The overselling of higher education

Academic Questions

Volumn 19, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 17-34

  Leefa, George C ^a  

^a Center for Higher Education Policy   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 84866278535     PISSN: 08954852     EISSN: 19364709     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s12129-006-1012-x     Document Type: Article

References (67)

1. David F. Labaree, How to Succeed in School without Really Learning: The Credentials Race in American Education (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1999).
2. Roger Shattuck, We Must End the Conspiracy to Lower Standards, Chronicle of Higher Education, 18 July 1997.
3. Alison Wolf, Does Education Matter? (NY: Penguin, 2002), 241.
4. Jeff Madrick, Why Higher Ed Gets the Ax, New York Times, 5 August 2004.
5. Jeff Madrick, Why Higher Ed Gets the Ax, New York Times, 5 August 2004.
6. Kenneth Gray and Edwin Herr, Other Ways to Win (Corwin Press, 1995), 7.
7. Kenneth Gray and Edwin Herr, Other Ways to Win (Corwin Press, 1995). pp. 9-10.
8. Kevin Carey, "A Matter of Degrees: Improving Graduation Rates in Four-Year Colleges and Universities," The Education Trust, 2004, 3.
9. Paul Simon, A G.I. Bill for Today, Chronicle of Higher Education, 31 October 2003.
10. Jeffrey Selingo, Kerry Offers Proposals Io Hold Down Tuition Costs, Chronicle o/Higher Education, 9 July 2004.
11. Of a total College enrollment in 2004 of 16,468,000 students, 3,841,000 attended private institutions, Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 August 2004, 18.
12. In at least two states, North Carolina and Arizona, how tuitions are a constitutional mandate. North Carolina's constitution states that "The General Assembly shall provide that the benefit of the University of North Carolina and other public institutions of higher education, as far as practicable, be extended to the people of the State free of expense." (Article IX, Section 9).
13. Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 August 2004, 30.
14. Chronicle of Higher Education, 27 August 2004, 30., 13.
15. Jay R Greene and Greg Forster, Public High School Graduation and College Readiness Rates in the United States, Manhattan Institute, September 2003, 12.
16. Private and Public Contributions to Financing College Education, Congressional Budget Office, January 2004, 4.
17. Gray and Herr; 26-27.
18. Paul A. Trout, Disengaged Students and the Decline of Academic Standards, Academic Questions (Spring 1997):47-48.
19. Thomas C. Reeves. The Classroom Game, Academic Questions, (Spring 2001): 24.
20. Patrick Alliu, L'm the Teacher, You're the Student (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004).
21. For evidence that the problem of unmotivated students is found even in prestigious schools, in that case, Emory University.
22. Milton and Rose Friedman, Free to Choose (Harcourt, 1980), 175-176.
23. David Labaree, How to Succeed in School without Really Learning, 259.
24. Stephent I. Balch, address at the John Locke Foundation, Raleigh, NC, 20 September 2004.
25. According to the U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics, "Remedial Education at Higher Education Institutions in Fall 2000," approximately 28 percent of the students enrolled in American colleges and universities have serious academic weaknesses and must take one OF more remedial courses in an attempt to bring their language and math skills up the level required for college coursework. The effects of remediation have not been widely studied.
26. Bettinger and Long, after studying remediation in math at six Ohio institutions, concluded that it probably helps some students overcome their deficiencies, while causing others to drop out or transfer to a school where the work is less demanding. See "Shape Up or Ship Out: The Effects of Remediation on Students at Four-Year Colleges," National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper #10369, March 2004.
27. The willingness of institutions to admit unprepared students has drawn considerable criticism. For example, Professor Robert M. Costrell writes, "The problem is that university administrations do not bear the costs of low admission standards, or of selective exemption from these standards. They are borne by students who are ill-served by the well-intended generosity of admission offices; they are borne by parents and high schools, who can no longer credibly urge the young to work hard in work to get into college; they are borne by better prepared students who find their university educations diminished by lax standards; and, of lesser importance to be sure, they are borne by faculty who face the challenges both of educating students of vastly disparate qualifications, and of dealing with the disappointments of young men and women who are in over their heads through no fault of their own.
28. David W. Breneman and William N. Haarlow, Remediation in Higher Education, Thomas B. Fordham Foundation, July 1998, 36.
29. A lengthy list of courses that are either trendy or politicized is available at www.af.org/puhlications/C&T. Some examples: Cultural History of Rap (UCI2\); Ek4s as Anthology (University of Iowa); History of Magic and Witchcraft (Ringers); Daytime Serials: Family and Social Roles (University of Wisconsin): Chicana Feminisms and Knowledges (University of Colorado): How to be Gay: Male Homosexuality and Initiation (University of Michigan); Feminist Approaches to Science and Technology' (Vassar). Numerous student Comments on highly politicized courses can be found at www.Nolndoctrinalion.org.
30. The weaknesses in the general education curricula have been analyzed in depth at several state university systems. See, e.g., "The Troubling State of General Education: A Study of Six Virginia Public Colleges and Universities," available online at www.nas.mg. "How Solid is the Core?: A Study of General Education Requirements at 11 North Carolina Institutions," available online at www.popecenter.org/inquiry_papers/article.html?id=1,1443
31. Caught Short: General Education at Nine Minnesota Public Universities," Minnesota Association of Scholars, 2001: "Multiculturalism and the Demise of the Liberal Arts at Maryland's Public Colleges and Universities, Except Morgan State," available online at www.calvertinstitute.org/main/pub_detail.php?pub_id=104.
32. SUNY's Core Curricula: The Failure to Set Consistent and High Academic Standards, New York Association of Scholars and Empire Foundation tor Policy Research.
33. Harvev C. Mansfield, The Debacle at Harvard, Claremont Review of Books, 24 March 2006. Available online at http://w~-w.claremont.org/writings/crb/spring2006/mansfield.html.
34. Today's College Students and Yesteryear's High School Graduates: A Comparison of General Cultural Knowledge, National Association of Scholars, December 2002.
35. Peter Sacks, Generation X Goes to College, (Open Court, 1996), 78.
36. Later in the book, Sacks writes, "As matters stood, students were getting away with inferior work, getting good grades to boot. then sent away under the illusion that that's how the real world worked.... I knew that compromising standards in order to accommodate students had become a way of life at the institution. Everyone knew it, but nobody would ever publicly admit it.".
37. Murray Sperber. Beer and Circus (Henry Holt, 2000), 112-121.
38. Writing: A Ticket to Work... or a Ticket Out, The National Commission on Writing, 2004, 14.
39. National Assessment of Adult Literacy, U.S. Department of Education, 2005, 15. Available online at http://nces.ed.gov/naal/.
40. James B. Twitchell, Higher Ed, Inc., Wilson Quarterly:, vol. 28 no. 3, 50.
41. Katharine C. Lyall and Kathleen Sell, The True Genius of America at Risk (Praeger, 2006), 4.
42. The recent book by Michael Farr and Laurence Shatkin, 300 Best Jobs without a Four-Year Degree (]'IST Works, 2006) canvasses the labor market and finds that there are many decent-paying jobs open to individuals who have not earned a bachelor's degree.
43. Louis Uchitelle, College Still Counts, Though Not as Much, New York Times, 2 October 2005.
44. William G. Bowen, Martin A. Kurzweil, and Eugene M. Tobin, Equity and Excellence in American Higher Education (University of Virginia Press, 2005), 256-257.
45. The pertinent Bureau of Lahor Statistics report is available at http://stats.hls.gov/news.release/ecopro.t06.htm.
46. Randall Collins, Credential Inflation and the Future of Universities in The Future of the City of Intellect, Stephen Brint, editor (Stanford University Press, 2002), 26.
47. The question whether the higher earnings of college graduates is due to augmented human capital or to the {act that a degree signals greater trainability and reliability has been much discussed in the literature.
48. Ivar Berg, Education and Jobs: The Great Training Robbery (Praeger, 1970).
49. David Bills, Credentials, Signals and Screens: Explaining the Relationship between Schooling and Job Assignment, Review of Educational Research (Wintel, 2003).
50. Jerry Gray and Richard Chapman, Conflicting Signals: The Labor Market for College Educated Workers, Journal of Economic Issues, September 1998.
51. John S. Heywood and Xiandong Wei, Education and Signaling: Evidence from a Highly Competitive 1.ahor Market, Education Economics, April 2004.
52. Lester Thurow, Education and Economic Equality, The Public Interest, Summer 1972.
53. James Engell and Anthony Dangerfield, Saving Higher Education in the Age of Mono' (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2005), 85.
54. David Labaree, How to Succeed in School..... 259.
55. Anne Matthews, Bright College Years (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997), 215.
56. Daniel Heckel, Reconciling Conflicting Data on Jobs for College Graduates, Monthly Labor Review, July 1992, 3-12.
57. Frederic Pryor and David Schaffer, Who's Not Working and Why (Cambridge University Press, 1999), 67.
58. Frederic Pryor and David Schaffer, Who's Not Working and Why (Cambridge University Press, 1999)., 68.
59. The oversupply of college graduates is not only apparent in the United States, but also in Britain. In their book The Debate on Higher Education--Challenging the Assumptions (Institute of Economic Affairs, 1999), authors Adrian Seville and James Tooley note "an astonishing level of graduate 'underemployment'" in Britain. "Less than halt of the graduates considered that the employment they had achieved up to three.years after graduation required 'graduate level ability,' while one in ten reported that they were in a job which they knew had previously been held by a school leaver"(30). This is consistent with the findings of Pryor and Schaffer that putting more and more students through college serves mainly to displace people who have lower educational credentials.
60. In Tepid Job Scene, Certain Workers are in Hot Demand, The Wall Street Journal, 17 Avgust 2004, 1.
61. In Tepid Job Scene, Certain Workers are in Hot Demand, The Wall Street Journal, 17 Avgust 2004, 1.
62. Jonathan Fahey, Bumper to Bumper Education, Forbes, 6 September 2004, 8.
63. Gary Russi, Public universities fuel Michigan's economy, Detroit News, 12 November 2004.
64. Richard K. Vedder, Going Broke by Degree (American Enterprise Institute, 2004), 135.
65. Richard K. Vedder, Going Broke by Degree (American Enterprise Institute, 2004)., 138.
66. Gary Wolfram, Making College More Expensive: The Unintended Consequences of Federal Tuition Aid, Cato Policy Analysis No. 531, 25 January 2005.
67. William C. Nelsen, How the Private Sector Can Help More Students, The Chronicle of Higher Education, 30 April 2004, B 19.