An alert reader brought this to my attention: a new, hideously expensive for-profit university scheme in Britain.
Though I did call for self-supporting humanities, this is not what I meant at all. This is people who already have a lot of money charging other people with a lot money up the nose to bask in prestige.
As for the participants’ claim that cheap universities are no longer sustainable? No. That’s BS. Public universities used to work on what was essentially a crowd-sourcing model: a whole bunch of people paid what was (arguably) a reasonable fee, and their money got distributed as pay to the people involved, and the people paying got something of value for the money. But the new model includes a bunch of completely irrelevant crap, like six-figure positions and John P. Donor memorial koi ponds and professionally feng-shuied classrooms and technology that’s so cutting edge that it’s totally unusable by the majority of people on campus. In the USA, anyway — I certainly can’t speak to what things look like in Britain.
Here’s more what I had in mind: a community college model, where we determine some sort of reasonable equation for the fee/pay thing (please, someone who likes math step up here) and forgo the bells and whistles and extraneous admins. And while we’re at it, can we do away with graduation ceremonies? Talk about expensive, and I fucking hated those stupid gowns. Let’s all go to the bar instead, wearing jeans, during happy hour when we’ll save at least a buck a drink.
People would pay for actual teachers, in person — yes, still. That would be the “motivational” part of the education experience. There would be online components, because used properly, these can indeed make everyone’s life easier and cheaper. And as I already mentioned, the SXSW UI panels really got me thinking about how useless all those hours of grading are, so we should just cut that out of the equation. How about pre-designated, required, 15-minute live chats with the professor? That way we’d all get our dose of impersonality. But everyone would still be required to show up to class — just like you would for, say, a job — or maybe we’ll just call it a rap session, and title it “Sappho and My Feelings” or “Mitochondria and Your Inner Child” or whatever. (And no, crying in class will still not be okay.)
I’m just sayin’.
Here’s the thing. You have argued in the past that professors should realize their worth and if people are willing to pay it, start charging it. These are “superstar” professors starting this university, and I can well imagine they are going to get paid what they feel they are worth (now, we might disagree on that point, but anyway). Community Colleges have always been on the lowest end of the salary pool, in part because the tuition was so low and also in part because they were made to feel like they were doing God’s work in helping those most vulnerable get some kind of higher education.
Is this the answer to all of our problems when it comes to reinstilling the value of a liberal arts degree in the masses? No. But it does show us that professors can make a shit-ton of money is they got their acts together and cut out the middle-men (administrators).
I do like your idea for graduate, though.
Sure, I’ve argued that profs should charge the same as public speakers, but my thought was that the cost would still be spread over many students.
Given its cost this scheme is basically the same as hiring very expensive private tutors, which won’t promote the humanities in general unless you believe that the lifestyles of the rich will have a trickle-down effect (and then we’re back to rich people acting as patrons).
And I’ll be honest, I think Richard Dawkins is kind of a jackass anyway (genes aren’t the only thing that are selfish, huh), so that’s a big part of my objection, that this is just an ego-stroking exercise rather than anything that will help change education at large.
I really enjoy your blog. I am almost done with my PhD in history and I am seriously debating whether or not I want to go into academia. Higher Ed is all messed up and it doesn’t seem to be getting better. I am not sure if you saw this piece in the Chronicle of Higher Ed a few weeks ago, but it looks an educational revolution is about to take place, where you won’t even need to get a degree anymore–just take free classes online.
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Quiet-Revolution-in-Open/127545/
To be honest, I try to avoid the Chronicle as it’s still in way too much denial. Hence the not getting better, I think. But thanks for reading — and no, don’t go into academia. The transition may be the path of slightly more resistance than just going on the market, but I really think in the end it saves immense amounts of time and energy.
I agree with your view of this new college. It also gets a kicking from Terry Eagleton http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/jun/06/ac-graylings-new-private-univerity-is-odious?CMP=twt_gu It wasn’t always so in the UK, we used to have the Oxford Extension Movement and the Workers’ Educational Association (although these have faced criticism for having been patronizing, essentially attempts to neuter working-class radicalism:
http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/09/09/origin-plebs-league-burning-question-education)
We have also had working-class people directing their own education, and devising the tools and institutions to purvey it:
http://libcom.org/library/where-they-teach-you-how-be-thick-james-heartfield
As much as I sympathize with the spirit of the above references, the problem is, for me (as a working-class person) betrayed by their reliance on the props of material progress and material betterment. Education is still seen as a means to an end, a yardstick of social (i.e., eventually moneyed) mobility and just financial deserts. This basically plays precisely into the hands of those who have just set up this new university under the likes of Dawkins – it’s degree and not kind stuff.
Education should in my view be about how to live the good life, and be valued for its own sake, as an individual embodiment of our being rationally and culturally human (to put it grandly) rather than as an embellishment that can be traded in for cash, whether at a yard sale or in the financial district, as it were.
Agreed on all counts — but the whole “should” thing is problematic. Being a historian has made me a bit cynical of idealism and I really wonder if the university, which was founded as an elite institution hundreds of years ago, can ever escape its roots and become truly egalitarian. Especially since it actually does require quite a bit of leisure time to read Plato etc., if you’re not getting paid to do it. So maybe we should just go really old school Socrates, charge by the hour, and corrupt the youth in the streets?
My son is doing summer school soon. It’s a month of on-line math and english, but with teachers to help out. The student is *not* generally allowed to do the on-line bit at home. No homework. We’ll see how it works.
For Math, multiple choice tests can probably always be constructed. And it works for reading comprehension. I don’t see how multiple choice tests could possibly work for writing.
One of the possible foreseeable failures might be the use of tests as the teaching instrument. Tests are pretty poor for testings achievement. They’re possitively awful for instruction.
There are strategies for taking multiple choice tests. Let’s say a math test asks for 347 * 463. Well, 7 * 3 = 21. So the right most digit in the answer has to be “1″. Cross out all the other answers. If only one answer is left, mark it. This gives you more time for the rest of the test. But your score reflects how well you understand test taking, not competence in math. I hate it. Let’s admit it – we use multiple choice tests because they’re cheap. For that matter, why should tests ever have time limits? Why not open book tests? I’ve had tests that were in-class but all-week. I’ve had courses that only graded homework. I’ve had courses where no two students had the same problem sets.
I’ll go the low brow and easy route for commenting on your post today – total agreement with ditching graduation for a small pub crawl. As for the higher brow commentary, I just don’t have it in me today – it’s been a long day at my gigantic machine university filled with admins
Ain’t nothing wrong with lowbrow on this blog. And I think a lot of problems could be solved if pub crawls became mandatory social events that involved profs, admins, and students forced to work things out over beer!