The college dream: Is it higher education or a job-training program?

(My op-ed published in the Oregonian)

If only we were all aware of the cost of higher education and engaged in those discussions as much as we are painfully in sync with gas prices.

Every once in a while I point out to students that in the academic quarter system, it costs about $110 every week, per term, for each of the four-credit classes that I teach. A majority of that $110 is paid for by students through tuition and fees. Taxpayers chip in a significant amount as well.

Such an expensive investment is guided by a belief that college education is about future employment and economic productivity, but that's not entirely true. In fact, this linkage of higher education to economic performance is relatively new in human history.

Education, for the longest time, was not about credentialing for the trades. As one looks back to the days of gurukula in India or Plato's academy, it becomes clear that education was simply about knowing. Preparations for the trades and professions happened elsewhere.

Thus, higher education wasn't an industry, either. Galileo pursued research on the cosmos because of his undying, and heretical, curiosity, not because he thought of it as a convenient opportunity to charge students fees that they could not afford.

But especially since the post-World War II years, there has been a transformation that's resulted in a twisted understanding that higher education is some sort of a credentialing service for young adults interested in joining the 21st-century equivalents of trade guilds.

The irony is that it doesn't require an undergraduate degree to complete the tasks in service-sector jobs. Yet we've managed to convince ourselves that a college diploma is a must-have for mere survival, let alone prosperity. Most students I talk to feel that they have no choice but to get a college diploma if they want to get any sort of job anymore. And that presents a horrible choice.

After spending $110 week after week for classes like mine, students graduate, typically, with about $20,000 in debt, only to realize the realities of employment. Despite all my full disclosures in the classroom, they are shocked to find that there really isn't a job waiting for them and that their diploma isn't necessarily the guaranteed route across the (un)employment gates. In fact, trade guilds often add and require their own training and certification.

At the end of the day, the only beneficiaries are colleges and universities that are, naturally, recording enrollment increases -- even in my classes in the summer. This enrollment growth then triggers the need for additional facilities, which necessitates a demand for more money from students and taxpayers.

Such a higher educational system cannot go on forever. As economist Herbert Stein famously remarked, "If something cannot go on forever, it will stop." I suspect that it will come to a crashing halt when students, and their families and taxpayers, begin to see the numbers flashing by really fast on their meters.

Maybe students and taxpayers will then demand a refund of the money they spent on my classes, eh?

Postscript:
In addition to the comments at the newspaper's site, two emails, thus far, to me. (I have withheld names and email addresses)

A reader:

Thank you for the EXCELLENT OP-ED piece in the Oregonian: I wished I would have read it 40 YEARS ago; True then also: 3 Degrees Later and OUTCOME SAME: Jobs R in CHINA !

A faculty colleague:

That was an excellent piece in the paper this morning.  I, too, feel that the objective of a university education must be to encourage intellectual growth rather than simply being a minimal qualifier for employment.  We have community colleges for that purpose.  My observation has been that many, if not most, WOU students are intellectually adrift.  We, as an institution, can help young people discover significance.  I believe that should be our mission.

Another reader:

"The world needs ditch diggers too".  Judge Schmels, CaddyShack

A GREAT piece on education.  Unfortunately, the (educational) system is not made up of individuals such as yourself, but of "intellectuals" who have been installed by society as those that must know, and therefore we must follow.  We will be following right into the abyss.

Instead of the constant mantra of "go to college", I hope that we will finally get our educators - particularly in elementary and high school - to say "get a skill" and then teach them how to get that skill.  We have wasted at least two generations on this notion that a four year degree is absolutely necessary.  Gather the industrialists, the business leaders, the employers that want to groom their future workers.  Let the school system(s) produce a crop ready to learn the skills, and then guide those with the aptitudes to the right industry. We could make a tremendous difference in our society, in our educational system, and in our pocket books.  Free the schools from being the catchall of what a child "needs", and just TEACH.  

Thank you for the thoughtful and enlightening opinion piece. 

A letter to the editor:

I was very disappointed in Sriram Khé's analysis of higher education ("The college dream: Is it higher education or a job-training program?" In My Opinion, May 15). Indeed, his opinion seems to confirm the worst and ignore the best of what is actually happening in higher education today. As professors (and as a society), we cannot allow ourselves to be lulled by a siren song of doom and a lack of imagination.

Why can't we provide classical training AND prepare students for the job market? In my field, criminal justice, I am able to teach historical, philosophical and analytical thinking in addition to giving students face time with real-world employers.

To suggest that increasing employment options for our students is somehow a bad thing is shortsighted. Recently, I was able to provide my students with an opportunity to obtain $100,000-a-year jobs with an out-of-state criminal justice agency. Guess what? The hiring folks are actively and eagerly recruiting from the higher-ed pool. Our students are desirable candidates precisely because they have been educated and not simply trained.

Robert Swan
Swan is a visiting assistant professor of criminal justice at Western Oregon University.