Education at a Price

A gaffe by Republican frontrunner Mitt Romney last week concerning rising higher education costs provided a standout example of our society’s attitudes toward what education is and what it means to be an educated person in America.

For those of you who missed the story, Romney told an audience at a town hall meeting in New Hampshire that students struggling to pay for college should consider enrolling at private, for-profit institutions.   Market competition among for-profit colleges, Romney explained, would force them to become efficient thereby lowering tuition costs.  As an example, Romney cited a media design school in Florida called Full Sail University. 

What Romney neglected to add was that Full Sail’s CEO, Bill Heavener, is a major donor to Romney’s campaign and that the “competitive” tuition at Full Sail runs around $80,000 a year.  

Higher education, once treated as a public good by policymakers, is becoming increasingly privatized.  This isn't surprising.  Education is big business, perceived more as a commodity than as a personal attribute.  College is considered a ticket to better, well-paying jobs.  As such, students' goals tend to focus on skills training and workforce preparation.  

While this is a perfectly reasonable expectation, the vocational focus has come at the expense of curricular balance and intellectual rigor.  The teaching of critical thinking skills traditionally imparted by the liberal arts, when they are taught at all, has been relegated to an assortment of lower division general ed classes where more often than not students simply go through the motions.

Educational privatization is a new frontier for corporate America.  There has been talk of higher education as the next economic bubble.  The phenomenon of higher ed as commodity has become evident in all its facets, from corporate grants supplanting taxpayer support of public universities to the proliferation of for-profit institutions.  The latter advertise aggressively, particularly on daytime TV, offering both resident and online classes.  Often, their courses of study are in fields for which employers once provided apprenticeships or on the job training.  What isn’t mentioned is the exorbitant cost of attending these schools, often financed with federally guaranteed student loans that can’t be discharged even in cases of bankruptcy, the high-pressure sales tactics they use, or the sketchy job prospects faced by their graduates.  Federal and state regulation of these institutions is weak to nonexistent.   

Commodification permeates the college experience even at traditional campuses.  Students on the whole seem to embrace this fact without question.  Classes are more about the grade than any knowledge the student gains from taking them.  The banking model of educational progress offers the student a roadmap: Earn 60 semester hours and get an associate’s degree.  Earn 120 credits and get a bachelor’s degree.  Earn a bachelor’s degree and get a job.  Simple, right?

Perhaps not.  Many of the current crop of students seem to have been pushed into college without really knowing why they’re there.  The average time to degree for a B.A. / B.S. has increased substantially in recent years.  Various reasons (aside from cost) include impacted enrollment in popular majors, the need for many students to take remedial coursework, and funding cuts for required courses.  Added to this is the problem of parents and high school counselors pushing college on kids as a nebulous objective divorced from their individual aptitudes, temperament, or goals.

Because of their low tuition and open admission policies, community colleges become a temporary repository for large numbers of these students.  Lacking direction, they flounder for a while and eventually drop out.  Community colleges continue to fulfill the “cooling out” role first described by sociologist Burton Clark over fifty years ago.  The difference today is the social expectation of getting a college degree is much stronger now than it was in 1960 even though opportunities remain comparatively limited.  So, when these “cooled out” students fall short of their own expectations the for-profit schools dangle the illusion of achievement in front of them.  They promise quick results financed with plenty of student aid (i.e., loans).  If they don’t make it through the program or can’t find jobs afterwards it doesn’t matter; the school has already cashed their tuition checks.  Meanwhile, the students are stuck with the debts and are no better off for the experience. 

Yes, I’m perfectly aware that the freedom to try is also the freedom to fail.  But should the consequences be so potentially disastrous?  Should an industry profit from preying on society’s most economically vulnerable people?  Mr. Romney to the contrary, it isn’t private sector competition that will make quality, affordable postsecondary education widely available.  Instead, it will take greater public oversight, a renewed commitment to public investment, and stronger consumer protection laws.  Most importantly, it will take a close reevaluation of the role of higher education in our society and what it really means to have a well-educated citizenry.

© 2012 The Unassuming Scholar