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What's Wrong With the American University System
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."
"What's wrong with the American University System" is also what's wrong with any university that i've taught at, (ok, that's just the states and a random sprinkling in Europe). "entrenched tenured profs" -hah- in Germany, they don't even have to get out of bed after tenure. and what 22 year old anywhere has realistic expectations? granted, the american university athletic industry connection is an ugly situation special to america, but the rest is just stating an obvious "problem" with universities since 12th century Bologna (no... not some old lunch meat)
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!
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Half of my program is international students. I'm in Canada. So unless they were looking for Maine and wandered a bit far north I'd say that's a bit of a moot point.
Well to be fair, the media constantly bombards us with the message that working an ordinary job makes you a failure of some kind, and that if your life is anything less than glamorous, something is wrong with you. As you note, though, those jobs have to be filled -- the problem is that we keep telling people that they should be avoiding them.
Palm trees and 8
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)
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.
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?
Good post, but the college football revenue landscape has changed dramatically (for a minority of schools) since Alesia's report (2006, using 2005 data).
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 -- 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.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
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. 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.
Yet, there is no strict correlation between good research and good education. Scanning the rankings listed in the related wikipedia entry does not show anything equivalent to the PISA effort 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).