British Universities
October 9, 2008
The Economist has an interesting article, “Making it pay: Is a university degree still worth the time and money it takes?” Tuition caps mean English universities must fight for foreign students who pay tuitions at what the market will bear. As in the US, British students are increasingly ill-prepared for university study and more are being allowed in, which means more who probably shouldn’t. Polytechnic schools were “upgraded” to four-year institutions (to suck more money out of students and taxpayers?). Here are two quotes worth pondering:
Quote 1:
Paul Buckland, an archaeology professor at Bournemouth University, resigned when administrators overruled his failing grades for ten students (last month he won a case for “constructive dismissal”). In June a barnstorming lecture by Geoffrey Alderman, of Buckingham University, gained wide attention with its claims of impotent external examiners, widespread unpunished plagiarism and a “grotesque bidding game” in which universities dished out good grades in order to claw their way up league tables.
Quote 2:
But cracks are appearing in the “graduate premium”. For one thing, it varies immensely by field of study (see chart): men with arts degrees can expect to earn less than if they had skipped university entirely.
A few people in the US, most notably Charles Murray, are beginning to argue that the BA in particular isn’t worth it. As tuitions continue to outpace inflation, in part due to easy access to government-backed/-supplied student loans (rather like Fannie and Freddie?) that provides excess funds, parents and students might begin to reconsider. The current market meltdown might cause more students to reconsider and even cause some universities to begin shedding “luxury” and fluff departments (and their tenured staff) that can’t pay for themselves.
Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio, now Antioch University McGregor, recently folded or is in the process of doing so. An alumni group has sprung up with a slogan: Antioch College – Be Ashamed to Let It Die! For whatever it’s worth, the current Wikipedia entry chronicles the institution’s history and possible future resurrection.
Update:
The Chronicle of Higher Education even has something relevant.
Filed under: Policy | Comments (2)
For what it’s worth, Antioch College did not become Antioch University McGregor. Like many universities, the College started a graduate program to supplement its revenue. That program spun off and became a separate ’school’, which then pushed for a separate campus, thus negating the cost-savings you get from full facility use of having undergraduate classes in the day and graduate classes in those same spaces in the evening.
The movement the alumni are engaged in is to re-establish Antioch College as an independent liberal arts college, with a president that reports directly to the Board, not a university Chancellor.
Thanks for the comment, although I wonder how successful opening a grad program is. The two national universities I worked at in Japan were convinced they had to have grad programs or else. Now they’ve got them, but I don’t see that much has changed, other than some faculty being worked harder: grad duties were simply added to undergrad duties. There are universities here with more grad faculty than grad students.
Antioch is interesting to me because I’ve been to the campus as a child–beautiful area–and because it seems to have pushed the progressive/activist curriculum more than many others. I work with an Antioch, Yellow Springs, grad who’s a wonderful person and quite serious about her work.
I can’t recall whether I read it when it came out, but “The College That Would Not Go Gently” cites various problems and missteps. Of course, it’s a New York Times article, so the content is questionable. Then there’s this oped by the head of “Antioch’s sister school, the Antioch New England Graduate School.”
Somewhere I read about Yellow Springs staff continuing to volunteer teach until, hopefully for them, Yellow Springs reopens.