Sky is Falling

This was a nice article. However, I would question Douglas’s statistic on US participation rates. His figure is much lower than other studies I have seen. Also, it is not the case that state support of public institutions has declined in absolute terms. The problem is that higher education’s share of state budgets has declined.

Robert Atwell, President Emeritus at American Council on Education, at 7:00 am EDT on June 12, 2006

The global challenge we face. . .

The leaders of The People’s Republic of China in Fall 2005 boldly announced they are going to build “a nation of Harvards.”

I was in China in February, 1979, the same week the United States established diplomatic relations. I vividly remember seeing the Secretary of State’s plane on the tarmac in Beijing (then “Peking") at the same time as our own. I recall walking a few blocks from my hotel in Shanghai, and hearing someone approach me from behind, walking faster than I, and ultimately passing me, all the while whistling the tune to “Yankee Doodle Dandy.” But fearful of making eye contact with me. Two ships passing in the darkness, I thought to myself.

Everywhere there were propaganda billboards proclaiming China’s planned economic greatness by the year 2000. At the time, looking around at the backward China I saw then, I wondered how it would ever happen, unless they were to embrace capitalism.

Over the ensuing 27 years, as we all know, the Chinese went on to embrace capitalism. And quite successfully so. Now, they are producing for us practically every consumer product we purchase and use here in America.

By buying our treasury bills to finance our deficit spending, the PRC has become one of our largest lenders, and our national debt to the PRC grows astronomically with each passing day.

Just as we were jarred into reality on October 4, 1957, by the U.S.S.R.’s successful launch of Sputnik, the PRC’s announcement in Fall 2005 was a wake-up call for America.

We should be taking very seriously China’s announcement that it plans construct a nation of first quality universities. Yet, unlike Sputnik, the news of China’s intentions didn’t even make the front pages of our newspapers.

Our current ongoing response to this plan by our number one competitor on the world stage is nothing like am ambitious plan to build “a nation of Harvards.” Far from it. Instead, we in America are building a nation of University of Phoenix campuses. Largely via federal taxpayer dollars that fund student tuition via loans and grants, the University of Phoenix has become our nation’s largest institution of higher learning. UOP boasts over 320,000 students and over 180 campuses.

Take a moment to think about the long-term implications for our children, their children, and their children’s children.

Daniel Robert Bartley, Qui Tam Whistleblower Attorney at Bartley Law Offices, at 12:10 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

$900,000?!

Please tell me where I can make that much in 5 years. I won’t make half that, and I have been a professor for 15 years.

drabauer, at 3:45 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

Truth in Reporting

NPR had a news feature on this morning about the reported disparity in producing engineers between the US, China, and India.

The biggest problem for the researchers was, how did India and especially China define “engineer?”

The central gov’t. in China told the education ministers how many engineers to educate and guess what?

The number of “engineers” graduating in four years was exactly equal to the number demanded by Peking/Bejing. Unfortunately for the hopes of the many Harvards of China, many of the “engineers” counted were more like stationary engineers or building custodians. They knew how to keep a boiler running, but couldn’t calculate the sheer strength of the boiler metal.

Perspective and good empirical data would help us know if in fact (and at what rate), the sky is falling.

Dr. F. Gump, at 10:50 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

sky falling

Just some problems: college has become something for EVERYONE, where it used to be a vehicle for HIGHER EDUCATION. Not everybody belongs in college, but the taxpayer subsidizes these people. Also, we are constantly told we don’t have the brainpower in America anymore. Yes, we do, we just continuously shortchange/underfund or ignore the best & the brightest: our gifted population. While we fund programs for the lower-end groups, the sporting events, the politically correct nonsense, lifeskills classes, ESL classes, our gifted population gets program cuts, resistance to taking college classes early, and revocation of their gifted protections. And the bureaucrats wonder why China is overtaking us? Perhaps because we fund them, educate them in our schools and shortshift our own......

kathy, at 10:50 pm EDT on June 12, 2006

It was just so much empty space anyway

“He notes that for the first time since the late 1800s, America no longer has the world’s highest rate of young students going on to a postsecondary institution.”

I can think of one prominent example, Japan. As the overall student population declined to a point not seen since the 1950s (Japan has had declining birth rates) the growth in classroom space continued to grow as the for-profit section (the primary provider in Japan) took advantage of construction and financial inducements. Eventually, the only possible way to put bums on seats was to make higher education more accessible—to put it politely. As the ratio of students graduating secondary school dropped, the proportional number of students available shrunk and post-secondary institutions responded predictably—entrance requirements dropped. Japan is fast approaching the point where the ratio of secondary graduates to tertiary entrances is 1:1. And it shows. The assurance of a seat at a daigaku (tertiary education institute) is also effecting the students’ motivation to apply themselves to their studies in secondary school—predictably also decreasing. (Why knock yourself out when you know you will get in?)

Ratios may in fact signal very different and more serious problems than what the John A. Douglasses of the world would have us believe. In Japan it signals an overweening concern for profit, corruption (kick backs on new construction on campuses are a national joke), cost-cutting through the increase of temporary and often unqualified faculty and staff, declining education standards and all leading to the very real danger that the next generation to run the country will be ill-prepared to do so and care little that they are.

There are other valid perspectives on this question of ratios. How about, tougher to get in and tougher to get through means better when they get out? If it is easy, than what is the point? What is the value of higher education? Why not build the best and charge a realistic fee? Why not say, get a daigaku diploma in Japan for a few million yen or get a real university degree in the U.S. for tens of millions. The market has room for both philosophies. It is the difference between a sword hand-made by a master and one stamped out by a cookie cutter.

Thomas Simmons, Dr., at 7:50 pm EST on February 20, 2007