Part Three is titled, Where Does All the Money Go? He dives in with these powerful words:
“Colleges play games by different rules” Where else is an hour 50 minutes, or a year, nine months? “…Their resources are vastly underutilized: A typical classroom lies idle the equivalent of at least 4 months a year,…” “Professors make up a rather small proportion of employees- usually less than half, and often around one-fourth. And, my favorite: “Cartels are illegal in the real world but are alive and well in higher education.”
There’s more. “Accreditation says little about academic quality. In spite of all universities aiming for “diversity”, the greatest arena for diversity, ideas, shows a remarkable uniformity of political and ideological perspectives.” And finally, “scandal and corruption are rife in the big-time college athletics systems at universities and colleges. They draw away academic resources and have an outsized influence on campus life.”
He takes pages to state the obvious- It is nearly impossible to see where the $500-600 BILLION is spent annually by American colleges and universities. But we know this. Higher education is labor-intensive. But- why have positions increased while student attendance has been declining since 8 years ago? He concludes it is a direct result of the “spend what you have every year” mentality combined with the never-ending student loans fueling this mindset. Ultimately there is a shift away from the core mission of educating students to provide students with a “college experience.” Oh, and don’t forget the huge hospitals, clinics, stadiums, and student life options that comprise the university and college experience today. What gets lost in all that is the academic aspects of college life.
And then there are the scandals. Athletes who are enrolled in courses they never attend (UNC-Chapel Hill); Sexual assault charges never investigated & hushed (everywhere + US Olympics); Logos, shoes, apparel payoffs to coaching staffs ( Ohio State & everywhere); and finally, specialty dorms, training facilities, and under-the-table payments to athletes (ongoing and everywhere.) Perhaps, the new ruling that an athlete can personally profit from their likeness will help us realize this; major college sports are the free farm teams for the professional athletic industry. We may enjoy it, but what is the price?
Finally, he touches on these issues- Is educating students our top priority? Apparently not. Academic research is declining, and there is evidence of decreasing faculty input in how Higher Education is “governed.” School accreditation is costly, secretive, and fails to provide the consumer with any information about the strength of their degree from any particular institution.
His recommendations are predictable- Higher Education must provide more information about their budgets, their REAL graduation rates, and the “output” or results of their education process. Universities should be incentivized to compete for students and compete with technology. If you offer a $5,000 reward to learn how to be an effective online professor, that might affect change in the system. Innovation is often a product of distress, but it can revitalize an institution, such as Antioch College and Sweet Briar College. And above all, don’t believe any system or institution is too big to implode.
Let me add one more idea. Let’s get real about student-athletes. Separate the “pre-pro” athletic programs from the degree-granting systems, and stop pretending all school sports are about student-athletes. Let each young person declare by their sophomore year if they will be a student-athlete OR pre-professional athlete. Stop the pretense of earning a degree unless you commit to academics, such as they may be.
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You, the parents need to know what is REALLY going on in Higher Education. It is not what you experienced if you attended college twenty or thirty years ago. College costs too much to just throw up our hands, throw our kids into the fray, and hope it all works out. That is one of the reasons fo the 30 million former students with college debt and no degrees out there. It is the only reason I write this blog and wrote the handbook, ENOUGH The College Cost Crisis.
Next time- Do you like free money for college? Good! It’s FAFSA time!
Until Next Time,
All my Best,
Bonnie Burkett
