Hildegarde

So, Robert opines that education and health care are the two fields where there is the most government money and the least competition, and that that explains the soaring costs.

But I don’t think so.  I think the government money is reflective of the fact that medicine and education are two fields badly suited to a market model of operation.

With medicine, the explanation is simple–if you’ve just been diagnozed with cancer, you’re not looking for the cheapest doctor or the most cost efficient hospital.  You’re looking for the ones most likely to cure you, and you’re willing to pay just about anything to get that result.  If anything, this mental attitude on the part of health care consumers actually causes prices to rise, because they’re willing to outbid each other, to mortgage the house, sell the cars, do whatever it takes to get what they want.

With education, the issue is a little more complicated.  Consider, first, the case of Mount Holyoke College, one of the original Seven Sisters and still well into Newsweek’s first tier of higher educational institutions.  About ten or fifteen years ago, MH decided to take aim at rising tuition costs as a way of recruiting more bright, first-level students.  So they lowered tuition significantly, and used that as a recruiting tool.

The result?  Total applications went down, and applications from first-rate candidates went way down. 

The reasons were twofold–first, because prospective students and their parents were convinced that the lower price was an indication of lower quality, that really excellent schools charge really high prices, that you get what you pay for.  The second reason was that the economics of college tuition isn’t what it seems to be.  Sticker prices on first tier colleges are less honest than the ones on cars.  A student admitted to Harvard from a family making less than $60K pays no tuition at all.  Even students with parents making as much as $150K get significant grants and other financial aid from first-tier schools.  These schools are ALREADY cheaper, in fact, than the local public university.  The trick is getting into them.

The second thing to consider is thi–the only parents who are interested in picking colleges by their price tags are the ones that know absolutely nothing about the system.  They don’t realize that Yale may actually charge Susie a lot less than the University of Connecticut, if Susie can get in and has board scores in the top 1%.  What’s more, they don’t realize that all schools are not creatd equal, that even if the only thing you’re interested in is the job your kid can get after graduation, Yale may be a better bargain even if you have to pay full price.

But the worst thing about trying to shove education into a market model is that it intensifies the attitude that’s already far too prevalent among students, and makes it damned near impossible for universities to fulfill the gatekeeper function we say we want them to.

That is, when students think of themselves as consumers,  they want their universities to deliver on their demands–As, thank you very much.  They’re not paying $40k s year to get Cs.  They didn’t meet the standard?  It’s the teacher’s job to get them up to standard and the teacher’s fault if they don’t make it, even if they’ve cut two thirds of all their classwork and handed in less than half the reading. 

Harvard and Yale can buck these attitudes–and they’re more likely to have student bodies who understand why they have to take English literature even if they’re a math major.  Third tier colleges and universities, however, are essentially already on a for-profit model, they just pretend they’re not.  That means keeping the number of their students up, keeping classes packed, hiring mostly part time teachers at what would be less than minimum wage if it were honestly figured–and riding teachers who give out “too many” bad grades. 

A college education at these places is rapidly becoming what a high school education is in too many places–in other words, nothing at all.  A survey of local businesses will tell you that graduates of these places do not even have the rudimentary skills that are supposed to accompany a “degree,” such as being able to write clearly or knowing English grammar from a kumquat.  What’s more, you can’t even count on the degree to insure that you’ve got a candidate who knows he has to show up and on time and get his work done.  Adjunct lecturers–part timers hired on a course by course basis–live and die by student evaluations.  Grade too harshly, be too strict about attendance and deadlines–and you’re dead in the water.

And I agree with Cheryl, and with Robert, that the whole house of cards rests on the fact that so many businesses and government agencies now require a college degree for employment–the content of the degree is useless, but it serves as a filter.  It also serves as insurance, at least in the US, because it provides a way to document that you are not discriminating according to race or sex. 

But insisting that we can fix education by subjecting it to a market model is, I think, wrongheaded.  I’m all for getting government money out of the mix for private colleges, but I don’t think that doing that would fix things either.  What we need is some reality.

Im my state, the community colleges offer two year associates degrees and four year bachelors degrees in…auto mechanics.  Among other things.  It is, to me, a massive transfer of wealth in the wrong direction.  Public education is free–you pay your taxes, your kid can go to public school–and if that school teaches your kid what he needs to learn, your tax money is well spent.  If it doesn’t, then you’re out of pocket for teh tution for a “higher education” experience only meant to teach what should have been taught in high school.

I’m getting very complicated about stuff here.  But what it amounts to is this:  we (meaning the US) seem to keep getting ourselves into ruts.  Need better trained people to do x?  Let’s start a college program and send them to that!  Need to punish wrongdoers?  Jail time, absolutely, even if the crime is kiting checks and the perpetrator is eighty six.  System clogged and inefficient?  It must need the market!

Personally, I think ther eal problem with higher education these days is that it is TOO MUCH part of the market.  We’ve given kids the idea that education is something they can buy that will be delivered to them.  Their job is to passively receive what they’ve paid for.

Forget liberal arts educations. NO education will work on that system.