The last time I decided to write something concerning education I primarily focused upon the economic problem of the current state of higher education, the fact that it has become unbelievably expensive to pursue a private university degree.
However, of the problems which face modern higher education, cost is both minor and symptomatic, a nasty boil of an underlying issue. The most significant failing of The Modern University (and consequently of the entire educational artifice) is its fundamental lack of purpose.
This is so incredibly important, educationally and to our nation as a whole, because educational purpose is so different from other institutional purposes. Whereas churches and businesses, to name just two, have specific and narrow purposes, such as the accumulation of converts or profit, the University ought to seek truth, both as an absolute entity and codified as a rational order by which all men can live.
Such a rational attempt to order the universe is necessary, and indeed essential, because human progress is directly linked to an understanding of our surroundings. We are able to achieve little when we understand little, when our surroundings begin to make sense, we become more able to change them. This can most clearly be shown by the difference between an Archimedes's screw (ancient simple machine used in irrigation) and the Atom bomb. Human abstract knowledge, the difference between experimentation and true science, has immense practical value.
Even more so, the truth has a sort of self-evident importance. While in general I am against claiming self-evidence in a rash manner, all real truth has value. Not valuing truth is equivalent to not valuing existence, being as such things are merely reflections of each other.
Real search for this truth will always be at the center of human life. Our understandings of it, religious, political, scientific, and philosophical must necessarily direct and focus human activity. Since the idea of the university is of nothing more then an institution seeking knowledge of the truth, then the University (even more then government) will be the center of power and change in humanity.
In modern times the idea of the University and the actual entity have parted company. With schools either loading up with undergrads and athletics, or filling seats with grad students, the concept of a purposeful institution committed to both scholarship and holistic education has left us - perhaps for good.
Yet education does not have to be this way. For the vast majority of students neither suited nor inclined for real study, institutions specializing in business and engineering (together with a smattering of communication skills) would almost certainly do as good a job. The simple fact of the matter is that there are a huge number of people (almost certainly a majority) who are going to University without the slightest intention of attending a University. The prestige and desirability of these institutions creates a huge surplus of demand for something entirely different then what a school is supposed to provide. It doesn't take much of an economist to see what happens then.
Some might say that this is equivalent to wimping out, claiming that realliving price pressure will be enough to 'help our children'. Of course it won't be. Prices will likely remain high, or at least higher then I would wish. Yet, lamenting the base facts of economics is rather equivalent to threatening law suits concerning the weather (although the 'Green movement' may be trending in that direction). Education will always remain valuable, and prices will always reflect that value. The best we can hope for is to streamline the process and make the price mechanism as efficient as possible (which probably means the destruction of many scholarships and loans as well), so that the free market can strike a proper balance. Any more then that would not only be immoral, it would also be futile.
Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Scholarship Search
One of the great difficulties of modern American suburban bourgeoisie, in so far as we have difficulties, is the daunting prospect of college tuition. For a talented member of the middle or upper middle class (families making between 60,000 and 140,000 dollars a year) opportunities for success are not difficult to find. Loads of test taking guides, unprecedented educational opportunities and helpful parents make it (relatively easy) to excel in high school. Yet with each sure step towards college education, the idea of paying for college education weighs heavy upon the mind.
In my case this is particularity clear. Since I was a wee tyke, my parents have home schooled me and my siblings, showering each and everyone of us with opportunities that they themselves did not possess. Yet as each of us took advantage of these, and profited greatly from them, the pending costs of college began to skyrocket.
For instance, prior to her SAT scores, my sister's options (Local public universities) would cost between 10 and 15 thousand dollars a year - including room and board. Subsequent to evidence of her excellent academic achievement, my sister was admitted into the University of Chicago, which in exchange for the privilege of attending it, will end up (over four years) demanding around 200,000 dollars from her and her relatives.
Leaving aside for the moment her skill, and good fortune, in discovering enough scholarship money to make such a cost feasible, it is interesting to note that our best universities increasingly demand funds from their students approaching a moderately sized mortgage. The American Dream of education is quickly beginning to resemble to American Dream of homeownership, one of assets mortgaged in the hope of future success.
There are a number of points concerning this information that I think it is critical to make.
The existence of such an expensive sector of our economy is not an excuse for government intervention. There are very good reasons for why some one would want to spend 200 grand on a Harvard (or similar) education, not the least of which being that such an outlay will in many cases be returned by the exponential increase in earning power such a degree makes possible. Furthermore, the picture of government involvement in education is that, if anything, it has the effect of significantly increasing the costs of college. Universities operate in accordance to the laws of supply and demand in the same manner as Ice Cream trucks or any other operation, and a Stafford loan (or Pew grant) is really just a large increase in the number of dollars chasing after the same amount of educational slots. Cost inflation is thus to be expected.
However, there are significant cultural effects of such a situation which have undesirable consequences for America as a whole. First, the incredible expense of attending a higher tier university has a 'chilling effect' (Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301, 85 S.Ct. 1493 1965) on the ability for students to concentrate on disciplines which are not economically lucrative. From certain sciences, to the humanities, to the arts and beyond, individuals which a wise civilization wishes to promote in their endeavors may be discouraged from pursuing academic and cultural fields with little to no payoff. While the resulting abundance of lawyers and investment bankers is not exactly evil per se, such a use of societies best and brightest is certainly not healthy.
Secondly, such costs require children (unwilling to stomach debt that, to be fair, is the cheapest they will ever have access to) to enter the 'Scholarship Search' with with a devotion resembling an actual job. It makes no sense to earn 7.50$ and hour, when they have to produce something on the order of $250,000 by the time they are 22! Not even accounting for the, significant, cost of grad school, the pressure placed upon young students with little or no experience in the work force is nigh on incomprehensible. It approaches to realm of satire to demand of our most talented highschoolers an amount of specie which their adult guardians did not - usually - begin to accumulate until years into the workforce. To echo William F Buckley, "The mind boggles."
This then is the problem; I will post what I feel is the solution soon.
But for now - I need a sandwich.
Paul Dueck
In my case this is particularity clear. Since I was a wee tyke, my parents have home schooled me and my siblings, showering each and everyone of us with opportunities that they themselves did not possess. Yet as each of us took advantage of these, and profited greatly from them, the pending costs of college began to skyrocket.
For instance, prior to her SAT scores, my sister's options (Local public universities) would cost between 10 and 15 thousand dollars a year - including room and board. Subsequent to evidence of her excellent academic achievement, my sister was admitted into the University of Chicago, which in exchange for the privilege of attending it, will end up (over four years) demanding around 200,000 dollars from her and her relatives.
Leaving aside for the moment her skill, and good fortune, in discovering enough scholarship money to make such a cost feasible, it is interesting to note that our best universities increasingly demand funds from their students approaching a moderately sized mortgage. The American Dream of education is quickly beginning to resemble to American Dream of homeownership, one of assets mortgaged in the hope of future success.
There are a number of points concerning this information that I think it is critical to make.
The existence of such an expensive sector of our economy is not an excuse for government intervention. There are very good reasons for why some one would want to spend 200 grand on a Harvard (or similar) education, not the least of which being that such an outlay will in many cases be returned by the exponential increase in earning power such a degree makes possible. Furthermore, the picture of government involvement in education is that, if anything, it has the effect of significantly increasing the costs of college. Universities operate in accordance to the laws of supply and demand in the same manner as Ice Cream trucks or any other operation, and a Stafford loan (or Pew grant) is really just a large increase in the number of dollars chasing after the same amount of educational slots. Cost inflation is thus to be expected.
However, there are significant cultural effects of such a situation which have undesirable consequences for America as a whole. First, the incredible expense of attending a higher tier university has a 'chilling effect' (Lamont v. Postmaster General, 381 U.S. 301, 85 S.Ct. 1493 1965) on the ability for students to concentrate on disciplines which are not economically lucrative. From certain sciences, to the humanities, to the arts and beyond, individuals which a wise civilization wishes to promote in their endeavors may be discouraged from pursuing academic and cultural fields with little to no payoff. While the resulting abundance of lawyers and investment bankers is not exactly evil per se, such a use of societies best and brightest is certainly not healthy.
Secondly, such costs require children (unwilling to stomach debt that, to be fair, is the cheapest they will ever have access to) to enter the 'Scholarship Search' with with a devotion resembling an actual job. It makes no sense to earn 7.50$ and hour, when they have to produce something on the order of $250,000 by the time they are 22! Not even accounting for the, significant, cost of grad school, the pressure placed upon young students with little or no experience in the work force is nigh on incomprehensible. It approaches to realm of satire to demand of our most talented highschoolers an amount of specie which their adult guardians did not - usually - begin to accumulate until years into the workforce. To echo William F Buckley, "The mind boggles."
This then is the problem; I will post what I feel is the solution soon.
But for now - I need a sandwich.
Paul Dueck
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)