7 ms·

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view

by nanairo 16y ago

I must admit that I am always a bit prejudicial when I hear an business person (or a business magazine like this) talking about universities. They seem to view Universities as a business proposal: "How much do we invest? How much do we get out of it?", which it shouldn't be. Take this quote: "If colleges were businesses, they would be ripe for hostile takeovers, complete with serious cost-cutting and painful reorganisations.”. My feeling is that the person who said it is thinking of streamlining it, removing subjects which bring little profit, and increasing those with profit. So out goes "geography" but also "gender studies", and instead more money is put into "pharmacy", "genetics", "economics and MBA". The result would be great from a business perspective, but that's what companies and business are for. If there's plenty of money many companies will be investigating in those subjects just as well. Instead Universities should also help the student become full rounded, more knowledgable even of things that may not bring money, and should let professors study subjects despite there being no monetary advantage. Where has the passion for knowledge gone? Let the student have a place to get knowledge, and the professor have a place to expand it.

yequalsx 16y ago
I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.
- timwiseman 16y ago
  No, it is that I do not want to be forced to pay directly or indirectly for someone else to appreciate art, literature, or music, especially not when there are kids down my block that are barely able to read and pot holes in the roads I drive on. That truly is not a high priority for a society with other more pressing problems. I am however quite willing to pay with my own money so that I and my family can learn to appreciate literature and culture. I am also quite happy to support the artists whose work I enjoy. But I am not happy to have tax money support it until long after ever child learns the basics well and the local police department is fully funded. [Edit, fixed typo.]
  - JabavuAdams 16y ago
    You seem to think that these are independent issues. I.e. if we just throw more money at basic literacy, road-maintenance, and policing, then society will be better. If we throw money at art and cultural education, then we're losing out on money for the above. The fact is that a lot of social problems stem from cultural problems. You can keep throwing money and teachers at those kids down the street, but it won't get them to read. Instead, you need to change their culture (and their parents') to one of scholarship. I find this "don't spend my tax dollars on anything that doesn't directly benefit me" attitude to be mean-spirited, but more importantly, to be one of the cultural problems that helps to foster the ills you cite.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      I find this "don't spend my tax dollars on anything that doesn't directly benefit me" attitude to be mean-spirited,... He advocated spending money to educate illiterate people rather than already-educated people. I think it's pretty clear he isn't illiterate, so how is he advocating only spending money that directly benefits him?
    - timwiseman 16y ago
      Yummyfajitas said it quite nicely, but permit me to say it on my own behalf. I am not at all saying do not spend my tax dollars on things that don't directly benefit me. I said that we should not spend it on things like art and literature until after we have taken care of things like basic education, infrastructure, law enforcement, and yes even universal healthcare and gaurunteed access to sufficient food. I am a great lover of America and I think (with perhaps some admitted bias) that it is a truly great country. But I know kids on my own block that can barely read and I pass by a homeless shelter with large crowds outside it on my way to work, and there is an active police officer sitting behind me in law school class because he doesn't make enough to support his family comfortably. I strongly object to spending tax money on art and literature until long after those issues are fixed. And no, throwing money at those issues won't fix them, but it would be a start. Money is not sufficient for a solution, but I suspect it is necessary (or at least highly helpful).
- nanairo 16y ago
  I think it's sad and I think we are sliding more and more into that mindset. But I also think the situation is brighter than you describe it in some countries. In Italy (where I come from) school is extremely generic, with around 12 subjects being taught in secondary school. University is similarly open, with courses being done simply because "it's good for the mind", and people being free to pick and choose courses, and even change degree. On the other hand it's a very old syllabus (especially at school) so there is a lot of pressure to modernise it. But EVERY time someone tries to modernise it and decides for example to drop latin, or history of arts from schools and add a foreign language and computers, you hear an uproar of people who complain that school (and partially Uni too) shouldn't be a place to get you ready for a job (for those you can go to specialised colleges) but instead one to feed the mind. But yeah, I agree with you that all societies are becoming less and less concern with non commerciable knowledge. And as long as we judge people's worth and achievements by their money, I have little hope this will change.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  There are two sides to a price calculation - the supply and the demand side. The price for teaching is low because the supply is huge - there is a vast pool of people who want to teach literature, and are willing to do it at very low prices. If a literature adjunct quits, the college can immediately go to the waiting list and find someone else willing to take the job for $5k/class. In contrast, if I (a programmer) were to quit, my company could probably not find someone willing to take the job for $35k/year. It would be very shortsighted if society overpaid for college teachers, just as it would be shortsighted if they overpaid for military contractors or the stock of bankrupt automakers.
  - yequalsx 16y ago
    I wasn't referring to pay as evidence society doesn't want to pay for art, culture, education, etc. The low pay is one consequence of this fact. There is definitely an oversupply of teachers in the humanities and sciences. But it is true that funding levels per student are decreasing and that there is increasing pressure to 'streamline' the process. This is a buzz word for cutting out the unimportant stuff like art, music, etc. It's bad for society in the long run.
  - yardie 16y ago
    You are making some broad generalizations and it doesn't exactly work like. Replacing any programmer is just as easy as replacing as replacing any adjunct. Replacing a specialist scholar is just as hard as replacing your special programmer. Adjuncts are Luke your basic php programmer. Thye know just enough to get the job done. But a university chair is like an architect, you don't give just anyone that job.
- 16s 16y ago
  Liberal Arts is a luxury that many cultures cannot afford. When you're just starting out or trying to survive as a culture, you need engineers, hard-core scientists and business people. Take China and Israel for example. The upper class can go for Liberal Arts at any time, but the culture as a whole will lean strongly to hard science until they're established enough to enjoy that luxury. Times are bad now (but getting better) and soft majors are not wanted, but when times are good again, they'll be more jobs for the softies to fill.
  - yequalsx 16y ago
    This is a most unenlightened point of view. Music, art, story telling have been part of human cultures for thousands of years. One of the finest aspects of being human is enjoying these things. Literature, art, and music are always needed. They make life worth living. Some societies don't have the money to make these things available to everyone. That's a shame. The U.S. and EU are societies that can afford to make these things available to everyone. Why downvote me when you agree with my original post. You yourself say that "soft majors are not wanted". Indeed, they aren't wanted but they are needed and it's a shame that they aren't wanted. There's a reason dictatorial governments always control the arts, music, and literature. They fear the ideas, the progress that these things bring to a country.
    - 16s 16y ago
      I've not down voted you. It's a matter of survival. I sleep on the ground under a tree until I get a sleeping bag, and then maybe a cot. Before I buy a nice soft comfy mattress, I need a safe, secure structure for it. Think of the liberal arts in this way. Once we have what we must have to survive, then we can go after the things we want as humans to enrich our lives and those around us. I love art and English majors... I just can't enjoy Rembrandt when I need a place to live or clean water to drink or a sewage system, etc :)
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
showerst 16y ago
I upvoted you, but on the flip side, we currently have a large number of students who are coming out of college with low real-world value degrees and huge amounts of debt. It's probably unsustainable to have 175,000 psych and history majors[1] graduating every year with 10-20,000 dollars in debt[2]. (Not to speak of all the business/marketing majors) I'm not saying that colleges should turn into work-training programs, but there's a huge impedance mismatch between the cost of college, the skills conferred by the degrees that most people get, and the rewards for those in the workplace. At some point, the average decent public university degree (in a non hard-science) will cease to pay for itself over the long term. Then the only people doing the humanities will be those of a class privileged enough to afford them, which is an outcome that I don't think anyone wants. Even when you take into account the often generous financial aid packages in the US, costs are still spiraling compared to benefits, especially in the less lucrative degrees. 1: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/figures/fig_15.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/figures/fig_15.asp 2: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2006-02-22-student-loans-usat_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2006-02-22-stude...
- Locke1689 16y ago
  However, this may simply mean that fewer people should be going to college, not that the university system has a deep flaw. If, for example, 100k psych majors are graduating only to work in social services or some slightly related field, should these people be going to college at all? Are these skills necessary for the workforce? It's important to recognize that just because we wish it were so, 50,000 psych and history majors won't suddenly switch to the hard sciences. Now, it's possible that university is instead a luxury -- if they have the money to pay for it, it's an extremely appealing situation. However, many if not most do not have the money to pay for it. In summary, I'm not sure this is a problem with universities, but with students. How do we persuade people not to go to college? P.S. When the author states that universities are weak and "ripe for takeover" he then uses STEM funding being too spread out as an argument. This is stupid because if we did consolidate STEM funding like he suggests, it would probably go to mostly the 50-100 best universities in the country. This would only solidify those schools' power and work against his entire argument.
run4yourlives 16y ago
You post raises a very important question: What is the purpose of universities? In my mind, the original goal of expanding knowledge for its sake alone is the rightful place of "higher education" and in and of itself means that these institutions will be expensive to attend and therefore not for everyone. The secondary purpose though of equipping a modern workforce is something that more and more, universities have chosen to assume. You fricken need a post-secondary degree to be a secretary these days. This is where the problem is. Current institutions should be forced to accept their role as either the former or the latter. As a society we should place less emphasis on the need for the accreditations that stem from the former as well.
rts 16y ago
You have a point, but keep in mind that taxpayers are subsidizing all of this through federal student loans and Pell grants. With the administration pushing student loan forgiveness, private universities, including the high-priced ones like Harvard and NYU, can sell people degrees in subjects like gender studies and religious studies that do little to improve the employability of graduates who possess them, sometimes for as much as $40k a year in tuition alone. Years down the road, when those graduates are unemployed or underemployed and can't pay back their loans, the loans will be forgiven, Harvard et. al. will keep the money they were given, and the taxpayer will have to eat the debt. If the government is going to pay for this, there needs be a serious discussion about educational outcomes and what best serves the national interest. Should we subsidize people pursuing degrees in gender studies or Latino/Black/Asian/Minority Interest Group Studies, and if so, why? How will that make us more competitive in a global market or result in innovation that improves our quality of life?
SandB0x 16y ago
Completely agree with the sentiment, however you may be overestimating the fully rounded student thing. Things may be completely different in the US - what I'm writing is all UK-centric, and somewhat anecdotal - but I suspect they're not. Here, everyone I know who studied "STEM" subjects really had to put in some serious work to get their degrees. This was true from modestly ranked universities all the way through to the top places like Oxbridge and Imperial. For people who studied humanities it was completely different. At the very top places/courses, yes, you would have a LOT of work. At least one large essay due a week, a mountain of reading material, and a deep appreciation of your subject. However just a few steps down, at slightly less competitive but still very well regarded institutions, I have friends who were given maybe three essays a term (semester), with many spending under ten hours doing anything related to their course in a given week. Sure, people are going do a lot of important growing up in their three years, but many will admit that their course is a bit of a joke, and they're doing it for the piece of paper, not because of an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Sorry if that sounds somewhat unpleasant, I didn't mean it to be. Universities should not be run in the cynical way that you fear, but something does need to change.
patinador 16y ago
You are right, Universities are not only for getting money or for making profits. Society should clarify what they want university to be, what is their goal. When the goal is well defined is time to think about the best method to pursue it. Money is one of the factors but not the only one. A place for knowledge, research and innovation is not a factory and can't be managed as such.
bh42 16y ago
Instead Universities should also help the student become full rounded Full roundedness is a financial luxury, of concern only to those who are financial at least relatively well off. If universities are serious about the love of knowledge, learning for learning's sake, and all that jazz, then they should offer 100% free degrees. If you have your own place to live, and can do the work, you should be able to get a degree full of well roundedness for absolutely no money.

by nanairo 16y ago

yequalsx 16y ago

I teach at a community college. The price is quite low (and my pay). Society does not want to pay for knowledge. It does not see a benefit in having people who appreciate art, literature, culture, music, etc. It only sees a benefit from electrical engineering and other such subjects. It's a problem of society and it's short sighted goals.

timwiseman 16y ago
No, it is that I do not want to be forced to pay directly or indirectly for someone else to appreciate art, literature, or music, especially not when there are kids down my block that are barely able to read and pot holes in the roads I drive on. That truly is not a high priority for a society with other more pressing problems. I am however quite willing to pay with my own money so that I and my family can learn to appreciate literature and culture. I am also quite happy to support the artists whose work I enjoy. But I am not happy to have tax money support it until long after ever child learns the basics well and the local police department is fully funded. [Edit, fixed typo.]
- JabavuAdams 16y ago
  You seem to think that these are independent issues. I.e. if we just throw more money at basic literacy, road-maintenance, and policing, then society will be better. If we throw money at art and cultural education, then we're losing out on money for the above. The fact is that a lot of social problems stem from cultural problems. You can keep throwing money and teachers at those kids down the street, but it won't get them to read. Instead, you need to change their culture (and their parents') to one of scholarship. I find this "don't spend my tax dollars on anything that doesn't directly benefit me" attitude to be mean-spirited, but more importantly, to be one of the cultural problems that helps to foster the ills you cite.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    I find this "don't spend my tax dollars on anything that doesn't directly benefit me" attitude to be mean-spirited,... He advocated spending money to educate illiterate people rather than already-educated people. I think it's pretty clear he isn't illiterate, so how is he advocating only spending money that directly benefits him?
  - timwiseman 16y ago
    Yummyfajitas said it quite nicely, but permit me to say it on my own behalf. I am not at all saying do not spend my tax dollars on things that don't directly benefit me. I said that we should not spend it on things like art and literature until after we have taken care of things like basic education, infrastructure, law enforcement, and yes even universal healthcare and gaurunteed access to sufficient food. I am a great lover of America and I think (with perhaps some admitted bias) that it is a truly great country. But I know kids on my own block that can barely read and I pass by a homeless shelter with large crowds outside it on my way to work, and there is an active police officer sitting behind me in law school class because he doesn't make enough to support his family comfortably. I strongly object to spending tax money on art and literature until long after those issues are fixed. And no, throwing money at those issues won't fix them, but it would be a start. Money is not sufficient for a solution, but I suspect it is necessary (or at least highly helpful).
nanairo 16y ago
I think it's sad and I think we are sliding more and more into that mindset. But I also think the situation is brighter than you describe it in some countries. In Italy (where I come from) school is extremely generic, with around 12 subjects being taught in secondary school. University is similarly open, with courses being done simply because "it's good for the mind", and people being free to pick and choose courses, and even change degree. On the other hand it's a very old syllabus (especially at school) so there is a lot of pressure to modernise it. But EVERY time someone tries to modernise it and decides for example to drop latin, or history of arts from schools and add a foreign language and computers, you hear an uproar of people who complain that school (and partially Uni too) shouldn't be a place to get you ready for a job (for those you can go to specialised colleges) but instead one to feed the mind. But yeah, I agree with you that all societies are becoming less and less concern with non commerciable knowledge. And as long as we judge people's worth and achievements by their money, I have little hope this will change.
yummyfajitas 16y ago
There are two sides to a price calculation - the supply and the demand side. The price for teaching is low because the supply is huge - there is a vast pool of people who want to teach literature, and are willing to do it at very low prices. If a literature adjunct quits, the college can immediately go to the waiting list and find someone else willing to take the job for $5k/class. In contrast, if I (a programmer) were to quit, my company could probably not find someone willing to take the job for $35k/year. It would be very shortsighted if society overpaid for college teachers, just as it would be shortsighted if they overpaid for military contractors or the stock of bankrupt automakers.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  I wasn't referring to pay as evidence society doesn't want to pay for art, culture, education, etc. The low pay is one consequence of this fact. There is definitely an oversupply of teachers in the humanities and sciences. But it is true that funding levels per student are decreasing and that there is increasing pressure to 'streamline' the process. This is a buzz word for cutting out the unimportant stuff like art, music, etc. It's bad for society in the long run.
- yardie 16y ago
  You are making some broad generalizations and it doesn't exactly work like. Replacing any programmer is just as easy as replacing as replacing any adjunct. Replacing a specialist scholar is just as hard as replacing your special programmer. Adjuncts are Luke your basic php programmer. Thye know just enough to get the job done. But a university chair is like an architect, you don't give just anyone that job.
16s 16y ago
Liberal Arts is a luxury that many cultures cannot afford. When you're just starting out or trying to survive as a culture, you need engineers, hard-core scientists and business people. Take China and Israel for example. The upper class can go for Liberal Arts at any time, but the culture as a whole will lean strongly to hard science until they're established enough to enjoy that luxury. Times are bad now (but getting better) and soft majors are not wanted, but when times are good again, they'll be more jobs for the softies to fill.
- yequalsx 16y ago
  This is a most unenlightened point of view. Music, art, story telling have been part of human cultures for thousands of years. One of the finest aspects of being human is enjoying these things. Literature, art, and music are always needed. They make life worth living. Some societies don't have the money to make these things available to everyone. That's a shame. The U.S. and EU are societies that can afford to make these things available to everyone. Why downvote me when you agree with my original post. You yourself say that "soft majors are not wanted". Indeed, they aren't wanted but they are needed and it's a shame that they aren't wanted. There's a reason dictatorial governments always control the arts, music, and literature. They fear the ideas, the progress that these things bring to a country.
  - 16s 16y ago
    I've not down voted you. It's a matter of survival. I sleep on the ground under a tree until I get a sleeping bag, and then maybe a cot. Before I buy a nice soft comfy mattress, I need a safe, secure structure for it. Think of the liberal arts in this way. Once we have what we must have to survive, then we can go after the things we want as humans to enrich our lives and those around us. I love art and English majors... I just can't enjoy Rembrandt when I need a place to live or clean water to drink or a sewage system, etc :)
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]

showerst 16y ago

I upvoted you, but on the flip side, we currently have a large number of students who are coming out of college with low real-world value degrees and huge amounts of debt. It's probably unsustainable to have 175,000 psych and history majors[1] graduating every year with 10-20,000 dollars in debt[2]. (Not to speak of all the business/marketing majors) I'm not saying that colleges should turn into work-training programs, but there's a huge impedance mismatch between the cost of college, the skills conferred by the degrees that most people get, and the rewards for those in the workplace. At some point, the average decent public university degree (in a non hard-science) will cease to pay for itself over the long term. Then the only people doing the humanities will be those of a class privileged enough to afford them, which is an outcome that I don't think anyone wants. Even when you take into account the often generous financial aid packages in the US, costs are still spiraling compared to benefits, especially in the less lucrative degrees. 1: http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/figures/fig_15.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d09/figures/fig_15.asp 2: http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2006-02-22-student-loans-usat_x.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/perfi/general/2006-02-22-stude...

Locke1689 16y ago
However, this may simply mean that fewer people should be going to college, not that the university system has a deep flaw. If, for example, 100k psych majors are graduating only to work in social services or some slightly related field, should these people be going to college at all? Are these skills necessary for the workforce? It's important to recognize that just because we wish it were so, 50,000 psych and history majors won't suddenly switch to the hard sciences. Now, it's possible that university is instead a luxury -- if they have the money to pay for it, it's an extremely appealing situation. However, many if not most do not have the money to pay for it. In summary, I'm not sure this is a problem with universities, but with students. How do we persuade people not to go to college? P.S. When the author states that universities are weak and "ripe for takeover" he then uses STEM funding being too spread out as an argument. This is stupid because if we did consolidate STEM funding like he suggests, it would probably go to mostly the 50-100 best universities in the country. This would only solidify those schools' power and work against his entire argument.

run4yourlives 16y ago

You post raises a very important question: What is the purpose of universities? In my mind, the original goal of expanding knowledge for its sake alone is the rightful place of "higher education" and in and of itself means that these institutions will be expensive to attend and therefore not for everyone. The secondary purpose though of equipping a modern workforce is something that more and more, universities have chosen to assume. You fricken need a post-secondary degree to be a secretary these days. This is where the problem is. Current institutions should be forced to accept their role as either the former or the latter. As a society we should place less emphasis on the need for the accreditations that stem from the former as well.

rts 16y ago

You have a point, but keep in mind that taxpayers are subsidizing all of this through federal student loans and Pell grants. With the administration pushing student loan forgiveness, private universities, including the high-priced ones like Harvard and NYU, can sell people degrees in subjects like gender studies and religious studies that do little to improve the employability of graduates who possess them, sometimes for as much as $40k a year in tuition alone. Years down the road, when those graduates are unemployed or underemployed and can't pay back their loans, the loans will be forgiven, Harvard et. al. will keep the money they were given, and the taxpayer will have to eat the debt. If the government is going to pay for this, there needs be a serious discussion about educational outcomes and what best serves the national interest. Should we subsidize people pursuing degrees in gender studies or Latino/Black/Asian/Minority Interest Group Studies, and if so, why? How will that make us more competitive in a global market or result in innovation that improves our quality of life?

SandB0x 16y ago

Completely agree with the sentiment, however you may be overestimating the fully rounded student thing. Things may be completely different in the US - what I'm writing is all UK-centric, and somewhat anecdotal - but I suspect they're not. Here, everyone I know who studied "STEM" subjects really had to put in some serious work to get their degrees. This was true from modestly ranked universities all the way through to the top places like Oxbridge and Imperial. For people who studied humanities it was completely different. At the very top places/courses, yes, you would have a LOT of work. At least one large essay due a week, a mountain of reading material, and a deep appreciation of your subject. However just a few steps down, at slightly less competitive but still very well regarded institutions, I have friends who were given maybe three essays a term (semester), with many spending under ten hours doing anything related to their course in a given week. Sure, people are going do a lot of important growing up in their three years, but many will admit that their course is a bit of a joke, and they're doing it for the piece of paper, not because of an unquenchable thirst for knowledge. Sorry if that sounds somewhat unpleasant, I didn't mean it to be. Universities should not be run in the cynical way that you fear, but something does need to change.

patinador 16y ago

You are right, Universities are not only for getting money or for making profits. Society should clarify what they want university to be, what is their goal. When the goal is well defined is time to think about the best method to pursue it. Money is one of the factors but not the only one. A place for knowledge, research and innovation is not a factory and can't be managed as such.

bh42 16y ago

Instead Universities should also help the student become full rounded Full roundedness is a financial luxury, of concern only to those who are financial at least relatively well off. If universities are serious about the love of knowledge, learning for learning's sake, and all that jazz, then they should offer 100% free degrees. If you have your own place to live, and can do the work, you should be able to get a degree full of well roundedness for absolutely no money.