumably paid) board memberships.

    Bottom-Line: Hacker and Dreifus’ “Higher Education” exposes a scandalous situation that merits attention and action. The government could start by forcing/encouraging major cost reductions, starting with two- and three-year graduation programs, tighter entrance standards, overhead reductions, salary freezes or reductions, publicizing graduation rates and starting salaries/program, etc. as requisites for participating in its student-loan program. True, right-wing ideologues will object, but someone needs to point out that when students default on these high costs, they’re the ones that end up paying, along with you and I.

    Rating: 5 / 5

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