What's Wrong With the American University System 828
ideonexus writes "The Atlantic has an excellent interview with Andrew Hacker — co-author with Claudia Dreifus of a book titled Higher Education? — covering everything that's wrong with the American university system. The discussion ranges from entrenched tenured professors more concerned with publishing and parking spaces than quality teaching; to 22-year-old students with unrealistic expectations that some company will put them in a management position after graduating with six-figures of debt; to football teams siphoning money away from academic programs so that student tuitions must increase to compensate. It really lays out the farce of university culture and reminds me of everything I absolutely despised about my college life. Dreifus is active in the comments section of the article as well, lending to a fantastic discussion on the subject."
discovery of the obvious (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And yet- (Score:4, Interesting)
This one puzzled me.
Most any college team I know of (SEC ones in my experience) MAKE the universities money by the barrel full.
These teams not only support themselves, but pour money back into the general university system.
I know, and sometimes agree that there is WAY too emphasis on sports on the college level, over academics, but really...the complaint shouldn't be that it costs them any money, it is quite the opposite!
Re:And yet- (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It would be more helpful if (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Sense of Entitlement (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:And yet- (Score:3, Interesting)
As someone who lived most of his life outside the US, and now teaches outside the US in a University, but got my B.S. in a US University, I say the following:
Pros:
- Flexibility: I LOVE the idea of choosing classes! Great concept, too bad not every system has this
- 1 per class per day: obvious? Great that in the US system you get your 5 hours of math at 1 per day.. not all together!
- Exams not the only consideration: in the US system many techniques are used to evaluate, not just exams
- Focused towards the masses: the US system is less elitist than other systems around the world. Everybody is expected to graduate! (not true in some countries where the graduation rate is at MOST 10%)
- Tough admissions: on the opposite end, you need to compete to get in
- Cheating is considered a capital offence: in some countries it is tolerated far too much
- Options: in large US universities you can study just about anything.. that's cool!
- Alternatives: if you really don't like a class or a teacher, wait till the next semester/quarter
- Quarter system: I love the quarter system. Annual systems stink. Semesters are better but quarter system rules!
Cons:
- Cost
- Cost again
- Tough for foreign students (though I wasn't one)
- Stupid SATs, GREs that measure test preparation and test taking skill more than knowledge
- Hard to sometimes justify the cost (did I mention cost?)
But I often recommend the US System over all others. I honestly think it is the best. (Though I'm biased somewhat)
Re:What's wrong with it? (Score:5, Interesting)
It worked well for 150 years.
Did you know that George Washington, for example, taught himself geometry? Back in the days when we had actual education it was understood that any person with the capability to read and access to the correct books could teach himself any skill he was capable of learning.
Re:That it's required for most employment these da (Score:4, Interesting)
That sounds like an issue with employers then, not universities.
If employers keep asking for ever-increasing qualifications, isn't that an indication that universities aren't providing the right education?
Some make money, not all (Score:3, Interesting)
At the largest universities, men's football, men's basketball, and men's hockey make money. At smaller universities, some or all of those 3 lose money. All other mens' sports lose money. All womens' sports, except University of Connecticut basketball (and maybe 1 or 2 others) lose money. For all sports programs that lose money, participants should pay user fees.
Another problem, though, is that these sports teams reach semi-professional levels while shafting most of the participants. They aren't paid, and they don't really get an education (everyone knows the idea of a student-athlete is largely a farce). An exceedingly small number of college athletes go on to make big money in the pros.
A good read: http://www.john-martens.com/universities/college_sports_intro.html [john-martens.com]
Re:In defense of football (Score:4, Interesting)
TV contract revenue, the prime source of revenue for athletic programs, has more than doubled since Alesia's report -- it's through the roof (well, for domed stadiums; I guess it's over the upper bowl for open stadiums). As of 2008, 58 of 120 D-IA athletic departments were break-even or profitable (source [go.com] -- note that "university" revenue in the source includes government funding, which is channeled through the university). Note that 2009 TV revenue was even higher than 2008. It's probable that over half of DI-A athletic departments are currently profitable.
Alesia's report is incomplete for some other reasons, notably the correlation between athletic programs and general alumni donations/endowments, and the local economic impact to businesses.
Re:And yet- (Score:5, Interesting)
The first poll is crap. The popularity of a university's web page have no bearing on the quality of its education and research performed. Until recently most German universities added their web pages as an afterthought and they were maintained by some IT admin sitting in a basement. I know that from first hand source having a friend working as IT admin at the University of Heidelberg [uni-heidelberg.de]. Having graduated there I always found its abysmally bad web presence a constant source of embarrassment.
There are some objective polls measuring research effectiveness using solid and well defined measures. And as one would expect the top tier well funded US research universities have a strong showing [wikipedia.org].
Yet, there is no strict correlation between good research and good education. Scanning the rankings listed in the related wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] does not show anything equivalent to the PISA effort [oecd.org] for college level education.
The US does dismal in the PISA rankings despite of course the existence of some outstanding private and public high schools. In the same vein the fact that the US hosts a good dozen of the best research universities tells us little to nothing of how the gross of the US colleges are holding up in international comparison. The only thing we can be certain off is that it costs much more than in many other places to get an advanced degree (i.e. Canada, Europe).
Re:And yet- (Score:3, Interesting)
Incorrect. You're ignoring that a minority of the population (say 25-30%) is young enough to have been through the more recent decline of the American education system. I got through just early enough that by the time I was around 7th or 8th grade, it was noticeable when they started changing the textbooks to champion socialist principles and vilify white people.
The biggest problem with the US education system is that intelligence is not valued in our culture and parents (in general) do not push their kids to work hard in school and succeed. The second biggest problem is that the people running our schools are utter morons who care nothing about educating and only about their delusional ideals that have nothing to do with education. Many of my family members are teachers, as are a great deal of my friends (each one teaches at a different school). These teachers have actually seen smart and motivated students berated by the administrators for wanting to take advanced classes because taking advanced classes and getting the best education you can is "elitist" and "wrong". The people running our schools think that students should never fail (it might hurt their self esteem), even if they do no work and don't learn anything. They waste class time on making sure students have high self esteem instead of making sure that they learn, which is ironic because many kids would gain self esteem by working hard and being one of the best in their class (or at least seeing a significant improvement in their grades due to improved effort).
My experience (Score:1, Interesting)
I'm attending one of the top universities for Computer Engineering on the West Coast. I was so excited to get accepted. Now I'm just disappointed.
All the engineering instructors are grossly incompetent and have been out of the industry for a decade or more. Many of them regularly fail 90% of the class because they test on subject matter that is completely unrelated to the lectures or text. Their student-given ratings are the lowest possible scores imaginable. The other departments, namely Math and Physics are absolutely terrible. They only thing they do right is Chemistry, and that's because one very dedicated and hard-working woman oversees the entire program and personally ensures the quality of every course taught.
The very best engineering projects from the senior students are just the stupidest, most Science Fair kind of things that are nothing but buzzwords and plagiarized ideas slapped together. ("A Wi-Fi Cloud Based Internet Social Networking Twitterer API Google") And don't get me started on cheating; it's a stereotype, but I thought having all Indian and Asian classmates would raise the level of professional behavior. Not so. Cheating is absolutely rampant at every level. Finals involve crowds of students in the bathrooms texting answers to their friends and looking up solutions in books and on their laptops.
Why am I doing this? Because I'll get the top pick from IBM, Intel, and just about every other big company out there. Their people regularly come to the college to scout talent and everybody knows somebody who got a job with the biggest names in the biz. So it's a sure thing. But the quality of the education is just terrible and it's a tremendous waste of money.
Sadly, I'm joining the ranks of people who say college is a bunch of bullshit where you learn nothing and spend a lot of money just to get a degree. I wonder if the other top-rated places like MIT or Caltech are any better...
Re:What's wrong with it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Can you make one concrete example to back up what you said? If I make a pair of shoes by paying to learn how to do it, then buying the materials and then putting in my time and labor to make them, and then sell them, how are you entitled to a share of that?
Where did the roads over which your materials came to you come from? How were the purchasing contracts enforced? How was robbery prevented so you kept the money to purchase your materials? Any man receives great value by living as part of a civilized society. If one does not recognize that, he is truly blind.
If you mean something nebulous like I benefit from the combined knowledge of the human race then those people who made contributions that you are basing yours on already got paid for theirs.
No, he was talking about concrete, tangible benefits that you seem to blindly ignore and that you wish to "free ride" on. Nice piece of theft from the rest of us...
Re:More than meets the eye (Score:3, Interesting)
You know, before I went to university, I thought the exact same thing. What's in it for me? I'm a smart guy, have a high IQ, know a lot. I'm generally smarter than many people who've graduated university. So why do employers insist on a post-secondary degree or diploma to hire for certain positions?
I think the point he was trying to make, is that if employers require it for employment, then an adverse portion of the population goes not for learning, but simply to have a piece of paper to get a job.
The negative effect of this is of course insanely high tuition and schools just churning out diploma mills.
This of course defeats the whole purpose of the spirit of higher education. Personally, I'd love to go back to college just to learn things that have no bearing on my career to further my own development as a human, but because of the high costs I don't think that will ever happen.
I remember I once talked to a Swedish or Norwegian woman in a hotel lobby bar at a convention a few years back (can't remember which one... I think it was Norway) and was shocked to find out that college over there is basically free over there. I didn't realize other nations didn't make you take out life crushing loans to get college.
Re:And yet- (Score:3, Interesting)
It's uncommon, but some kids in my area mysteriously move a few weeks or a month before 9th grade starts. The parents don't actually move; only their child "moves" in with a close family friend who lives in the less laughable school's area, then they take public transit or get rides to their new school.
It seems to work quite well.
Re:What's wrong with this article (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree that there is a lot of stuff wrong with American Universities. Rich kids have an inherent advantage because they don't have to work during college. They socialize in Greek organizations, making connections to their future rich buddies, while lower and middle class kids like me bust our asses.
I completely disagree with that point. The most valuable thing I did when I was in college was hold down a job in my field. While working on a CS degree, I spent 20-30hrs a week working helpdesk and later writing small webapps at the university. Not only did it help build good general job skills and work ethic, it taught me to apply the lessons I learned in class.
When it came time to find a post-college job, I had several interviewers tell me that it was the larger projects from my work experience that made me stand out and got me the job offers. When I've interviewed new grads for jobs, the first thing I want to talk about is real-world experience - either a job, a personal project or class projects where they've partnered with companies to solve non-contrived problems.
The Messiah of Education Spoketh (Score:3, Interesting)
Yep. Interesting article, very interesting. Unfortunately, as I can see, by making it the all-encompassing round-up, the author also somewhat disqualified. Which is very sad, since what was brought up about publication, sponsoring, fairness, are all topics that need urgent attention. The tertiary education system is broken.
But in the end, I lost the earlier interest to buy, or even read, the book. As someone who is in a similar position (teaching in a university), I can only laugh about sentences like "I say, 'I make them good.' Every student is capable of college."
Just think of the implied logic: A person who has been failed by parents, or society or school, whatever, in his/her first 20 years, and joins university at the age of around 20, barely able to do basic arithmetics, no chance to express herself in a consistent stream of thoughts, or subsequent sentences in writing. And then someone comes waltzing along, reversing all damage done in a course at a tertiary institution. Maybe in a single course, in a single semester. My only reaction could be, to doubt the second coming.
Re:Cause of skyrocketing tuition (hint: not footba (Score:2, Interesting)
You don't come out bankrupt in the US either. There are a lot of perfectly respectable schools that are also affordable. And that is, after all, the point of the book being reviewed. I went to an inexpensive undergraduate university. In graduate school (paid for by the granting institutions funding my research) I competed with students from many good - albeit expensive - universities. They were certainly smart, but I don't think they were any better prepared than I was. After grad school I was a postdoc in labs with PhDs granted from the Ivy League. Again, smart but not better prepared.
Re:That it's required for most employment these da (Score:1, Interesting)
Universities are supposed to be places where people get a well-rounded education in a wide array of topics.
Fine in theory, disastrous in practice. American kids study too few subjects at 14 - 6 vs. 10 in (say) the UK - and too many subjects at 16 - still 6 vs. 3 in the UK. They then screw around for 4+ years at college trying to make their minds up what they want to major in.
Even in the renaissance you only needed so many "renaissance men" - and I've never met an American grad who could be called one.
As an employer I found American first degrees worthless - except for vocational, business degrees in back office hires. Secondary degrees at least evidence some kind of focus and commitment: unfortunately they usually come with a big slice of entitlement.
Where possible I prefer H1Bs with numerate degrees who know what they want to be when they grow up. Sorry locals.