Quote:
Originally Posted by TOMAHAWK9521
Our universities are the most monolithic institutions in America. There may be more ideological diversity in the Taliban. Here are few figures:
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(Chuckle). True.
The problem is, in my opinion, a bit more complex. The government at every level
does control the Universities - they do it with budgets, with policy on student loans and grants, and with various legislation. It controls them through grants, such as from the National Institute of Health, the U.S. Department of Education, and so forth.
However, there is another side to this coin. No doubt you recall the frequent discussions of the revolving door between government and lobbying firms. But notice carefully that much of senior officialdom goes through the full course of the academic experience - or, if you prefer, academic indoctrination. Notice how many top officials have doctoral degrees - right up to the POTUS. And Masters degrees have become rather common, as I suspect many members of the U.S. armed forces could attest. Notice, too, how high government officials go into academia rather frequently. The term incestuous comes to mind.
It goes deeper, though. Most of us have heard of a study that shows this or that. Who creates those studies? By and large, someone with a doctoral degree. Because the whole purpose of a doctoral degree is to learn how to do research and write it up in academic style. If one controls what is studied, how it is studied, and how it is written up, then the fundamental intellectual foundation to oppose the conclusions may be lacking. I suppose an academic could do a study on how overpaid college faculty are, but few are willing to break their own rice bowl while committing professional suicide.
The article mentions the number of hours spent teaching and the vacation. The article is correct. In principle, the extra hours are spent doing research - answering questions about the way things work. Answering questions about higher education, too. So...this means that both the expertise to understand the issues, and the opportunity to address the issues, reside in the people who function within the academy. Unless one has a doctorate, one will simply not know how to do a study or write up the conclusions. Perhaps there are a very few exceptions, but keep in mind that the entire purpose of a doctoral dissertation is to find some problem, research it, and write it down. They range in length from 150 to 300 pages and have hundreds (yes, hundreds) of academic references. Getting a student through this process requires at least a year, and probably two - along with a faculty member who works closely with the student through that year. So introducing opposing views is not trivial.
Notice, too, what I mentioned about a senior faculty member working extensively, one-on-one, with a doctoral student. The undergraduate classes, in essence, subsidize graduate classes. At a certain University in San Antonio (
), there are undergraduate courses with 250 or more students. But the same place has graduate classes with as few as 10 students - and the professor is paid twice (or far more) what the teacher in the undergraduate course is paid. This suggests that the University structure exists to fuel research and the production of researchers. This research and those researchers then produce the information that guides and controls government - and they work within government at a policy making level. I think a case could be made that the University is very nearly an informal branch of government.
Now about policy. Policy, and the making of same, is an entire field in itself. The legislative bill we see today may have behind it decades of work by quiet people using studies produced by other quiet people. Those without considerable study of the whole area of policy will simply not have a clue how to build the necessary coalitions of power - and those without abundant spare time will not be able to invest the hours in working with policy. Where are such folk to be found - except within the academy?
That said, I often speak of economic bubbles. It may be that education is such a bubble. The expanding costs are, as the article suggests, placing college out of the reach of many. What will deflate the bubble? Perhaps hard economic times. But I think the same global wage arbitrage that makes GM uncompetitive will do the same for academia. One can find highly qualified professors in China and India who work for less - and they are fluent in English. Online distance learning may be the catalyst that causes deep change. It is interesting that some 355 reports were considered by Thomas Russell in his paper on "The no significant difference phenomenon". The conclusion of these many studies was that traditional and distance education produced equivalent results in learning. It is interesting to note that quite a number of research reports conclude that the best learning experience requires at least a hybrid approach with some element of classroom contact.
My, isn't that an interesting conclusion?
Hope that helps...