June 1, 2009
The high cost of higher education is something most Americans assume is ultimately worthwhile in the long run. Indeed, the cost of college degrees are increasing under the rationale that the market value of a degree makes the debt incurred – an average of $20,000 per student as of last year – worth it in the long run.
What if, though, the college experience was actually having a negative impact on our nation’s young adults?
A college degree still represents probably the greatest level of accomplishment for a young American, a symbol of achievement that, fittingly, given our culture’s egalitarian sensibilities, can more or less be attained by anyone with enough grit and gumption.
The latest numbers from the U.S. Census Bureau indicate that roughly 20 million Americans were enrolled in some form of higher education as of 2008, the vast majority, some 17.1 million, as undergraduates.
Now, with more students than ever before in college, one would presume we must be improving across the board when we try to measure the intellectual depth, technical know-how and overall managerial competence of the average college-educated citizen.
Oddly, though, we’re not improving; we’re actually getting worse. (more…)
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March 30, 2009
“Let’s be honest. At a research university like Penn State, education just isn’t the primary mission.”
So declared an administrator at Penn State late last year in a private meeting, explaining his view of the real purpose of Pennsylvania’s flagship land-grant university. This was his rather tenuous way of defending the lack of cost controls on tuition and fees.
What has surprised me over the years at Penn State is not so much the amount of institutional waste that exists at an ostensibly non-profit enterprise, but how frank so much of the school’s leadership is in admitting the failure of the institution to mind its founding mission: to provide an liberal and practical education to the working class sons and daughters of the Commonwealth.
The university’s annual budget stands at more than $3.4 billion. Ten years ago, it was barely $2 billion. There are other costs, too, like the interest on the nearly $1 billion worth of debt that the university has accrued over the years, largely as a result of its unending building binge.
And while the research-minded administrator quoted above is wrong about the school’s core mission today, time looks to be on his side. According to a recent policy report by the Commonwealth Foundation, a sizable 30 percent of Penn State’s operating budget in 2006 was devoted to research expenditures.
(more…)
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