By RIchard Vedder
Whenever I am speaking to some group on higher education, at some point in my talk I usually ask the question "Did Stanford (or Northwestern, or the University of Georgia, etc.) have a good year in 2005? Who in the heck knows? We know how the football tean did, but do we know how the school did in its most important mission, educating students?" The answer, of course, is no.
The Spellings Commission talked about the need for more measurement and greater transparency, including developing measures of what the "value added" is from the college experience. While the commissioners debated and pontificated on this (myself included), the Intercollegiate Studies Institute was doing something about it, administering a pretty good 60 question test to 14,000 students at 50 schools that gives us some good information on the likely amount of learning with respect to civic, historical and economic understanding. I wrote about this a couple of days ago.
Why not take a modified version of the ISI test and give it to far larger numbers of students at more institutions? Suppose the per student cost of testing is $25, and that a sample size averaging 300 is considered necessary to get results that are statistically rather reliable at the individual school level. It would cost $7,500 to survey one school. For $3 million, one could survey 400 schools -- say the 250 schools with the largest enrollments, 50 top national universities and 50 top liberal arts colleges using the US News & World Report rankings, and several dozen schools with at least 750 students chosen on a random basis (some schools would fit in more than one category); I would also be sure that at least two schools were selected in each state. For another $100,000 or so, a national report could be prepared and publicized, giving consumers a pretty good value added measure on schools that educate a very significant portion of all undergraduate four year college students. This should spur even more comprehensive measures of value added down the road, and lead to better outcome-based evaluations of schools.
Schools might not want to participate, but so what? Do what ISI did. Go to public sites where kids hang out and select participants in an unbiased manner. Or, tell the schools "we are going to test your kids anyhow -- do you want to give us some testing rooms and we will say you cooperated with the survey?"
As for the test, I might expand it to, say, 75 questions, with perhaps 30 or so in history, civic institutions and economics like in the ISI survey, perhaps 20 or so in mathematics, 15 or so in English language and literature, and maybe 10 on a miscellany in other areas, particularly in sciences. It would not be a truly comprehensive test, but would examine students on a significant numbers of areas where college grads historically have been expected to have some level of literacy. The tests would be administered to roughly equal numbers to freshman and seniors.
Who would fund this? I think it would be a marvelous project for the deep pockets of the Lumina Foundation, or for a coalition of foundations. For a relative pittance, you could offer significant new information to prospective students, could devise better measures of university productivity, assessing how much learning occurs per dollar spent. To be sure, this might lead schools to require work in the core subjects named above, in effect defining a general education component of the curriculum. However, this general education core is the step child at most schools anyhow, so even "teaching to the test" might be viewed as a positive development.
Friday, September 29, 2006
Thursday, September 28, 2006
A Hearty Cheer for Catherine Reynolds
By Richard Vedder
The moment I was the maddest during my soon-to-end service on the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education was the day before the vote on the report, when a statement was taken out of the draft praising the private student loan industry and suggesting that its growth freed up federal resources for other uses. The sentence had been put in orginally by chairman Charles Miller, and I considered it a welcome and important addition to the report, but Charles withdrew it because of some flak he was getting, primarily from some student activists. I seriously considered voting against the report (as indicated in an earlier blog) based on this unprincipled retreat, and this prompted Charles Miller to come and urge me to support the report at my American Enterprise Institute office.
I felt then, and I do now, that Charles orginally had it exactly right. I would go further: I can find no intellectual justification for the federal government subsidizing relatively affluent kids who want to go to college, in part for consumption purposes (have the good life before entering the world of work), and in part to raise their incomes. Businesses wanting to make profits through investments borrow through private lenders for the most part, and so should students.
One of history's ironies and better examples of the law of unintended consequences is the fact that the growth of federal student loan programs coincides with a slowdown in the growth in student college participation.
I am reminded of all of this today when I read in Inside Higher Ed that the National Student Association has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the practices of Loan to Learn, a program of EduCap, Inc. This company was founded by my fellow commissioner Catherine Reynolds. Without government subsidies (indeed, I assume it pays federal taxes), this company has filled a financing need, and has grown rapidly in recent years, as finally a small amount of sanity has led to some caps on federal student loan expansion. The NSA argues that sometimes Loan to Learn charges high interest rates. So what? If you don't like the company, borrow elsewhere. That is what competition is all about.
While I know nothing about the practices of this firm specifically, I think we should be grateful to entrepreneurs like Catherine who stepped up to the plate. To be sure, she made a bundle, in keeping with Adam Smith's magisterial injunction of 230 years ago, when he talked about people that "intends only his own gain, and he is in this... led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his inteniton." The purusit of profit serves a desirable social as well as private end.
I hear that Catherine may be getting back in the student loan game after a brief retirement. As a taxpayer, I am glad to have people like Catherine and her competitors provide lending services that appropriately should be handled by free enterprise, not by government bureaucrats and politicans.
The moment I was the maddest during my soon-to-end service on the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education was the day before the vote on the report, when a statement was taken out of the draft praising the private student loan industry and suggesting that its growth freed up federal resources for other uses. The sentence had been put in orginally by chairman Charles Miller, and I considered it a welcome and important addition to the report, but Charles withdrew it because of some flak he was getting, primarily from some student activists. I seriously considered voting against the report (as indicated in an earlier blog) based on this unprincipled retreat, and this prompted Charles Miller to come and urge me to support the report at my American Enterprise Institute office.
I felt then, and I do now, that Charles orginally had it exactly right. I would go further: I can find no intellectual justification for the federal government subsidizing relatively affluent kids who want to go to college, in part for consumption purposes (have the good life before entering the world of work), and in part to raise their incomes. Businesses wanting to make profits through investments borrow through private lenders for the most part, and so should students.
One of history's ironies and better examples of the law of unintended consequences is the fact that the growth of federal student loan programs coincides with a slowdown in the growth in student college participation.
I am reminded of all of this today when I read in Inside Higher Ed that the National Student Association has filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission over the practices of Loan to Learn, a program of EduCap, Inc. This company was founded by my fellow commissioner Catherine Reynolds. Without government subsidies (indeed, I assume it pays federal taxes), this company has filled a financing need, and has grown rapidly in recent years, as finally a small amount of sanity has led to some caps on federal student loan expansion. The NSA argues that sometimes Loan to Learn charges high interest rates. So what? If you don't like the company, borrow elsewhere. That is what competition is all about.
While I know nothing about the practices of this firm specifically, I think we should be grateful to entrepreneurs like Catherine who stepped up to the plate. To be sure, she made a bundle, in keeping with Adam Smith's magisterial injunction of 230 years ago, when he talked about people that "intends only his own gain, and he is in this... led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his inteniton." The purusit of profit serves a desirable social as well as private end.
I hear that Catherine may be getting back in the student loan game after a brief retirement. As a taxpayer, I am glad to have people like Catherine and her competitors provide lending services that appropriately should be handled by free enterprise, not by government bureaucrats and politicans.
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
A Great Report and Cause for Grave Concern
By Richard Vedder
After attending the Spellings speech/press conference on the 13th floor of the National Press Club yesterday, I wandered by a much smaller and neglected event down the hall, namely the unveiling of a report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute entitled The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions.
The report says:
1. America's college students are woefully inadequate in their knowledge of American history, the operations of our political institutions and foreign relations, and economics.
2. The amount of learning about these core subjects occurring during the college years on average is appallingly little, approaching zero.
3. The "value added" (increase in learning) about these topics is typically much greater in the less well known, less expensive private institutions than in the elite yuppie universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
Many will discredit the report by proclaiming that the Intercollegiate Studies Institute is a conservative organization. True, but that is irrelevant in this case. ISI hired the well-regarded polling group at the University of Connecticut to do the testing. A non-partisan, fact-based test of 60 multiple choice questions were designed to test knowledge of key events, persons, and ideas that relate to our civic institutions and our heritage. Several of the questions were taken directly from the highly regarded National Assessment of Economic Progress exams administered to 17 year old Americans. More than 14,000 students were surveyed on 50 campuses, roughly one-half of them freshman and the other half seniors (about 140 of each on average on each campus).
At 16 of the 50 schools, the senior scores averaged lower than the freshman ones, implying that little or no learning of these key topics was occurring at these schools. Some of those schools: Yale, Duke, Cornell, the University of Virginia, and the U. of California at Berkeley. The five schools showing the largest gains in knowledge were Rhodes College, Colorado State University, Calvin College, Grove City College, and the University of Colorado at Boulder --hardly viewed at top schools by the more popular magazine rankings.
The Spellings Commission and the Department of Education have been crying for measures of student performance, of the value added by attending colleges. ISI has actually done something to measure value added. Their findings are scary, exciting, and particularly humiliating for expensive elite private schools. Seniors at little known Grove City College did as good or better than students at more prestigious Williams College or Washington and Lee. George Mason students outperformed those at Michigan or Berkeley. This is the type of information parents and students need in evaluating schools, and this kind of test result is precisely why many schools, including the private elite ones, will likely fight this sort of testing tooth and nail.
Needed: Someone to give ISI (or CCAP) $1 or $2 million to replicate and expand this study -- perhaps to new subjects, to more universities, to bigger student samples. Let the light shine in.
To be sure, there are a couple of limitations of the approach. It is inherently difficult for elitist schools who take kids who already score relatively well on the ISI test in their freshman year and expect big gains from them. It is true that ISI was not testing the same students at different points in time, and that sampling errors might have some distortive effects on individual school results. Nonetheless, I think the methodology is on the whole very sound, the sample size impressive, and the results exceedingly depressing. Less than one-fourth of seniors correctly answered questions relating to the nature of society, the Monroe Doctrine, the traditional criteria for "just war," the concept of a public good, or the federal budget.
Finally, one justification for public support of universities is that they help create a common bond among the people, by developing a population with a solid core knowledge of our past, our political institutions, our economy. The ISI results once again confirm what other studies at CCAP suggest, namely that the colleges are not doing an awful lot for the money they receive, and that "education for citizenship" is a scandal in American universities.
After attending the Spellings speech/press conference on the 13th floor of the National Press Club yesterday, I wandered by a much smaller and neglected event down the hall, namely the unveiling of a report from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute entitled The Coming Crisis in Citizenship: Higher Education's Failure to Teach America's History and Institutions.
The report says:
1. America's college students are woefully inadequate in their knowledge of American history, the operations of our political institutions and foreign relations, and economics.
2. The amount of learning about these core subjects occurring during the college years on average is appallingly little, approaching zero.
3. The "value added" (increase in learning) about these topics is typically much greater in the less well known, less expensive private institutions than in the elite yuppie universities like Harvard, Yale and Princeton.
Many will discredit the report by proclaiming that the Intercollegiate Studies Institute is a conservative organization. True, but that is irrelevant in this case. ISI hired the well-regarded polling group at the University of Connecticut to do the testing. A non-partisan, fact-based test of 60 multiple choice questions were designed to test knowledge of key events, persons, and ideas that relate to our civic institutions and our heritage. Several of the questions were taken directly from the highly regarded National Assessment of Economic Progress exams administered to 17 year old Americans. More than 14,000 students were surveyed on 50 campuses, roughly one-half of them freshman and the other half seniors (about 140 of each on average on each campus).
At 16 of the 50 schools, the senior scores averaged lower than the freshman ones, implying that little or no learning of these key topics was occurring at these schools. Some of those schools: Yale, Duke, Cornell, the University of Virginia, and the U. of California at Berkeley. The five schools showing the largest gains in knowledge were Rhodes College, Colorado State University, Calvin College, Grove City College, and the University of Colorado at Boulder --hardly viewed at top schools by the more popular magazine rankings.
The Spellings Commission and the Department of Education have been crying for measures of student performance, of the value added by attending colleges. ISI has actually done something to measure value added. Their findings are scary, exciting, and particularly humiliating for expensive elite private schools. Seniors at little known Grove City College did as good or better than students at more prestigious Williams College or Washington and Lee. George Mason students outperformed those at Michigan or Berkeley. This is the type of information parents and students need in evaluating schools, and this kind of test result is precisely why many schools, including the private elite ones, will likely fight this sort of testing tooth and nail.
Needed: Someone to give ISI (or CCAP) $1 or $2 million to replicate and expand this study -- perhaps to new subjects, to more universities, to bigger student samples. Let the light shine in.
To be sure, there are a couple of limitations of the approach. It is inherently difficult for elitist schools who take kids who already score relatively well on the ISI test in their freshman year and expect big gains from them. It is true that ISI was not testing the same students at different points in time, and that sampling errors might have some distortive effects on individual school results. Nonetheless, I think the methodology is on the whole very sound, the sample size impressive, and the results exceedingly depressing. Less than one-fourth of seniors correctly answered questions relating to the nature of society, the Monroe Doctrine, the traditional criteria for "just war," the concept of a public good, or the federal budget.
Finally, one justification for public support of universities is that they help create a common bond among the people, by developing a population with a solid core knowledge of our past, our political institutions, our economy. The ISI results once again confirm what other studies at CCAP suggest, namely that the colleges are not doing an awful lot for the money they receive, and that "education for citizenship" is a scandal in American universities.
Margaret Spellings Performs Well
By Richard Vedder
I attended Margaret Spellings' major speech on higher education yesterday, and thought on the whole it was good and especially well delivered. I particularly liked her commitment to match efforts of institutions and states in funding the provision of much greater data about institutions to prospective students and the general public. I also was impressed by the Secretary's adroit handling of questions, and her obvious command of facts and background information. I have known the Secretary for a bit over a year, and my respect for her and the job she is doing has increased significantly with the passage of time.
I am somewhat skeptical, however, of how much real reform will come of the Spellings Commission's report and the follow-up. I think the Secretary's heart is in the right place, and I think she will push for some positive changes. However, as indicated in a blog posted recently, I would note that there are a lot of issues that the Commission either ignored, or treated in a vague way -- federal student loan programs top the list, for example. The devil is in the details, and when it comes to those details, the voices of reaction (led in the higher education community most prominently in the past year by David Warren representing the independent colleges) have had good success in thwarting real reform.
Another interesting thing from yesterday's press briefing was the extent that the nation's media are NOT really that interested in higher education. At least half the questions directed at the Secretary were about K-12 issues. Higher ed is on the radar screen, but just barely. It is difficult to achieve significant reform when some of those being asked to change are resistant, and when the public (as reflected in media interest) views this as a matter of secondary importance.
All of this, of course, reflects the fact that universities and colleges are largely unaccountable and funded by third parties insulated from the same sorts of discipline governing behavior prevailing in the competitive market economy. As long as people drop money out of airplanes over universities and ask little in return, you are going to find it hard to effect changes that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of postsecondary education in the United States. Having said this, however, I still think the efforts to hold universities accountable and behave transparently could have some positive dividends.
I attended Margaret Spellings' major speech on higher education yesterday, and thought on the whole it was good and especially well delivered. I particularly liked her commitment to match efforts of institutions and states in funding the provision of much greater data about institutions to prospective students and the general public. I also was impressed by the Secretary's adroit handling of questions, and her obvious command of facts and background information. I have known the Secretary for a bit over a year, and my respect for her and the job she is doing has increased significantly with the passage of time.
I am somewhat skeptical, however, of how much real reform will come of the Spellings Commission's report and the follow-up. I think the Secretary's heart is in the right place, and I think she will push for some positive changes. However, as indicated in a blog posted recently, I would note that there are a lot of issues that the Commission either ignored, or treated in a vague way -- federal student loan programs top the list, for example. The devil is in the details, and when it comes to those details, the voices of reaction (led in the higher education community most prominently in the past year by David Warren representing the independent colleges) have had good success in thwarting real reform.
Another interesting thing from yesterday's press briefing was the extent that the nation's media are NOT really that interested in higher education. At least half the questions directed at the Secretary were about K-12 issues. Higher ed is on the radar screen, but just barely. It is difficult to achieve significant reform when some of those being asked to change are resistant, and when the public (as reflected in media interest) views this as a matter of secondary importance.
All of this, of course, reflects the fact that universities and colleges are largely unaccountable and funded by third parties insulated from the same sorts of discipline governing behavior prevailing in the competitive market economy. As long as people drop money out of airplanes over universities and ask little in return, you are going to find it hard to effect changes that increase the efficiency and effectiveness of postsecondary education in the United States. Having said this, however, I still think the efforts to hold universities accountable and behave transparently could have some positive dividends.
Monday, September 25, 2006
The Spellings Commission: An Evaluation
By Richard Vedder
Today Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education, officially releases the report of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education, offering the administration’s response to it. While acknowledging that American universities have many strengths, the report points out many inadequacies of America’s colleges and suggestions for improvement. Eighteen of 19 highly diverse commissioners have signed the report, with only David Ward, President of the American Council of Education, wavering in supporting it.
The report promotes greater access for underrepresented students, argues that the soaring growth in higher education costs and tuition charges needs to be reduced, champions new technologies to cut costs and promote adult access. It calls for reforming accreditation, reducing barriers to transferring credit, and promoting more college work for able high school students. Above all, it calls for greater transparency and accountability in university operations, with greater uniform, easy to understand data on college performance readily available to potential students and policymakers.
Most of this is fine, and since the good in the report exceeds the bad, I joined others in signing the document. Yet there are many problems with our current system of higher education that are ignored or only vaguely discussed:
• While appropriately calling the patch-work system of federal financial assistance programs “dysfunctional,” there are no recommendations to improve it;
• Little emphasis is given to the shocking indifference shown by most faculty to helping students, or in defining a common curriculum that all educated Americans should be acquainted with;
• Nothing is said about grade inflation and other indicators that students are typically challenged less than in the past; likewise little is said about evidence suggesting reduced performance levels by college students;
• Huge subsidies to non-instructional activities like intercollegiate athletics or elaborate recreational facilities are not critically evaluated;
• The bloated university administrative structure and the salary explosion fueled by third party payments is inappropriately ignored;
• Bad federal practices such as legislative earmarking of research grants on political criteria rather than scholarly merit are unmentioned;
• Is tenure a device protecting academic freedom or incompetence? It is a non-issue to the Commission;
• Does a lack of intellectual diversity in many universities lead to a decline in critical scientific and literary inquiry? Another neglected issue.
• The reduction over time in teaching loads to support research is neglected –are the benefits of that research worth the costs, financial and otherwise?
• Inefficiencies abound, and they are not specifically discussed –buildings are used only part of the year, colleges engage in nonacademic functions (food, lodging entertainment) that they have no expertise in, and shared university governance is costly, inefficient, and often dysfunctional.
Of all the problems concerning higher education in America, the most vexing is the huge increase in costs. In inflation adjusted terms, tuition fees have more than doubled over the past couple of decades. It takes fewer hours of work to buy bread, computers, airplane trips, or automobiles than a generation ago, and the quality of most of these products has improved, a consequence of economic growth. Yet the same cannot be said of higher education: one has to work more hours to pay the bills –and there is real doubt the quality offered has improved.
Rising costs reflect many things: third party payments (from governments and private philanthropists) have made customers fairly insensitive to costs. A tripling in student financial aid since 1994 has not led to big increases in student college participation, but has aggravated sharply rising tuition costs. A lack of a “bottom line” because of colleges’ non-profit nature means there are few incentives to cut costs and increase efficiency. The enrollment-adjusted number of non-faculty professional employees, for example, has doubled over the past generation, while the key to productivity advance is reducing labor inputs. In universities, technology is viewed as cost- enhancing, leading some schools to impose student “technology fees,” whereas in competitive profit seeking businesses technology reduces costs.
Some tough love needs to be practiced if real cost containment is to occur. The sharp explosion in federal student assistance programs, for example, needs to end –maybe the feds should even get out of the business of financing college education entirely, except for the very poor, since it merely fuels further tuition increases.
For every 100 students entering high school, only about 18 have earned a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent a decade later. There are three reasons for this: large high school dropouts, a significant portion of high school graduates choosing not to go on to college, and, most relevantly, a very high attrition rate of college students. A decent case can be made that we have over-invested in universities, luring unqualified students to them who ultimately fail to graduate, acquiring big student loan debts in the process. Perhaps we should limit our public investment in marginally qualified students to giving them a chance to perform in low cost community colleges, allowing them to go on for more extensive education only if they succeed at the two year schools.
Our colleges have accomplished much, but they need to become more accountable, more efficient, more competitive, and, quite frankly, a good deal better if higher education is going to adequately fulfill its special mission of transmitting the knowledge of the past, and adding to it to benefit future generations of Americans.
Richard Vedder directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, is a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and teaches at Ohio University.
Today Margaret Spellings, Secretary of Education, officially releases the report of her Commission on the Future of Higher Education, offering the administration’s response to it. While acknowledging that American universities have many strengths, the report points out many inadequacies of America’s colleges and suggestions for improvement. Eighteen of 19 highly diverse commissioners have signed the report, with only David Ward, President of the American Council of Education, wavering in supporting it.
The report promotes greater access for underrepresented students, argues that the soaring growth in higher education costs and tuition charges needs to be reduced, champions new technologies to cut costs and promote adult access. It calls for reforming accreditation, reducing barriers to transferring credit, and promoting more college work for able high school students. Above all, it calls for greater transparency and accountability in university operations, with greater uniform, easy to understand data on college performance readily available to potential students and policymakers.
Most of this is fine, and since the good in the report exceeds the bad, I joined others in signing the document. Yet there are many problems with our current system of higher education that are ignored or only vaguely discussed:
• While appropriately calling the patch-work system of federal financial assistance programs “dysfunctional,” there are no recommendations to improve it;
• Little emphasis is given to the shocking indifference shown by most faculty to helping students, or in defining a common curriculum that all educated Americans should be acquainted with;
• Nothing is said about grade inflation and other indicators that students are typically challenged less than in the past; likewise little is said about evidence suggesting reduced performance levels by college students;
• Huge subsidies to non-instructional activities like intercollegiate athletics or elaborate recreational facilities are not critically evaluated;
• The bloated university administrative structure and the salary explosion fueled by third party payments is inappropriately ignored;
• Bad federal practices such as legislative earmarking of research grants on political criteria rather than scholarly merit are unmentioned;
• Is tenure a device protecting academic freedom or incompetence? It is a non-issue to the Commission;
• Does a lack of intellectual diversity in many universities lead to a decline in critical scientific and literary inquiry? Another neglected issue.
• The reduction over time in teaching loads to support research is neglected –are the benefits of that research worth the costs, financial and otherwise?
• Inefficiencies abound, and they are not specifically discussed –buildings are used only part of the year, colleges engage in nonacademic functions (food, lodging entertainment) that they have no expertise in, and shared university governance is costly, inefficient, and often dysfunctional.
Of all the problems concerning higher education in America, the most vexing is the huge increase in costs. In inflation adjusted terms, tuition fees have more than doubled over the past couple of decades. It takes fewer hours of work to buy bread, computers, airplane trips, or automobiles than a generation ago, and the quality of most of these products has improved, a consequence of economic growth. Yet the same cannot be said of higher education: one has to work more hours to pay the bills –and there is real doubt the quality offered has improved.
Rising costs reflect many things: third party payments (from governments and private philanthropists) have made customers fairly insensitive to costs. A tripling in student financial aid since 1994 has not led to big increases in student college participation, but has aggravated sharply rising tuition costs. A lack of a “bottom line” because of colleges’ non-profit nature means there are few incentives to cut costs and increase efficiency. The enrollment-adjusted number of non-faculty professional employees, for example, has doubled over the past generation, while the key to productivity advance is reducing labor inputs. In universities, technology is viewed as cost- enhancing, leading some schools to impose student “technology fees,” whereas in competitive profit seeking businesses technology reduces costs.
Some tough love needs to be practiced if real cost containment is to occur. The sharp explosion in federal student assistance programs, for example, needs to end –maybe the feds should even get out of the business of financing college education entirely, except for the very poor, since it merely fuels further tuition increases.
For every 100 students entering high school, only about 18 have earned a bachelor’s degree or the equivalent a decade later. There are three reasons for this: large high school dropouts, a significant portion of high school graduates choosing not to go on to college, and, most relevantly, a very high attrition rate of college students. A decent case can be made that we have over-invested in universities, luring unqualified students to them who ultimately fail to graduate, acquiring big student loan debts in the process. Perhaps we should limit our public investment in marginally qualified students to giving them a chance to perform in low cost community colleges, allowing them to go on for more extensive education only if they succeed at the two year schools.
Our colleges have accomplished much, but they need to become more accountable, more efficient, more competitive, and, quite frankly, a good deal better if higher education is going to adequately fulfill its special mission of transmitting the knowledge of the past, and adding to it to benefit future generations of Americans.
Richard Vedder directs the Center for College Affordability and Productivity, is a Visiting Scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, and teaches at Ohio University.
Charles Miller Is Right on Pell Grants
By Richard Vedder
University presidents have been salivating over one recommendation from the Spellings Commission -- a huge increase in Pell Grants. Engineered by former North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt, the Commission's recommendation has been widely praised as a means of increasing need-based aid.
According to Inside Higher Education, however, commission chair Charles Miller is making the point that the Pell Grant recommendation was conditional -- more Pell Grant money should be committed only if colleges show progress in constraining their tuition increases. Moreover, the Commission set a "benchmark" of trying to reduce tuition increases below the growth in family income (a provision that Yours Truly managed to get in the report). Charles Miller's interpretation is exactly the same as mine. The Commission is not calling for price controls, but rather is saying "if you do your job in taking cost containment, productivity enhancement, and efficiency seriously, we will increase Pell Grant assistance to students -- a double whammy in the direction of increasing student affordability."
Allow me this opportunity to say, as the Spellings Commission ends its formal mission, that Charles Miller has been an extraordinarily effective chair. Without his leadership, no report with any meaningful recommendations would have been approved. While the final report does not go far enough in my opinion, it is nonetheless a step in the right direction, a step that takes someone with Charles's leadership to pull off. Now we await tomorrow's response from the Administration to the commission report, and later the response of Congress and the Department of Education bureaucrats to this document.
University presidents have been salivating over one recommendation from the Spellings Commission -- a huge increase in Pell Grants. Engineered by former North Carolina Governor Jim Hunt, the Commission's recommendation has been widely praised as a means of increasing need-based aid.
According to Inside Higher Education, however, commission chair Charles Miller is making the point that the Pell Grant recommendation was conditional -- more Pell Grant money should be committed only if colleges show progress in constraining their tuition increases. Moreover, the Commission set a "benchmark" of trying to reduce tuition increases below the growth in family income (a provision that Yours Truly managed to get in the report). Charles Miller's interpretation is exactly the same as mine. The Commission is not calling for price controls, but rather is saying "if you do your job in taking cost containment, productivity enhancement, and efficiency seriously, we will increase Pell Grant assistance to students -- a double whammy in the direction of increasing student affordability."
Allow me this opportunity to say, as the Spellings Commission ends its formal mission, that Charles Miller has been an extraordinarily effective chair. Without his leadership, no report with any meaningful recommendations would have been approved. While the final report does not go far enough in my opinion, it is nonetheless a step in the right direction, a step that takes someone with Charles's leadership to pull off. Now we await tomorrow's response from the Administration to the commission report, and later the response of Congress and the Department of Education bureaucrats to this document.
The Early Admission Issue
By Richard Vedder
A week or two ago, Harvard created a medium-sized stir when it announced that it was abandoning early decision admissions. Soon Princeton followed, and now there is much buzz about whether other selective admissions schools will follow.
I have not commented on this little brouhaha for several reasons. First of all, early admissions at most impacts 10 percent of students going to college, and probably importantly a still smaller proportion. It is an issue only at selective admissions schools. Second, whether universities admit kids in the fall or the spring of their senior year to me is of trivial importance relative to some of the real major issues contributing to high costs and low productivity.
Critics of early decision say that it is a practice that discriminates against the poor. Under early decision, kids that agree to enroll if accepted are given an early notification of their admission --before financial assistance decisions are made. This allegedly hurts lower income kids who are very dependent on financial aid. It always struck me as a little strange to have multiple admission tracks, and that it vaguely violates the idea of a "level playing field." However, as a general principle I believe that universities should be able to take whatever steps they wants to determine how and when they admit students, so my concerns over early decision have been pretty muted.
The broader issue with regards to the Harvards and Princetons of the world is: why do they charge any tuition at all? Most financial aid issues disappear if tuition is zero. Harvard's endowment is $29 billion. With a five percent rate of return, that is $1.45 billion annually in income --about $75,000 per Harvard student. According to Department of Education data, salaries of teaching faculty per student are perhaps 20-30 percent of tuition levels at better private schools. Even if faculty salaries are only one-third of instructional cost, tuition charges should more than cover the cost of instruction. Since endowment income is sometimes double what tuition income is, why do we need any tuition at all? The reason, of course, is that many universities have made undergraduates a forgotten cash cow, taught by "tutors" and "graduate assistants" while professors are paid princely salaries to teach little and do their research. If Harvard and Princeton allocated resources properly, any student from families of under $100,000 income would pay no tuition, so the alleged inequities that come with early decision would largely disappear.
A week or two ago, Harvard created a medium-sized stir when it announced that it was abandoning early decision admissions. Soon Princeton followed, and now there is much buzz about whether other selective admissions schools will follow.
I have not commented on this little brouhaha for several reasons. First of all, early admissions at most impacts 10 percent of students going to college, and probably importantly a still smaller proportion. It is an issue only at selective admissions schools. Second, whether universities admit kids in the fall or the spring of their senior year to me is of trivial importance relative to some of the real major issues contributing to high costs and low productivity.
Critics of early decision say that it is a practice that discriminates against the poor. Under early decision, kids that agree to enroll if accepted are given an early notification of their admission --before financial assistance decisions are made. This allegedly hurts lower income kids who are very dependent on financial aid. It always struck me as a little strange to have multiple admission tracks, and that it vaguely violates the idea of a "level playing field." However, as a general principle I believe that universities should be able to take whatever steps they wants to determine how and when they admit students, so my concerns over early decision have been pretty muted.
The broader issue with regards to the Harvards and Princetons of the world is: why do they charge any tuition at all? Most financial aid issues disappear if tuition is zero. Harvard's endowment is $29 billion. With a five percent rate of return, that is $1.45 billion annually in income --about $75,000 per Harvard student. According to Department of Education data, salaries of teaching faculty per student are perhaps 20-30 percent of tuition levels at better private schools. Even if faculty salaries are only one-third of instructional cost, tuition charges should more than cover the cost of instruction. Since endowment income is sometimes double what tuition income is, why do we need any tuition at all? The reason, of course, is that many universities have made undergraduates a forgotten cash cow, taught by "tutors" and "graduate assistants" while professors are paid princely salaries to teach little and do their research. If Harvard and Princeton allocated resources properly, any student from families of under $100,000 income would pay no tuition, so the alleged inequities that come with early decision would largely disappear.
Sunday, September 24, 2006
Information Costs: Key Part of University Economics
By Richard Vedder
One of my academic friends, the distinguished economic historian Douglass North, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1993 in large part by showing over and over again how transactions costs played a major role in the evolution of our modern economy. Similarly, Friedrich Hayek and George Stigler earlier won Nobel prizes for showing how information and the cost of acquiring it were key to understanding markets and their operation.
Information and information costs play critical roles in explaining much of the peculiar economics of American universities. As I have argued earlier, there are high information costs for employers wanting to learn about the probable success of potential employees. A large part of those costs are the result of restrictions on employer testing resulting from the Griggs v. Duke Power Supreme Court decision and other laws and regulations. Universities exploit this information cost problem. A college diploma provides valuable information (namely that the individual is probably fairly literate, dependable, and intelligent) at low cost to the employer, but not to society. This increases the demand for college graduates, raises their salaries, and also increases the demand for college educational training, thereby increasing tuition charges.
While colleges exploit ignorance (lack of information) about job candidates in a way that raises tuition charges, they have unique legal rights allowing them to lower information costs in another critical area --learning about the financial condition of prospective students. Specifically, colleges can and do legally request information from applicants on all sorts of highly private financial data that usually suppliers of services do not and cannot request from their customers. Indeed, the federal government aids and abets this by providing the FAFSA form and in providing loans to students. Universities engage in price discrimination to a much greater degree than otherwise possible because they are able to obtain, at no cost to themselves, information on student ability to pay tuition. As indicated in an earlier epistle, this price discrimination serves to reduce what economists call consumer surplus, lowering the economic welfare associated with attending college.
Thus there is a great asymmetry at work -- on the one hand universities exploit a lack of information for their own advantage, while on the other hand they engage in practices that allow them to gather information for their advantage in a manner unavailable to other providers of goods and services.
In still another area, universities have consciously and deliberately worked to maintain high information costs. They have not provided clear information to consumers about the gains from attending college (the "value added"), not for example testing their students upon entrance and exit in order to see how much new knowledge was acquired during the college experience. Similarly, they have been less than transparent in providing information to potential customers as well as financial benefactors (including taxpayers) on their financial operations. They do not operate in a transparent manner -- customers and providers of funds for operations live largely in a veil of ignorance. The Spellings Commission's call to change this state of affairs is most welcome. We will learn tomorrow how Secretary Spellings and the administration views that commission's work (she is speaking at the National Press Club at 1:00 p.m. --I suspect CSPAN will cover it), and I will be there to here what she has to say.
The irony of all this, of course, is that universities are in the business of creating and disseminating information. Having a large portion of the citizenry with a college education is alleged to have positive spillover effects on society because some of the information and transactions costs associated with human economic interaction are overcome by having a population with common knowledge of key types of information important to efficient market transactions. The universities use this argument to justify the large third party subsidies that sustain them, and that have contributed to inefficiencies, high consumer costs, and a good deal of institutional elitism and arrogance.
One of my academic friends, the distinguished economic historian Douglass North, won the Nobel Prize in Economic Science in 1993 in large part by showing over and over again how transactions costs played a major role in the evolution of our modern economy. Similarly, Friedrich Hayek and George Stigler earlier won Nobel prizes for showing how information and the cost of acquiring it were key to understanding markets and their operation.
Information and information costs play critical roles in explaining much of the peculiar economics of American universities. As I have argued earlier, there are high information costs for employers wanting to learn about the probable success of potential employees. A large part of those costs are the result of restrictions on employer testing resulting from the Griggs v. Duke Power Supreme Court decision and other laws and regulations. Universities exploit this information cost problem. A college diploma provides valuable information (namely that the individual is probably fairly literate, dependable, and intelligent) at low cost to the employer, but not to society. This increases the demand for college graduates, raises their salaries, and also increases the demand for college educational training, thereby increasing tuition charges.
While colleges exploit ignorance (lack of information) about job candidates in a way that raises tuition charges, they have unique legal rights allowing them to lower information costs in another critical area --learning about the financial condition of prospective students. Specifically, colleges can and do legally request information from applicants on all sorts of highly private financial data that usually suppliers of services do not and cannot request from their customers. Indeed, the federal government aids and abets this by providing the FAFSA form and in providing loans to students. Universities engage in price discrimination to a much greater degree than otherwise possible because they are able to obtain, at no cost to themselves, information on student ability to pay tuition. As indicated in an earlier epistle, this price discrimination serves to reduce what economists call consumer surplus, lowering the economic welfare associated with attending college.
Thus there is a great asymmetry at work -- on the one hand universities exploit a lack of information for their own advantage, while on the other hand they engage in practices that allow them to gather information for their advantage in a manner unavailable to other providers of goods and services.
In still another area, universities have consciously and deliberately worked to maintain high information costs. They have not provided clear information to consumers about the gains from attending college (the "value added"), not for example testing their students upon entrance and exit in order to see how much new knowledge was acquired during the college experience. Similarly, they have been less than transparent in providing information to potential customers as well as financial benefactors (including taxpayers) on their financial operations. They do not operate in a transparent manner -- customers and providers of funds for operations live largely in a veil of ignorance. The Spellings Commission's call to change this state of affairs is most welcome. We will learn tomorrow how Secretary Spellings and the administration views that commission's work (she is speaking at the National Press Club at 1:00 p.m. --I suspect CSPAN will cover it), and I will be there to here what she has to say.
The irony of all this, of course, is that universities are in the business of creating and disseminating information. Having a large portion of the citizenry with a college education is alleged to have positive spillover effects on society because some of the information and transactions costs associated with human economic interaction are overcome by having a population with common knowledge of key types of information important to efficient market transactions. The universities use this argument to justify the large third party subsidies that sustain them, and that have contributed to inefficiencies, high consumer costs, and a good deal of institutional elitism and arrogance.
Friday, September 22, 2006
Scholarships, Reduced Consumer Welfare and Information
By Richard Vedder
As is often the case, my colleague Lowell Gallaway sometimes sees things in a slightly different, and more insightful, way than I do. Such is the case with today's lunch conversation.
Economists argue that market place interactions give rise to what they call "consumer surplus," a measure of the welfare gains from trades that occur. If I want to own a DVD of a movie pretty bad, and even am willing to pay $25 for it, but I can buy it at Wal-Mart for $15, I am gaining $10 in consumer surplus --the difference between what I actually paid and what I would have been willing to pay.
Wal-Mart (or whatever retailer) would love charge me $25, since I would still buy the product and the store would reap in profits the gains in the form of consumer surplus that otherwise would have come to me. But Wal-Mart does not know about the intensity of my interest in the product, so it charges me a price that maximizes its profit for the broad category of customers buying the product, many of whom are only willing to pay $18, $16, or even $15 to get it (another reason Wal-Mart wouldn't charge me $25 is that Target or Best Buy would undercut that price and I would shop elsewhere --the beauty of competition).
What selective admissions universities do is pick a uniform high "sticker" price (tuition), and then through information gathered primarily from the FAFSA form, decide on the amount of discounting from that high tuition they going to give in the form of what they call "scholarship aid". Since student willingness to pay a high price is closely associated with their financial condition, the university can do something most producers cannot do very extensively, engage in price discrimination, charging some customer $35,000, others $25,000, still other $10,000 (using other forms of information, airlines and movie theaters engage in price discrimination, as do some other businesses).
Suppose that in the absence of any financial information on students, an elite school would charge everyone $25,000 in tuition. In fact, however, its sticker price is $35,000 and the average discount (scholarship) is $10,000, leaving an average net tuition of $25,000. Of course, some students pay $35,000, others $10,000, etc. With the high tuition/discounting policy, a student who would have been willing to pay $38,000 would get $3,000 in consumer surplus; with a no discounting policy, she would have received $13,000 in consumer surplus. Universities use a high tuition/discounting policy to capture most of the consumer welfare (in the form of consumer surplus) for themselves. To be sure, there are also students who would be only willing to pay $20,000 to go to the elite school (probably because of limited financial means), who in a fixed price/no discounting world would be excluded from attendance, but in the current system they get $15,000 in "scholarship aid" and pay $20,000. They do get in, but collect no consumer surplus. Almost, certainly, tuition discounting through price discrimination lowers the total consumer welfare (aggregate consumer surplus) from what it otherwise would be. This system is justified, to be sure, in the name of greater access for lower income kids. When scholarships are used primarily for other purposes (to lure kids with high SAT scores, for example), the moral argument for the use of price discrimination to improve student access is drastically reduced.
Universities are quick in demanding information from their customers, information that generally is illegal to request in our society, but an exception is made for higher education. However, unversities are loathed to reciprocate by providing information to their customers -- what are the 5 year and 6 year graduation rates? What do kids learn while at college? What proportion of monies go for teaching as opposed to other functions? This list of questions on which we know little goes on and on.
Suggestion: If Universities are going to be allowed to collect intimate family financial information via the FAFSA form that enables them to rob students of much consumer welfare, then they should be required to provide information currently withheld from their customers, such as what is it that they produce (as measured by indicators of "value added" of learning during college). Accreditation by an agency approved by the U.S. Department of Education, or the right to access data from the FAFSA form should be tied to the provision of this type of information.
As is often the case, my colleague Lowell Gallaway sometimes sees things in a slightly different, and more insightful, way than I do. Such is the case with today's lunch conversation.
Economists argue that market place interactions give rise to what they call "consumer surplus," a measure of the welfare gains from trades that occur. If I want to own a DVD of a movie pretty bad, and even am willing to pay $25 for it, but I can buy it at Wal-Mart for $15, I am gaining $10 in consumer surplus --the difference between what I actually paid and what I would have been willing to pay.
Wal-Mart (or whatever retailer) would love charge me $25, since I would still buy the product and the store would reap in profits the gains in the form of consumer surplus that otherwise would have come to me. But Wal-Mart does not know about the intensity of my interest in the product, so it charges me a price that maximizes its profit for the broad category of customers buying the product, many of whom are only willing to pay $18, $16, or even $15 to get it (another reason Wal-Mart wouldn't charge me $25 is that Target or Best Buy would undercut that price and I would shop elsewhere --the beauty of competition).
What selective admissions universities do is pick a uniform high "sticker" price (tuition), and then through information gathered primarily from the FAFSA form, decide on the amount of discounting from that high tuition they going to give in the form of what they call "scholarship aid". Since student willingness to pay a high price is closely associated with their financial condition, the university can do something most producers cannot do very extensively, engage in price discrimination, charging some customer $35,000, others $25,000, still other $10,000 (using other forms of information, airlines and movie theaters engage in price discrimination, as do some other businesses).
Suppose that in the absence of any financial information on students, an elite school would charge everyone $25,000 in tuition. In fact, however, its sticker price is $35,000 and the average discount (scholarship) is $10,000, leaving an average net tuition of $25,000. Of course, some students pay $35,000, others $10,000, etc. With the high tuition/discounting policy, a student who would have been willing to pay $38,000 would get $3,000 in consumer surplus; with a no discounting policy, she would have received $13,000 in consumer surplus. Universities use a high tuition/discounting policy to capture most of the consumer welfare (in the form of consumer surplus) for themselves. To be sure, there are also students who would be only willing to pay $20,000 to go to the elite school (probably because of limited financial means), who in a fixed price/no discounting world would be excluded from attendance, but in the current system they get $15,000 in "scholarship aid" and pay $20,000. They do get in, but collect no consumer surplus. Almost, certainly, tuition discounting through price discrimination lowers the total consumer welfare (aggregate consumer surplus) from what it otherwise would be. This system is justified, to be sure, in the name of greater access for lower income kids. When scholarships are used primarily for other purposes (to lure kids with high SAT scores, for example), the moral argument for the use of price discrimination to improve student access is drastically reduced.
Universities are quick in demanding information from their customers, information that generally is illegal to request in our society, but an exception is made for higher education. However, unversities are loathed to reciprocate by providing information to their customers -- what are the 5 year and 6 year graduation rates? What do kids learn while at college? What proportion of monies go for teaching as opposed to other functions? This list of questions on which we know little goes on and on.
Suggestion: If Universities are going to be allowed to collect intimate family financial information via the FAFSA form that enables them to rob students of much consumer welfare, then they should be required to provide information currently withheld from their customers, such as what is it that they produce (as measured by indicators of "value added" of learning during college). Accreditation by an agency approved by the U.S. Department of Education, or the right to access data from the FAFSA form should be tied to the provision of this type of information.
Thursday, September 21, 2006
Universities and Economic Development
By Richard Vedder
Last Sunday, three Ohio newspapers(the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, and the Dayton Daily News) jointly ran several articles advocating more higher education funding, arguing this would help reverse that state's relative economic decline. Today, at lunch, I spoke at a Mackinac Center meeting in Lansing, Michigan, where many opinion-makers are making similar arguments. Michigan can work its way out of its doldrums, we are told, if it would just renew its historic major commitment to its public universities.
While I have written on this many times before, my position (that this argument is simply wrong) seems to be not only a minority view, but one that is considered almost treasonable by some of my higher education colleagues. Whenever state legislatures start accumulating some budget surpluses, the higher ed lobby is quick to call for new "investments" in higher education to stimulate the economy. It is considered tacky or worse for a member of the higher ed community to try to stop this effort.
It is true that college grads are on average more productive by far than high school ones, so it seems that increasing the proportion of college grads in the work force would raise productivity and incomes. Hence, some would argue, we should increase higher education funding.
Yet the evidence shows no positive relationship between state higher ed spending and economic growth -- indeed, the opposite is the case. Higher university spending, lower growth. Why? The evidence shows that higher appropriations do not translate into higher access. Only a minority of new appropriated funds are used to keep tuition charges down. While particpation in college is related positively to appropriation levels, it is an extremely weak relationship. Moreover, there seems to be no relationship between the more meaningful indicator, namely college graduation rates, and state government support for higher education.
Do new appropriations lure only a few new kids to college, and those new entrants are largely academically unqualified? (I suspect the answer is yes). Are large proportions of new appropriations used for non-academic purposes, including funding an overly large university bureaucracy, or for what economists call "economic rent", providing bigger pay raises for employees? (Again, the answer is yes). Does using budget surpluses to reduce tax burdens have more positive economic impact than increasing state spending on universities? These questions are seldom asked in the rush to "invest" new funds in the universities.
If increased appropriations are to be made, why not at least tie the receipt of incremental funds to university compliance with certain practices, like complete financial transparency, or requiring the schools to provide evidence of the amount of student learning occuring while in school (the "value added"), etc.?
States should be very wary of succumbing to the "new investments" argument, particularly in the absence of real university efforts to improve efficiency, accountability, and measurability of performance.
Last Sunday, three Ohio newspapers(the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Columbus Dispatch, and the Dayton Daily News) jointly ran several articles advocating more higher education funding, arguing this would help reverse that state's relative economic decline. Today, at lunch, I spoke at a Mackinac Center meeting in Lansing, Michigan, where many opinion-makers are making similar arguments. Michigan can work its way out of its doldrums, we are told, if it would just renew its historic major commitment to its public universities.
While I have written on this many times before, my position (that this argument is simply wrong) seems to be not only a minority view, but one that is considered almost treasonable by some of my higher education colleagues. Whenever state legislatures start accumulating some budget surpluses, the higher ed lobby is quick to call for new "investments" in higher education to stimulate the economy. It is considered tacky or worse for a member of the higher ed community to try to stop this effort.
It is true that college grads are on average more productive by far than high school ones, so it seems that increasing the proportion of college grads in the work force would raise productivity and incomes. Hence, some would argue, we should increase higher education funding.
Yet the evidence shows no positive relationship between state higher ed spending and economic growth -- indeed, the opposite is the case. Higher university spending, lower growth. Why? The evidence shows that higher appropriations do not translate into higher access. Only a minority of new appropriated funds are used to keep tuition charges down. While particpation in college is related positively to appropriation levels, it is an extremely weak relationship. Moreover, there seems to be no relationship between the more meaningful indicator, namely college graduation rates, and state government support for higher education.
Do new appropriations lure only a few new kids to college, and those new entrants are largely academically unqualified? (I suspect the answer is yes). Are large proportions of new appropriations used for non-academic purposes, including funding an overly large university bureaucracy, or for what economists call "economic rent", providing bigger pay raises for employees? (Again, the answer is yes). Does using budget surpluses to reduce tax burdens have more positive economic impact than increasing state spending on universities? These questions are seldom asked in the rush to "invest" new funds in the universities.
If increased appropriations are to be made, why not at least tie the receipt of incremental funds to university compliance with certain practices, like complete financial transparency, or requiring the schools to provide evidence of the amount of student learning occuring while in school (the "value added"), etc.?
States should be very wary of succumbing to the "new investments" argument, particularly in the absence of real university efforts to improve efficiency, accountability, and measurability of performance.
Monday, September 18, 2006
Federal Financing of Research II: Why Universities?
By Richard Vedder
The other day, I suggested that federal financing of university research was in need of reform, and made a few suggestions, such as moving to a uniform research overhead payment rate. But the bolder, more fundamental question needs to be asked: why should research be centered in universities? It was not always so. For over two-thirds of the 370 year history of Harvard University, that institution was considered to be predominantly an undergraduate teaching institution. Only at the end of the 19th century did the German research university model find its way to the U.S., first at Johns Hopkins University, and then rapidly at other schools throughout the land.
There are other places at which research is performed, and the relative importance of these other research venues is substantial. In 2003, only 14 percent of all R and D work in the U.S. was performed in universities. Of the three types of research, basic research, applied research, and development, in two of them -applied and development --most funding has come from private firms for decades. Yet universities have been considered the dominant provider of basic research --discovering new insights into the human condition and physical phenomena. In 2003, about 55 percent of basic research was university conducted.
The great advantage of university funded basic research is that there are sometimes economies of scale and cross-fertilization of ideas by having research conducted in a learning community where students mingle with faculty. The students transition to becoming mature researchers by assisting the senior researchers while studying. Yet there are other research models that work well -- private firm research centers, government research labs, and in the social sciences, think tanks. More research is needed into the relative costs and benefits of these alternative forms of research delivery.
One major issue in universities is the extent to which research is subsidized by other activities or provides subsidies to them. Is there cross-subsidization going on, and if so, how much and in which direction? A decent case can be made that for the purposes of providing accurate financial accounting, universities should have two entities -- the "university" which performs teaching, and the "university research institute" which does research, and each should be explicitly budgeted for. A portion of professor's salaries would be paid by each entity in the case of faculty doing both teaching and research. To prevent the down grading of teaching, the compensation levels per hour of work would be equal for the two functions. Much of the disguised research appropriations in the form of reduced teaching loads would show up as explicit outlays in the research institute share of total expenditures. This and other ideas need some consideration as we expand our research efforts in coming years.
The other day, I suggested that federal financing of university research was in need of reform, and made a few suggestions, such as moving to a uniform research overhead payment rate. But the bolder, more fundamental question needs to be asked: why should research be centered in universities? It was not always so. For over two-thirds of the 370 year history of Harvard University, that institution was considered to be predominantly an undergraduate teaching institution. Only at the end of the 19th century did the German research university model find its way to the U.S., first at Johns Hopkins University, and then rapidly at other schools throughout the land.
There are other places at which research is performed, and the relative importance of these other research venues is substantial. In 2003, only 14 percent of all R and D work in the U.S. was performed in universities. Of the three types of research, basic research, applied research, and development, in two of them -applied and development --most funding has come from private firms for decades. Yet universities have been considered the dominant provider of basic research --discovering new insights into the human condition and physical phenomena. In 2003, about 55 percent of basic research was university conducted.
The great advantage of university funded basic research is that there are sometimes economies of scale and cross-fertilization of ideas by having research conducted in a learning community where students mingle with faculty. The students transition to becoming mature researchers by assisting the senior researchers while studying. Yet there are other research models that work well -- private firm research centers, government research labs, and in the social sciences, think tanks. More research is needed into the relative costs and benefits of these alternative forms of research delivery.
One major issue in universities is the extent to which research is subsidized by other activities or provides subsidies to them. Is there cross-subsidization going on, and if so, how much and in which direction? A decent case can be made that for the purposes of providing accurate financial accounting, universities should have two entities -- the "university" which performs teaching, and the "university research institute" which does research, and each should be explicitly budgeted for. A portion of professor's salaries would be paid by each entity in the case of faculty doing both teaching and research. To prevent the down grading of teaching, the compensation levels per hour of work would be equal for the two functions. Much of the disguised research appropriations in the form of reduced teaching loads would show up as explicit outlays in the research institute share of total expenditures. This and other ideas need some consideration as we expand our research efforts in coming years.
Keystone State Secrets
By Bryan O'Keefe
In several blog postings, we have outlined instances of arrogance and general disregard for the public emanating from the higher education establishment.
Consider this another chapter in that volume.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a very good story detailing a legal fight between news organizations and PHEAA, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency. According to the Post-Gazette story, the media would like access to records that provide "details of travel by PHEAA employees and board members, training and credit card spending as well as activity at meetings the board has held at posh resorts in several states."
Of course, PHEAA is fighting this disclosure in Court, claiming that releasing the information would provide it's competitors (mainly Sallie Mae) with "trade secrets." This defense is absurd. The media does not want access to specific information on PHEAA's financial aid formulas, or how they distribute aid. They only want access to information that could be potentially embarrassing to PHEAA, which is the real reason why they are fighting this in the first place. I strongly doubt that Sallie Mae is just dying to know how much PHEAA spends on fancy, schmancy conferences.
The whole episode however is important because it is yet another example of the complete lack of accountability in higher education finances. I think PHEAA does some important work (full disclosure, my freshmen year of college I receieved a PHEAA grant for about $400). But taxpayers, students, parents, the media, and lawmakers should know how PHEAA is spending it's money since the program is pubicly funded and very expensive. What exactly does PHEAA have to hide?
The entire case is before the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court now. Stay tuned.
In several blog postings, we have outlined instances of arrogance and general disregard for the public emanating from the higher education establishment.
Consider this another chapter in that volume.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has a very good story detailing a legal fight between news organizations and PHEAA, the Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency. According to the Post-Gazette story, the media would like access to records that provide "details of travel by PHEAA employees and board members, training and credit card spending as well as activity at meetings the board has held at posh resorts in several states."
Of course, PHEAA is fighting this disclosure in Court, claiming that releasing the information would provide it's competitors (mainly Sallie Mae) with "trade secrets." This defense is absurd. The media does not want access to specific information on PHEAA's financial aid formulas, or how they distribute aid. They only want access to information that could be potentially embarrassing to PHEAA, which is the real reason why they are fighting this in the first place. I strongly doubt that Sallie Mae is just dying to know how much PHEAA spends on fancy, schmancy conferences.
The whole episode however is important because it is yet another example of the complete lack of accountability in higher education finances. I think PHEAA does some important work (full disclosure, my freshmen year of college I receieved a PHEAA grant for about $400). But taxpayers, students, parents, the media, and lawmakers should know how PHEAA is spending it's money since the program is pubicly funded and very expensive. What exactly does PHEAA have to hide?
The entire case is before the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court now. Stay tuned.
Friday, September 15, 2006
Our Broken System of Federal Research Funding
By Richard Vedder
Tens of billions of dollars are spent annually on various forms of federal research support for universities, through agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy, and dozens of other funding sources. In addition, a growing percentage of funds are distributed directly by politicians in a non-merit-based way through congressional earmarks. There are lots of problems with the system from an efficiency/productivity standpoint.
EARMARKS
We have been yelling a lot about earmarks (Congressional directed spending for specific research projects). During our visit to George Mason Law School yesterday, someone suggested that we try to deal with the one arguably defensible argument for earmarks in a better way. The semi-legitimate argument is that an old boy system of evaluators channels research funds to friends of Establishment researchers in a way that is only partly merit-based. A solution to this problem, if it is one, is to ban earmarks (that go mainly to smaller less prestigious universities), but devote part of the freed up funds for an Emerging University Research Program, providing money for schools not in the top 50 grant recipients, with awards made on the basis of strict merit, not political clout. Getting this approved may be harder than getting the sun to rise in the west instead of the east, but it is a decent idea.
OVERHEAD FUNDS
Each institution currently negotiates an overhead rate for research grants -- often 50 or 60 percent of basis research costs --with the feds. This perpetuates inefficiency, has high administrative costs, and even sometimes leads to some almost corrupt practices. New approaches are needed. One is adopting a national uniform overhead rate around the rate prevailing in low overhead schools. Call it the "best practices" approach. Another is forcing NSF, NIH, etc. to use overhead costs as a criterion in making awards --maybe 10-15 percent of the total evaluation. High overhead, lower overall rating scores on research proposals.
OTHER IDEAS
Now when Professor X gets her award from NIH, it is for a very specific narrow topic on which only she has applied --she is the monopoly applicant for that topic. Maybe more funds should be awarded for topics chosen by a panel of national experts in various disciplines, with a request for proposals being widely circulated amongst the research community, and cost considerations counting a significant amount in the determination of the final award. This instills a bit of competiton and cost consciousness into the process. There are limits to this approach -- committees often fail to recognize the truly original, often slighty wacky ideas that lead to important research discoveries. But greater experimentation with this approach might be wise.
This merely touches the surface. Another huge issue is institutional support for research through low standard teaching loads, a form of research support that increasingly is totally unjustified on any rational cost-benefit calcuation.
Tens of billions of dollars are spent annually on various forms of federal research support for universities, through agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF), the Department of Energy, and dozens of other funding sources. In addition, a growing percentage of funds are distributed directly by politicians in a non-merit-based way through congressional earmarks. There are lots of problems with the system from an efficiency/productivity standpoint.
EARMARKS
We have been yelling a lot about earmarks (Congressional directed spending for specific research projects). During our visit to George Mason Law School yesterday, someone suggested that we try to deal with the one arguably defensible argument for earmarks in a better way. The semi-legitimate argument is that an old boy system of evaluators channels research funds to friends of Establishment researchers in a way that is only partly merit-based. A solution to this problem, if it is one, is to ban earmarks (that go mainly to smaller less prestigious universities), but devote part of the freed up funds for an Emerging University Research Program, providing money for schools not in the top 50 grant recipients, with awards made on the basis of strict merit, not political clout. Getting this approved may be harder than getting the sun to rise in the west instead of the east, but it is a decent idea.
OVERHEAD FUNDS
Each institution currently negotiates an overhead rate for research grants -- often 50 or 60 percent of basis research costs --with the feds. This perpetuates inefficiency, has high administrative costs, and even sometimes leads to some almost corrupt practices. New approaches are needed. One is adopting a national uniform overhead rate around the rate prevailing in low overhead schools. Call it the "best practices" approach. Another is forcing NSF, NIH, etc. to use overhead costs as a criterion in making awards --maybe 10-15 percent of the total evaluation. High overhead, lower overall rating scores on research proposals.
OTHER IDEAS
Now when Professor X gets her award from NIH, it is for a very specific narrow topic on which only she has applied --she is the monopoly applicant for that topic. Maybe more funds should be awarded for topics chosen by a panel of national experts in various disciplines, with a request for proposals being widely circulated amongst the research community, and cost considerations counting a significant amount in the determination of the final award. This instills a bit of competiton and cost consciousness into the process. There are limits to this approach -- committees often fail to recognize the truly original, often slighty wacky ideas that lead to important research discoveries. But greater experimentation with this approach might be wise.
This merely touches the surface. Another huge issue is institutional support for research through low standard teaching loads, a form of research support that increasingly is totally unjustified on any rational cost-benefit calcuation.
Who Owns the Universities?
By Richard Vedder
Bryan O'Keefe and I ventured out to the George Mason University Law School yesterday, where I was giving a standard academic presentation. An unexpected bonus was a delightful lunch with Professor Lloyd Cohen, who previously wrote a thoughtful review of my book GOING BROKE BY DEGREE.
Lloyd put a little different twist on something I have been saying for years. I have been saying that the non-profit nature of universities leads to reduced accountability, limited metrics to evaluate performance, and blurred lines of authority. But Lloyd summed it up: "who owns the university?" It is a property rights issue. There are no stockholders, although in some state universities taxpayers (citizens) would claim collectively they own the institutions. But at better schools, faculty act like they own them, making decisions generally not within the pay grade of a large group of rank-and-file employees. University administrators sometimes act like they own the institutions, often extracting some of the cash surpluses generated to better their own lives financially and vocationally. The trustees think they hold title, but usually abdicate authority.
The issue of university "ownership" goes to the heart of many problems facing universities today, along with the lack of incentives to behave efficiently with the best interests of the customers and society as the primarily consideration.
Bryan O'Keefe and I ventured out to the George Mason University Law School yesterday, where I was giving a standard academic presentation. An unexpected bonus was a delightful lunch with Professor Lloyd Cohen, who previously wrote a thoughtful review of my book GOING BROKE BY DEGREE.
Lloyd put a little different twist on something I have been saying for years. I have been saying that the non-profit nature of universities leads to reduced accountability, limited metrics to evaluate performance, and blurred lines of authority. But Lloyd summed it up: "who owns the university?" It is a property rights issue. There are no stockholders, although in some state universities taxpayers (citizens) would claim collectively they own the institutions. But at better schools, faculty act like they own them, making decisions generally not within the pay grade of a large group of rank-and-file employees. University administrators sometimes act like they own the institutions, often extracting some of the cash surpluses generated to better their own lives financially and vocationally. The trustees think they hold title, but usually abdicate authority.
The issue of university "ownership" goes to the heart of many problems facing universities today, along with the lack of incentives to behave efficiently with the best interests of the customers and society as the primarily consideration.
Wednesday, September 13, 2006
Morning Musings
By Richard Vedder
Several things struck me this morning worthy of brief commentary. First, before I even got to work, at 7:00 a.m. (unlike many college professors, I work more than a 30 or 35 hour week) I heard Sport Illustrated's Frank Deford deliver a brilliant commentary on NPR's Morning Edition. Deford argued that a significant cause of the gender gap in college graduation rates was sports. Males become so wrapped up in sports from an early age that they put making the team ahead of doing well academically in school. Their parents push them too, perhaps thinking that prowess in pushing a ball around (or whatever) will bring scholarships and thus financial salvation.
There is no doubt a good deal of truth to this, but there are some flaws in the argument. Guys have been sports crazy for decades, even before there was a gender gap. Has their "craziness" gotten worse? Probably, yes. However, the fall in male participation in college relative to women has occurred at precisely the same time that there has been a huge upsurge in women's sports, in part thanks to Title IX.
Indeed, Deford argues, tongue-in-cheek, that Title IX may come to the guy's rescue by making women as nuts about sports as men, and therefore equally neglectful of academics in favor of the new 3 Rs of running, rebounding, and replay, which are nearly as popular with college boys as the 3 Fs of foreplay, fondling and fornication.
**************
A few days ago, I lashed out at the New York Times for their incredibly biased article on conservative think tanks and their ties to Wal-Mart. Tom Sowell, the syndicated columnist (and friend) has written a marvelous column, pointing out scholars at good think tanks do not even know the sources of funding, and do not want to know them. A firewall exists between the scholars and the development people. The scholars at the prestige think tanks (e.g., Hoover, Brookings, AEI, Cato) write what they want in an unimpeded fashion, with at least as much academic freedom as in universities. The universities, in turn, foster this ideological and unbalanced journalism by increasingly veering away from the dispassionate, objective presentation and analysis of facts in the classroom, and more towards propagandizing on politically correct topics by third-rate minds who masquerade as scholars.
***************
Speaking of think tanks, a little encounter with the Cato Institute shows that human frailities and abandonment of principles occur there just as at universities. Human beings are human beings. Several months ago, I was asked informally if I would participate in a Cato conference on the report of the Spellings Commission, of which I am a member. I agreed in principle. I have been a friend of Cato for years, advising them occasionally for slave remuneration on educational issues, writing for their publications on numerous occasions, etc. While I am affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, I consider Cato to be an important and constructive force in America. Yet I learn yesterday that I am being disinvited as a participant at the Cato conference, not because they are mad at me, but because Charles Miller, Commission chair, would not participate if I were included. If true, I find Charles's behavior more than a little annoying, since I have been a good and loyal member of his commission, being the first to actually indicate a willingness to sign the report.The Texas ego maybe got the best of Charles. But I was more disappointed in Cato for this rather shoddy treatment of a long time friend and ally. They apparently put conference attendance ahead of loyalty, honor, and principle. I will not be attending the Cato conference.
Several things struck me this morning worthy of brief commentary. First, before I even got to work, at 7:00 a.m. (unlike many college professors, I work more than a 30 or 35 hour week) I heard Sport Illustrated's Frank Deford deliver a brilliant commentary on NPR's Morning Edition. Deford argued that a significant cause of the gender gap in college graduation rates was sports. Males become so wrapped up in sports from an early age that they put making the team ahead of doing well academically in school. Their parents push them too, perhaps thinking that prowess in pushing a ball around (or whatever) will bring scholarships and thus financial salvation.
There is no doubt a good deal of truth to this, but there are some flaws in the argument. Guys have been sports crazy for decades, even before there was a gender gap. Has their "craziness" gotten worse? Probably, yes. However, the fall in male participation in college relative to women has occurred at precisely the same time that there has been a huge upsurge in women's sports, in part thanks to Title IX.
Indeed, Deford argues, tongue-in-cheek, that Title IX may come to the guy's rescue by making women as nuts about sports as men, and therefore equally neglectful of academics in favor of the new 3 Rs of running, rebounding, and replay, which are nearly as popular with college boys as the 3 Fs of foreplay, fondling and fornication.
**************
A few days ago, I lashed out at the New York Times for their incredibly biased article on conservative think tanks and their ties to Wal-Mart. Tom Sowell, the syndicated columnist (and friend) has written a marvelous column, pointing out scholars at good think tanks do not even know the sources of funding, and do not want to know them. A firewall exists between the scholars and the development people. The scholars at the prestige think tanks (e.g., Hoover, Brookings, AEI, Cato) write what they want in an unimpeded fashion, with at least as much academic freedom as in universities. The universities, in turn, foster this ideological and unbalanced journalism by increasingly veering away from the dispassionate, objective presentation and analysis of facts in the classroom, and more towards propagandizing on politically correct topics by third-rate minds who masquerade as scholars.
***************
Speaking of think tanks, a little encounter with the Cato Institute shows that human frailities and abandonment of principles occur there just as at universities. Human beings are human beings. Several months ago, I was asked informally if I would participate in a Cato conference on the report of the Spellings Commission, of which I am a member. I agreed in principle. I have been a friend of Cato for years, advising them occasionally for slave remuneration on educational issues, writing for their publications on numerous occasions, etc. While I am affiliated with the American Enterprise Institute, I consider Cato to be an important and constructive force in America. Yet I learn yesterday that I am being disinvited as a participant at the Cato conference, not because they are mad at me, but because Charles Miller, Commission chair, would not participate if I were included. If true, I find Charles's behavior more than a little annoying, since I have been a good and loyal member of his commission, being the first to actually indicate a willingness to sign the report.The Texas ego maybe got the best of Charles. But I was more disappointed in Cato for this rather shoddy treatment of a long time friend and ally. They apparently put conference attendance ahead of loyalty, honor, and principle. I will not be attending the Cato conference.
Monday, September 11, 2006
"The Public Be Damned"
By Richard Vedder
One of the reasons for declining political (and therefore governmental financial support) for higher education is the growing disconnect between what the public expects of its universities and what they are willing to provide. Universities believe their institutional autonomy gives them the right to behave however they want -- independent of the wishes of the broader public that provide a majority of their financing, not to mention their students who provide most of the rest of the money they need to operate.
That was brought home to me again this morning as I read on INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION that only 14 of 110 institutions bothered to reply as requested to Senator Tom Coburn's query about their lobbying activities in an attempt to get earmakred research funds. Now I am the first to admit that sometimes Congress makes ridiculous requests of the public, and that in this instance the colleges probably were not in violation of the law in ignoring the Senator's request. Nonetheless, the request in this case is reasonable, and in the interest of transparency and the right to know, the public should be informed on how much colleges spend, and with whom, to lobby Congress for research earmarks. These earmarks are a heinous interference by Congress in the allocation of research resources, based on political considerations (e.g., monies go mainly to universities in the states of appropriation committee members) rather than on merit or even a national need for the type of research performed. I am furious about this, and my sidekick Bryan O'Keefe and I are meeting with Senator Coburn's staff this Friday to see what we can do to help rectify this rapidly growing scandal.
As a member of the Spellings Commission, I saw the arrogance of institutions on several occasions, particularly those institutions wishing to oppose our efforts to impose some transparency with respect to finances and academic performance. Another example: in or around the year 2000, the U.S. Senate unanimously supported a resolution urging that our historical heritage be studied by all students pursuing college degrees -- not a single college, to my knowledge, paid the slightest bit of attention.
Last night, I enjoyed (despite the sadness and anger it evoked) ABC's extraordinary gripping presentation of "The Path to 9/11." I will watch the second part tonight. Yet a group of university historians led by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., before the show had even aired, urged ABC to not air it, because it contained numerous "falsehoods." This comes from a group of scholars that has played fast and loose with the facts for years in their interpretations of historical phenomena, a group that would howl to the heavens if there was the slightest attempt to suppress their views on the grounds that such suppression (akin to electronic book burning) violates academic freedom and their First Amendment rights to free expression. This is a case of professorial arrogance wrapped in political ideology encased in academic elitism surrounded by hypocrisy.
My last example, for today, of the arrogance of the Academy was provided by Jim Heckman of the University of Chicago, the fine economist who on the Fox News Special of August 27 (reshown September 2) demonstrated in the view of most watchers with whom I talked a contempt for teaching, for financially suffering parents of college kids, and a Divine Right to do research with public funds --he is today's poster boy for intellectual arrogance.
They just don't get it, and they will pay in the long run.
One of the reasons for declining political (and therefore governmental financial support) for higher education is the growing disconnect between what the public expects of its universities and what they are willing to provide. Universities believe their institutional autonomy gives them the right to behave however they want -- independent of the wishes of the broader public that provide a majority of their financing, not to mention their students who provide most of the rest of the money they need to operate.
That was brought home to me again this morning as I read on INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION that only 14 of 110 institutions bothered to reply as requested to Senator Tom Coburn's query about their lobbying activities in an attempt to get earmakred research funds. Now I am the first to admit that sometimes Congress makes ridiculous requests of the public, and that in this instance the colleges probably were not in violation of the law in ignoring the Senator's request. Nonetheless, the request in this case is reasonable, and in the interest of transparency and the right to know, the public should be informed on how much colleges spend, and with whom, to lobby Congress for research earmarks. These earmarks are a heinous interference by Congress in the allocation of research resources, based on political considerations (e.g., monies go mainly to universities in the states of appropriation committee members) rather than on merit or even a national need for the type of research performed. I am furious about this, and my sidekick Bryan O'Keefe and I are meeting with Senator Coburn's staff this Friday to see what we can do to help rectify this rapidly growing scandal.
As a member of the Spellings Commission, I saw the arrogance of institutions on several occasions, particularly those institutions wishing to oppose our efforts to impose some transparency with respect to finances and academic performance. Another example: in or around the year 2000, the U.S. Senate unanimously supported a resolution urging that our historical heritage be studied by all students pursuing college degrees -- not a single college, to my knowledge, paid the slightest bit of attention.
Last night, I enjoyed (despite the sadness and anger it evoked) ABC's extraordinary gripping presentation of "The Path to 9/11." I will watch the second part tonight. Yet a group of university historians led by Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., before the show had even aired, urged ABC to not air it, because it contained numerous "falsehoods." This comes from a group of scholars that has played fast and loose with the facts for years in their interpretations of historical phenomena, a group that would howl to the heavens if there was the slightest attempt to suppress their views on the grounds that such suppression (akin to electronic book burning) violates academic freedom and their First Amendment rights to free expression. This is a case of professorial arrogance wrapped in political ideology encased in academic elitism surrounded by hypocrisy.
My last example, for today, of the arrogance of the Academy was provided by Jim Heckman of the University of Chicago, the fine economist who on the Fox News Special of August 27 (reshown September 2) demonstrated in the view of most watchers with whom I talked a contempt for teaching, for financially suffering parents of college kids, and a Divine Right to do research with public funds --he is today's poster boy for intellectual arrogance.
They just don't get it, and they will pay in the long run.
Sunday, September 10, 2006
The Gender Gap and Low College Graduation Rates
By Richard Vedder
The estimable Kati Haycock's outfit (Education Trust) has come out with a new study showing what CCAP readers already know, namely that a large proportion of the students who enter college do not finish in a timely fashion. This is one of the three factors explaining the enormous attrition in students from high school entrance to college graduation (the others: dropping out in high school, not entering college after higher school graduation). In this connection, much attention is placed on the low particpation of minorities in college, and their relatively high dropout rates.
At least as important, however, is another group that has poor college participation rates -- males. Over time, there has been a dramatic decline in the proportion of college students who are male. Instead of converging on equality of the sexes in this regards, we have gone from an era of male to female dominance in enrollments.
I was reading a piece by Bob Maurer of GreentreeGazette.com, where he reports some data by Tom Mortenson cited in a New York Times piece. It is suggested that for every 50 U.S. girls, there are 53 boys enrolled in elementary school, but only 48 graduate (per 50 girls) from high school. So there is some attrition of boys long before college. The big drop, comes, however, in the decision to enter college. Only 39 men enroll in college for every 50 women; there is also a greater dropping out in college among men as well, so only 37 men graduate from college for every 50 women (and only 31 earn master's degrees for every 50 women).
It is interesting to see how this pattern has developed over time. In 1960, there wer 184 males getting bachelor's degrees for every 100 females; by 1980, there were 104 males for every females, while in 2003 there were only 74 males per 100 women graduates.
If we had the same proportion of men graduating from college as women, and the female graduation rate remained unchanged, we would have about 12 to 13 percent more college graduates - over 200,000 more per year. This is a pretty sizable number. To be sure, we have argued on many occasions that perhaps too many persons go to college -- this is a factor in high college dropout rates. However, why are men both less likely to enter college, and slightly more likely to dropout? This is a question that some of our finest minds should be thinking about, and offering some answers. If college education is truly a key to economically productive lives as some claim, we are facing a dubious future if the group with the highest labor force particpation --men-- is relatively uneducated.
The estimable Kati Haycock's outfit (Education Trust) has come out with a new study showing what CCAP readers already know, namely that a large proportion of the students who enter college do not finish in a timely fashion. This is one of the three factors explaining the enormous attrition in students from high school entrance to college graduation (the others: dropping out in high school, not entering college after higher school graduation). In this connection, much attention is placed on the low particpation of minorities in college, and their relatively high dropout rates.
At least as important, however, is another group that has poor college participation rates -- males. Over time, there has been a dramatic decline in the proportion of college students who are male. Instead of converging on equality of the sexes in this regards, we have gone from an era of male to female dominance in enrollments.
I was reading a piece by Bob Maurer of GreentreeGazette.com, where he reports some data by Tom Mortenson cited in a New York Times piece. It is suggested that for every 50 U.S. girls, there are 53 boys enrolled in elementary school, but only 48 graduate (per 50 girls) from high school. So there is some attrition of boys long before college. The big drop, comes, however, in the decision to enter college. Only 39 men enroll in college for every 50 women; there is also a greater dropping out in college among men as well, so only 37 men graduate from college for every 50 women (and only 31 earn master's degrees for every 50 women).
It is interesting to see how this pattern has developed over time. In 1960, there wer 184 males getting bachelor's degrees for every 100 females; by 1980, there were 104 males for every females, while in 2003 there were only 74 males per 100 women graduates.
If we had the same proportion of men graduating from college as women, and the female graduation rate remained unchanged, we would have about 12 to 13 percent more college graduates - over 200,000 more per year. This is a pretty sizable number. To be sure, we have argued on many occasions that perhaps too many persons go to college -- this is a factor in high college dropout rates. However, why are men both less likely to enter college, and slightly more likely to dropout? This is a question that some of our finest minds should be thinking about, and offering some answers. If college education is truly a key to economically productive lives as some claim, we are facing a dubious future if the group with the highest labor force particpation --men-- is relatively uneducated.
Saturday, September 09, 2006
University Research and the Public's Right to Know
By Richard Vedder
A mini civil war is brewing in the university research community over the issue of whether federally funded research results should automatically be posted on the internet in a timely fashion. One side says "yes," that we should take advantage of new technology to speed the dissemination of new information; besides, the government is funding the results so the people have the right to know what it is funding (akin to open record and meetings laws in other contexts). Some scientific organizations and librarians generally are on this side of the debate.
Others argue that the dissemination of research results should be at the discretion of the researchers, and that the proposed new rules would grieviously and inappropriately reduce the freedom of action of those researchers. Moreover, it is argued that this move would kill academic journals, which ultimately publish most research of importance. Why subscribe to journals if the results are available elsewhere for nothing? The American Chemical Society, for example, is on this side of the debate, as it is a major publisher of journals.
I usually come down strongly on the side of individual freedom, and hate governmental regulations that impede efficient results. At the same time, however, if one decides to take federal funding, then I think she or he needs to accept the fact that the taxpayers are subsidizing the research, and therefore the taxpayer (broadly defined) has a right to see what he or she is getting for the money. Therefore, I come down on the side of openness.
As an institute concerned with costs and efficiency, CCAP sees potentially large savings to universities from moving ultimately to an electronic research data and publications base. That move is already well under way; I use JSTOR all the time to retrieve old (generally five years or older) journals. The proposed rule would allow JSTOR and others to disseminate more recent issues of journals, or working papers published outside the journal format.
Also, this proposal should help the production of new research as well, by lowering the costs of retrieving recent research developments. I say that as one who loves books and journals, and derives some pleasure at merely looking at the journals sitting on my shelves. However, it is time to use technology to make universities more efficient and the public has the right to know. (I feel entirely differently about privately funded research --it is a private property right that the owner can disseminate as she or he wishes). There are other issues, such as whether universities should be in the business of seeking patents and hiding research results from the public in order to extract financial gain, but I defer discussion of these topics to a later day.
A mini civil war is brewing in the university research community over the issue of whether federally funded research results should automatically be posted on the internet in a timely fashion. One side says "yes," that we should take advantage of new technology to speed the dissemination of new information; besides, the government is funding the results so the people have the right to know what it is funding (akin to open record and meetings laws in other contexts). Some scientific organizations and librarians generally are on this side of the debate.
Others argue that the dissemination of research results should be at the discretion of the researchers, and that the proposed new rules would grieviously and inappropriately reduce the freedom of action of those researchers. Moreover, it is argued that this move would kill academic journals, which ultimately publish most research of importance. Why subscribe to journals if the results are available elsewhere for nothing? The American Chemical Society, for example, is on this side of the debate, as it is a major publisher of journals.
I usually come down strongly on the side of individual freedom, and hate governmental regulations that impede efficient results. At the same time, however, if one decides to take federal funding, then I think she or he needs to accept the fact that the taxpayers are subsidizing the research, and therefore the taxpayer (broadly defined) has a right to see what he or she is getting for the money. Therefore, I come down on the side of openness.
As an institute concerned with costs and efficiency, CCAP sees potentially large savings to universities from moving ultimately to an electronic research data and publications base. That move is already well under way; I use JSTOR all the time to retrieve old (generally five years or older) journals. The proposed rule would allow JSTOR and others to disseminate more recent issues of journals, or working papers published outside the journal format.
Also, this proposal should help the production of new research as well, by lowering the costs of retrieving recent research developments. I say that as one who loves books and journals, and derives some pleasure at merely looking at the journals sitting on my shelves. However, it is time to use technology to make universities more efficient and the public has the right to know. (I feel entirely differently about privately funded research --it is a private property right that the owner can disseminate as she or he wishes). There are other issues, such as whether universities should be in the business of seeking patents and hiding research results from the public in order to extract financial gain, but I defer discussion of these topics to a later day.
Friday, September 08, 2006
University Research, Think Tanks, and the Press
By Richard Vedder
I am, roughly speaking, in a foul mood today. In earlier times, perhaps I would challenge someone to a duel, but that is inadvisable today on a lot of grounds, not the least of which is my ineptitude with guns and swords. So I hope the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
I think some of the best research in the social sciences and humanities today goes on outside of universities, particularly at think tanks. These institutions, largely a creation of the last 30 years, vary enormously in quality, but the best of them say a lot of very serious things. The Brookings Institution and the American Enteprise Institute (AEI) in Washington are two excellent examples. I am honored to be a Visiting Scholar at AEI, where I think the quality of scholarship is on average higher than at most if not all colleges and universities with which I have been affiliated with over the years. Indeed, when universities justify low teaching loads to permit institutional research, I often wonder if, dollar for dollar, they begin to provide the quality or quantity of research output that the think tanks do.
Yet many persons smear the think tanks, claiming that they are not objective, since they take money from --gasp -- corporations. Today, my integrity was indirectly maligned in the New York Times, a once great newspaper that is declining in quality, objectivity and, thank God, influence, with the passage of time. It seems I am writing a book (with Wendell Cox) for AEI. It seems I have some nice things to say about the company, such as the fact that its "everyday low prices" have provided great benefits to lower income Americans. But the Times breathlessly points out this morning something that I did not know, namely that AEI took over $100,000 in donations from foundations of the Walton family (not even the Wal-Mart company) over a three year period, which, if true, amounts to a small fraction of one percent of total AEI spending. Therefore, it is intimated (although not explcitly said) that anything I (or others) say in defense of Wal-Mart is highly suspect (implicitly assuming I have no sense of integrity or ethics). Nothing was said about the fact that, aside from not knowing about the contributions, I had absolutely no direct personal contact with Wal-Mart, and the limited contact I did have was to request some data (a request which was denied, by the way). No mention was made of the fact that AEI absolutely made no attempt to modifiy my assessment of Wal-Mart, a point made abundantly clear to the reporter.
By contrast, implicitly we are led to believe by media outlets like the Times that the billions of dollars that the federal government gives to universities has no adverse influence whatsoever on the nature or content of the research being performed. Think tank research is bad because it is funded mainly from the greedy and somewhat evil private sector, while university research is mostly good since it is funded mostly by the saintly, just and good governments that we all love.
It is this trashy, highly subjective form of presentation of the "news" that in my judgment has contributed to the demise of the Times as the nation's pre-eminent news source. Unfortunately, a lot of similar type "research" is going on in the academy, funded in part by taxpayers or private donors thinking they are contributing to other purposes. This is a matter deserving closer scrutiny by all interested in free, objective scholarly inquiry. I do not want to stifle free speech; au contraire, I want to make transparent how funding of universities for research comes in ways and forms not known even to those paying the bills.
I am, roughly speaking, in a foul mood today. In earlier times, perhaps I would challenge someone to a duel, but that is inadvisable today on a lot of grounds, not the least of which is my ineptitude with guns and swords. So I hope the pen is indeed mightier than the sword.
I think some of the best research in the social sciences and humanities today goes on outside of universities, particularly at think tanks. These institutions, largely a creation of the last 30 years, vary enormously in quality, but the best of them say a lot of very serious things. The Brookings Institution and the American Enteprise Institute (AEI) in Washington are two excellent examples. I am honored to be a Visiting Scholar at AEI, where I think the quality of scholarship is on average higher than at most if not all colleges and universities with which I have been affiliated with over the years. Indeed, when universities justify low teaching loads to permit institutional research, I often wonder if, dollar for dollar, they begin to provide the quality or quantity of research output that the think tanks do.
Yet many persons smear the think tanks, claiming that they are not objective, since they take money from --gasp -- corporations. Today, my integrity was indirectly maligned in the New York Times, a once great newspaper that is declining in quality, objectivity and, thank God, influence, with the passage of time. It seems I am writing a book (with Wendell Cox) for AEI. It seems I have some nice things to say about the company, such as the fact that its "everyday low prices" have provided great benefits to lower income Americans. But the Times breathlessly points out this morning something that I did not know, namely that AEI took over $100,000 in donations from foundations of the Walton family (not even the Wal-Mart company) over a three year period, which, if true, amounts to a small fraction of one percent of total AEI spending. Therefore, it is intimated (although not explcitly said) that anything I (or others) say in defense of Wal-Mart is highly suspect (implicitly assuming I have no sense of integrity or ethics). Nothing was said about the fact that, aside from not knowing about the contributions, I had absolutely no direct personal contact with Wal-Mart, and the limited contact I did have was to request some data (a request which was denied, by the way). No mention was made of the fact that AEI absolutely made no attempt to modifiy my assessment of Wal-Mart, a point made abundantly clear to the reporter.
By contrast, implicitly we are led to believe by media outlets like the Times that the billions of dollars that the federal government gives to universities has no adverse influence whatsoever on the nature or content of the research being performed. Think tank research is bad because it is funded mainly from the greedy and somewhat evil private sector, while university research is mostly good since it is funded mostly by the saintly, just and good governments that we all love.
It is this trashy, highly subjective form of presentation of the "news" that in my judgment has contributed to the demise of the Times as the nation's pre-eminent news source. Unfortunately, a lot of similar type "research" is going on in the academy, funded in part by taxpayers or private donors thinking they are contributing to other purposes. This is a matter deserving closer scrutiny by all interested in free, objective scholarly inquiry. I do not want to stifle free speech; au contraire, I want to make transparent how funding of universities for research comes in ways and forms not known even to those paying the bills.
Thursday, September 07, 2006
Students Are Getting Ripped Off: A Preview
By Richard Vedder
CCAP is a new and very small think tank, but what it lacks in resources it makes up in enthusiasm, and there are so many problems in American higher education worth investigating. From several perspectives (economics, ethics,optimal public policy) one of the biggest problems is how research oriented universities spend their money, and whether undergraduate education is really subsidized by endowment monies, state government appropriations, and private gifts, as is claimed, or whether something closer to the reverse is true --undergraduates are the "cash cow" that provide some funds to do what are considered in the university community more important things than the mundane job of training our next generation to lead.
To get some insight into this question, my intrepid Whiz Kid associate Jonatahn Leirer and I have been looking at tuition fees in an old fashioned way, an approach suggested to me by Adam Smith. In the Wealth of Nations, Smith observed that until recently (that is, before 1776, when the book was written), students paid their tuition fees directly to the professor to cover instructional costs. If the professor collected 10 pounds in fees, his salary was 10 pounds. For every pound (or dollar) of professor salaries, there was one pound (or dollar) in fees. Perhaps the professor had to pay a fraction, say, one-third, of those fees to the "Administration" to defray costs of the classroom and any other costs. In that case, about 67 cents of every dollar in tuition fees went for faculty salaries. There was a strong and direct tie of salaries to tuition fees. Even if the administration's cut was a large 50 percent, the instructor still got 50 cents of each dollar in tuition fees as compensation.
Let us look at data for 2003 for modern highly research oriented schools (using the Carnegie classification). Using Department of Education data, below is an condensed table of findings for 16 schools, ten public, six private (we may publish the entire list at a later date).
FACULTY SALARIES PER STUDENT
SCHOOL PER ONE DOLLAR IN STATED TUITION FEE
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $1.52
Texas A & M University 1.15
University of Virginia (main campus) 1.01
Auburn University (main campus) 0.87
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 0.82
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 0.75
Ohio State University (main campus) 0.62
Oregon State University 0.57
Pennsylvania State University (main campus) 0.46
Ohio University (main campus) 0.34
Princeton University 0.47
Harvard University 0.30
Stanford University 0.26
Northwestern University 0.22
Georgetown University 0.20
Washington University in St. Louis 0.17
At most of the public universities (the first 10 on the list), professor salaries were a majority of tuition fees --if one assumes a 100 percent overhead rate (professor salaries are one-half the instructional cost), these universities relied at least in part on state appropriations or private funds to subsidize undergraduate instruction, although often only to a very modest extent (meaning most of those appropriations or private funds were used for graduate education, research, the football team, to pay for the campus Jacuzzi and climbing wall, or other items). Using that 100 percent overhead rule, however, some public universities (e.g.,, Penn State, my own Ohio University) actually made some "profit" off undergraduates,meaning state subsidies went entirely used for other purposes if we assume 100 percent overhead expenses on professorial salaries.
With the exception of Princeton, however, all the private schools on our list made significant "profits" from their undergraduates if we use a 100 percent or even a 200 percent overhead rule. At Georgetown, for example, assuming 200 percent overhead, the institution makes a 40 percent profit margin on undergraduate students paying full tuition (whatever happened to the notion of the "just price" of St. Thomas Aquinas that Catholic theologians used to talk about?).
To be sure, the true average tuition is less, because of discounting of fees (scholarships). But far more than offsetting this, professor salaries are entirely charged to instruction in this little exercise, while most professors at these schools spend most of their time doing other things (as Jim Heckman of Chicago acknowledged and almost bragged about in the Fox News special recently). At schools like Harvard and Princeton, endowment income is roughly double tuition income, suggesting these schools could provide an absolutely first class education and charge no tuition at all.
In short,the relationship between tuition fees and instructional costs is pretty tenuous, with many private universities actually almost certainly making "profits" off their undergraduates which they use, along with endowment funds and government overhead funds from grants, to subsidize other activities -- socialization for the students, research, high salaries for adminstrators, etc. I bet a lot of donors thinking they were helping fund undergraduate instruction with their gifts might not be overjoyed to learn this.
Down the road, my friend and former college financial executive Wicke Sloane, who writes clever little bon mots for INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION, will, with the help of the intrepid Jonathan, show how government policies have contributed to this "student be damned" attitude on the part of our major research universities.
Stayed tuned - you haven't heard anything yet!!!
CCAP is a new and very small think tank, but what it lacks in resources it makes up in enthusiasm, and there are so many problems in American higher education worth investigating. From several perspectives (economics, ethics,optimal public policy) one of the biggest problems is how research oriented universities spend their money, and whether undergraduate education is really subsidized by endowment monies, state government appropriations, and private gifts, as is claimed, or whether something closer to the reverse is true --undergraduates are the "cash cow" that provide some funds to do what are considered in the university community more important things than the mundane job of training our next generation to lead.
To get some insight into this question, my intrepid Whiz Kid associate Jonatahn Leirer and I have been looking at tuition fees in an old fashioned way, an approach suggested to me by Adam Smith. In the Wealth of Nations, Smith observed that until recently (that is, before 1776, when the book was written), students paid their tuition fees directly to the professor to cover instructional costs. If the professor collected 10 pounds in fees, his salary was 10 pounds. For every pound (or dollar) of professor salaries, there was one pound (or dollar) in fees. Perhaps the professor had to pay a fraction, say, one-third, of those fees to the "Administration" to defray costs of the classroom and any other costs. In that case, about 67 cents of every dollar in tuition fees went for faculty salaries. There was a strong and direct tie of salaries to tuition fees. Even if the administration's cut was a large 50 percent, the instructor still got 50 cents of each dollar in tuition fees as compensation.
Let us look at data for 2003 for modern highly research oriented schools (using the Carnegie classification). Using Department of Education data, below is an condensed table of findings for 16 schools, ten public, six private (we may publish the entire list at a later date).
FACULTY SALARIES PER STUDENT
SCHOOL PER ONE DOLLAR IN STATED TUITION FEE
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill $1.52
Texas A & M University 1.15
University of Virginia (main campus) 1.01
Auburn University (main campus) 0.87
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 0.82
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor 0.75
Ohio State University (main campus) 0.62
Oregon State University 0.57
Pennsylvania State University (main campus) 0.46
Ohio University (main campus) 0.34
Princeton University 0.47
Harvard University 0.30
Stanford University 0.26
Northwestern University 0.22
Georgetown University 0.20
Washington University in St. Louis 0.17
At most of the public universities (the first 10 on the list), professor salaries were a majority of tuition fees --if one assumes a 100 percent overhead rate (professor salaries are one-half the instructional cost), these universities relied at least in part on state appropriations or private funds to subsidize undergraduate instruction, although often only to a very modest extent (meaning most of those appropriations or private funds were used for graduate education, research, the football team, to pay for the campus Jacuzzi and climbing wall, or other items). Using that 100 percent overhead rule, however, some public universities (e.g.,, Penn State, my own Ohio University) actually made some "profit" off undergraduates,meaning state subsidies went entirely used for other purposes if we assume 100 percent overhead expenses on professorial salaries.
With the exception of Princeton, however, all the private schools on our list made significant "profits" from their undergraduates if we use a 100 percent or even a 200 percent overhead rule. At Georgetown, for example, assuming 200 percent overhead, the institution makes a 40 percent profit margin on undergraduate students paying full tuition (whatever happened to the notion of the "just price" of St. Thomas Aquinas that Catholic theologians used to talk about?).
To be sure, the true average tuition is less, because of discounting of fees (scholarships). But far more than offsetting this, professor salaries are entirely charged to instruction in this little exercise, while most professors at these schools spend most of their time doing other things (as Jim Heckman of Chicago acknowledged and almost bragged about in the Fox News special recently). At schools like Harvard and Princeton, endowment income is roughly double tuition income, suggesting these schools could provide an absolutely first class education and charge no tuition at all.
In short,the relationship between tuition fees and instructional costs is pretty tenuous, with many private universities actually almost certainly making "profits" off their undergraduates which they use, along with endowment funds and government overhead funds from grants, to subsidize other activities -- socialization for the students, research, high salaries for adminstrators, etc. I bet a lot of donors thinking they were helping fund undergraduate instruction with their gifts might not be overjoyed to learn this.
Down the road, my friend and former college financial executive Wicke Sloane, who writes clever little bon mots for INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION, will, with the help of the intrepid Jonathan, show how government policies have contributed to this "student be damned" attitude on the part of our major research universities.
Stayed tuned - you haven't heard anything yet!!!
Three Cheers for Pat Callan
By Richard Vedder
A fellow soldier, indeed a general, in the little army fighting for higher education reform in the United States is Pat Callan, President of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, chaired by former North Carolina Governor (and fellow Spellings Commission member) Jim Hunt. Pat is a voice for change, for transparency, for academic excellence, and, above all, for affordability.
In his latest Report Card on Higher Education, Pat and his crew give most states a "F' grade on affordability. Utah and California got C- grades, the highest of any state. I think NCPPHE got it about right. Callan only grades nine states at all on their role in evaluating what students actually gain from college --the failure of most universities to do much at all in terms of measuring results borders on a national scandal, one addressed by the Spellings Commission. And the new report notes that we are by no measure the best in the world in terms of graduation rates among young adults --we are better at getting kids into college than out.
Moreover, Pat realizes some of the standard remedies will not work. For example, the idea of expanding Pell Grants to deal with affordability has problems: "all the new money gets absorbed." Translation: colleges raise their tuition rates more when Pell Grants rise. Ironically, Pat's boss, Jim Hunt, was the champion on the Spellings Commission in calling for bigger Pell Grants. I might add that some research done by us and also at the Federal Reserve Bank at New York suggest that student performance is compromised to some extent by grant assistance.
What is needed, of course, is systemic, near-radical reform of the way we finance higher education. Third party payments need to be reduced, not increased. Students should not receive additional governmental assistance if they fail to perform after a year or so of trying. Kids from affluent families should pay their own way through college. Universities should be given incentives to reduce costs -- and to deemphasize research (not end it, nor to even reduce it in the scientific areas where it holds considerable promise in improving our lives). Colleges wanting governmental assistance should have completely open financial records prepared in a standardized fashion, just as publicly held corporations are required to by the SEC.
The value added" by colleges to a student's stock of intellectual capital should be measured and published. The list of needed reforms go on and on.
In any case, the new 2006 Report Card is much welcomed, and hopefully it will be a cataylst for positive change.
A fellow soldier, indeed a general, in the little army fighting for higher education reform in the United States is Pat Callan, President of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, chaired by former North Carolina Governor (and fellow Spellings Commission member) Jim Hunt. Pat is a voice for change, for transparency, for academic excellence, and, above all, for affordability.
In his latest Report Card on Higher Education, Pat and his crew give most states a "F' grade on affordability. Utah and California got C- grades, the highest of any state. I think NCPPHE got it about right. Callan only grades nine states at all on their role in evaluating what students actually gain from college --the failure of most universities to do much at all in terms of measuring results borders on a national scandal, one addressed by the Spellings Commission. And the new report notes that we are by no measure the best in the world in terms of graduation rates among young adults --we are better at getting kids into college than out.
Moreover, Pat realizes some of the standard remedies will not work. For example, the idea of expanding Pell Grants to deal with affordability has problems: "all the new money gets absorbed." Translation: colleges raise their tuition rates more when Pell Grants rise. Ironically, Pat's boss, Jim Hunt, was the champion on the Spellings Commission in calling for bigger Pell Grants. I might add that some research done by us and also at the Federal Reserve Bank at New York suggest that student performance is compromised to some extent by grant assistance.
What is needed, of course, is systemic, near-radical reform of the way we finance higher education. Third party payments need to be reduced, not increased. Students should not receive additional governmental assistance if they fail to perform after a year or so of trying. Kids from affluent families should pay their own way through college. Universities should be given incentives to reduce costs -- and to deemphasize research (not end it, nor to even reduce it in the scientific areas where it holds considerable promise in improving our lives). Colleges wanting governmental assistance should have completely open financial records prepared in a standardized fashion, just as publicly held corporations are required to by the SEC.
The value added" by colleges to a student's stock of intellectual capital should be measured and published. The list of needed reforms go on and on.
In any case, the new 2006 Report Card is much welcomed, and hopefully it will be a cataylst for positive change.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Labor Day Follow-Up: Eastern Michigan University
Following up on my Labor Day post from earlier this week, Inside Higher Ed reports on a very tense union situation at Eastern Michigan University. The union and administration appear at a standstill, with a possible strike looming in the future. The strike however is complicated by Michigan law which forbids public employees from striking (EMU faculty fall into this category).
The story presents many of the union arguments, though that’s not Inside Higher Ed’s fault. For some reason, the university didn’t really say much in their defense – but if you want to see their side of the story, you can download a fact sheet here with their proposal.
In any case, the real losers here will be students, who could be forced to start their classes without some full-time faculty (adjuncts and other professors who are not members of the union would fill-in). With college being so expensive, shouldn’t universities that have to negotiate with unions possibly have “no strike clauses” specifically in their contract language? Or, to eliminate any arguments over whether professors are “public employees” or not, state legislatures should have it written into state labor law that professors at public universities (even unionized ones) must teach as soon as the school year begins. According to EMU’s own website, the students there pay over $15,000 when you add together all of their fees, tuition, and room and board. At the very least, they deserve a faculty that shows up for work! If that doesn’t happen, then maybe the state or university should get some sort of refund on their tuition bill? Why should students have to pay full price when they are getting a lesser education?
The story presents many of the union arguments, though that’s not Inside Higher Ed’s fault. For some reason, the university didn’t really say much in their defense – but if you want to see their side of the story, you can download a fact sheet here with their proposal.
In any case, the real losers here will be students, who could be forced to start their classes without some full-time faculty (adjuncts and other professors who are not members of the union would fill-in). With college being so expensive, shouldn’t universities that have to negotiate with unions possibly have “no strike clauses” specifically in their contract language? Or, to eliminate any arguments over whether professors are “public employees” or not, state legislatures should have it written into state labor law that professors at public universities (even unionized ones) must teach as soon as the school year begins. According to EMU’s own website, the students there pay over $15,000 when you add together all of their fees, tuition, and room and board. At the very least, they deserve a faculty that shows up for work! If that doesn’t happen, then maybe the state or university should get some sort of refund on their tuition bill? Why should students have to pay full price when they are getting a lesser education?
Too Many Kids Go to College
By Richard Vedder
When it rains it pours.I came to work today wondering what I was going to blog about, but within 30 minutes I had four great ideas thrust at me from other web sites, etc. Great material on open access for research, Donald Kagan on the neglect of teaching,the Education Trust (via GreentreeGazette.com) on the gender gap, etc. But none captivated me more than our friend George Leef's great study on the "Overselling of Higher Education," available at http://www.popecenter.org.
George has greatly added to what Harry Stilles of Erkstine College (and former South Carolina legislator), Jackson Toby of Rutgers, and others have been telling me -- too many kids go to college. Since the users only pay a small portion of the costs, they tend to overuse higher education, which has the effect of sending kids to school who are ill prepared. This contributes to a watering down of the college curriculum. It leads to employers requiring a college degrees for jobs that truly do not need a college degree as traditionally conceived -- the type of degree that was offered a couple of generations ago. It leads to a massive waste of resources, contributing to results such as I have obtained showing an actual negative correlation between state government spending on higher education and economic growth (the massive inefficiencies in allocation resources within this highly subsidized system also contribute to that result).
Herein lies the dilemma. George is absolutely right --too many kids go to college. But we feel as a nation that we have to give everyone a chance at a higher education --even those obviously unqualified. Two questions arise: should we re-think our implicit commitment (reaffirmed by the Spellings Commission) of maximizing access to universities? Or, if we insist on giving everyone a chance at a college degree, shouldn't we at least require academically marginal students to prove their
potential for four year universities, either by passing a fairly rigorous college entrance examination or by being forced to go to two year community colleges to see if they have the potential for a four year degree?
I cannot quarrel with George's conclusion: "To combat the overselling of higher education, academic standards need to be raised and governmental subsidies for college studies should be lowered." This should have a favorable impact on college graduation rates (reducing waste associated with college dropouts), lead to greater rigor (and hopefully less grade inflation),and even, if my research is to be believed, a higher rate of economic growth.
When it rains it pours.I came to work today wondering what I was going to blog about, but within 30 minutes I had four great ideas thrust at me from other web sites, etc. Great material on open access for research, Donald Kagan on the neglect of teaching,the Education Trust (via GreentreeGazette.com) on the gender gap, etc. But none captivated me more than our friend George Leef's great study on the "Overselling of Higher Education," available at http://www.popecenter.org.
George has greatly added to what Harry Stilles of Erkstine College (and former South Carolina legislator), Jackson Toby of Rutgers, and others have been telling me -- too many kids go to college. Since the users only pay a small portion of the costs, they tend to overuse higher education, which has the effect of sending kids to school who are ill prepared. This contributes to a watering down of the college curriculum. It leads to employers requiring a college degrees for jobs that truly do not need a college degree as traditionally conceived -- the type of degree that was offered a couple of generations ago. It leads to a massive waste of resources, contributing to results such as I have obtained showing an actual negative correlation between state government spending on higher education and economic growth (the massive inefficiencies in allocation resources within this highly subsidized system also contribute to that result).
Herein lies the dilemma. George is absolutely right --too many kids go to college. But we feel as a nation that we have to give everyone a chance at a higher education --even those obviously unqualified. Two questions arise: should we re-think our implicit commitment (reaffirmed by the Spellings Commission) of maximizing access to universities? Or, if we insist on giving everyone a chance at a college degree, shouldn't we at least require academically marginal students to prove their
potential for four year universities, either by passing a fairly rigorous college entrance examination or by being forced to go to two year community colleges to see if they have the potential for a four year degree?
I cannot quarrel with George's conclusion: "To combat the overselling of higher education, academic standards need to be raised and governmental subsidies for college studies should be lowered." This should have a favorable impact on college graduation rates (reducing waste associated with college dropouts), lead to greater rigor (and hopefully less grade inflation),and even, if my research is to be believed, a higher rate of economic growth.
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
The State of Higher Education: A Review
By Richard Vedder
As I start a new year of teaching undergraduates, I think perhaps this is an appropriate time to review briefly the current state of higher education in the U.S. and its future. This is the sixth decade in which I have spent at least part of my time as a student or professor at an American college or university, so I bring a bit of historical perspective to this exercise. Despite vast increases in resources expended on colleges, in some respects they are no better, and even arguably worse, at performing their missions than a generation or two ago.
I have been called a vocal critic of our colleges and universities, but let me state a bias I hold right up front: I love universities, I love their missions, I think they are important and potentially noble institutions. Moreover, they have many strengths. While the oft-heard claim that "we have the best universities in the world" is subject to a good deal of debate (particularly given our lack of good ways of measurement), we are clearly at the top of the class in performing some important forms of cutting edge basic research and offering advanced graduate and professional instruction (e.g., medical schools).
At the same time, American universities have a number of rather stormy clouds on the horizon. Rising costs have led to rising public criticism. Dubious academic quality, heretofore largely ignored by a publc blissfully unaware of a growing problem, may start to arouse the public and future consumers. A lack of curricular coherence, grade inflation, an atmosphere of partying and hedonistic excesses present on many campuses, increasingly corrupt athletic practices -- the list of additional serious problems is getting pretty lengthy.
American higher education has survived earlier challenges, and it may well successfully surmount the current ones. But I doubt it will do so without serious reform. There is a threshold beyond which the perceived benefits of continued large public support falls below the costs of that support. That may be a reason why state appropriations for colleges have not risen markedly in the last couple decades. As the cost of college continues to rise, but the college/high school earnings differential levels off, the private rate of return on college financial investments may start to fall as well, and more people may look for lower cost alternatives to the traditional residential universities --community colleges, alternative means of certifying of skills, on-line learning, foreign universities, for-profit alternative institutions -- there are a number of options.
If the traditional colleges are responsive, and I think that is a big "if", they will start changing by toughening standards (increasing quality, demanding more of students for a grade of "A" or "B") while slashing costs --asking professors to teach more, shedding a lot of non-essential administrative staffs,using technology to reduce costs, striving for year-round use of physical plants, eliminating duplicative expensive graduate programs, putting limits on subsidies for intercollegiate athletics, contracting out non-academic services to a greater extent, offering courses that students want and/or need rather than what professors want to teach, etc. We at CCAP want to be part of the solution, not the problem, and we will be in the camp of those urging an attitude of "tough love" towards universities.
One aspect of the coming change in higher education is the rise in on-line learning. Yours Truly will be part of a discussion of this tomorrow (Wednesday) at 3:00 p.m. EDT on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, hosted by Neil Conan. Tune in.
As I start a new year of teaching undergraduates, I think perhaps this is an appropriate time to review briefly the current state of higher education in the U.S. and its future. This is the sixth decade in which I have spent at least part of my time as a student or professor at an American college or university, so I bring a bit of historical perspective to this exercise. Despite vast increases in resources expended on colleges, in some respects they are no better, and even arguably worse, at performing their missions than a generation or two ago.
I have been called a vocal critic of our colleges and universities, but let me state a bias I hold right up front: I love universities, I love their missions, I think they are important and potentially noble institutions. Moreover, they have many strengths. While the oft-heard claim that "we have the best universities in the world" is subject to a good deal of debate (particularly given our lack of good ways of measurement), we are clearly at the top of the class in performing some important forms of cutting edge basic research and offering advanced graduate and professional instruction (e.g., medical schools).
At the same time, American universities have a number of rather stormy clouds on the horizon. Rising costs have led to rising public criticism. Dubious academic quality, heretofore largely ignored by a publc blissfully unaware of a growing problem, may start to arouse the public and future consumers. A lack of curricular coherence, grade inflation, an atmosphere of partying and hedonistic excesses present on many campuses, increasingly corrupt athletic practices -- the list of additional serious problems is getting pretty lengthy.
American higher education has survived earlier challenges, and it may well successfully surmount the current ones. But I doubt it will do so without serious reform. There is a threshold beyond which the perceived benefits of continued large public support falls below the costs of that support. That may be a reason why state appropriations for colleges have not risen markedly in the last couple decades. As the cost of college continues to rise, but the college/high school earnings differential levels off, the private rate of return on college financial investments may start to fall as well, and more people may look for lower cost alternatives to the traditional residential universities --community colleges, alternative means of certifying of skills, on-line learning, foreign universities, for-profit alternative institutions -- there are a number of options.
If the traditional colleges are responsive, and I think that is a big "if", they will start changing by toughening standards (increasing quality, demanding more of students for a grade of "A" or "B") while slashing costs --asking professors to teach more, shedding a lot of non-essential administrative staffs,using technology to reduce costs, striving for year-round use of physical plants, eliminating duplicative expensive graduate programs, putting limits on subsidies for intercollegiate athletics, contracting out non-academic services to a greater extent, offering courses that students want and/or need rather than what professors want to teach, etc. We at CCAP want to be part of the solution, not the problem, and we will be in the camp of those urging an attitude of "tough love" towards universities.
One aspect of the coming change in higher education is the rise in on-line learning. Yours Truly will be part of a discussion of this tomorrow (Wednesday) at 3:00 p.m. EDT on National Public Radio's Talk of the Nation, hosted by Neil Conan. Tune in.
Monday, September 04, 2006
Labor Day and the Ivory Tower
By Bryan O'Keefe
With today being the Labor Day holiday, it seems appropriate to spend some time considering labor unions and their role in higher education. This is a subject which I wrote about in great length for a recent issue of the Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch publication, but I’ll offer another summary of my findings here.
As just about everybody knows, the number of employees that it takes to run a university today has grown tremendously relative to 30 years ago. At the same time, the number of employees that belong to labor unions has plummeted. At their zenith in the 1950’s, about one-third of the private sector workforce belonged to a union; now that number stands at barely 8 percent.
Out of a need for self-preservation, labor unions have been desperately trying to reverse that trend. Part of that process has been pursuing organizing opportunities in places that are pretty far removed from traditional union havens like coal mines or steel mills – enter the ivory tower.
Colleges and universities are a fertile ground for unions due to several related factors. First, the sheer number of non-union employees found on campuses would attract any organizers eye. Second, many of the players on college campuses – in particular professors and teaching assistants – have politics that largely mirror big labor. They often times have an “anti-corporate” mentality and are eager to jump at the first opportunity to join a cause or take part in a march or rally. The 60s have never really died and joining a labor union is a relatively painless way to express that sentiment. There are other reasons why unionization is popular too including professors using unions as protection against administrative reforms such as increased teaching loads.
In the coming years, I predict that labor’s drive to organize university employees will only increase. Already, this past year at the University of Miami we saw the Service Employees International Union engage in an ugly battle to unionize university janitors. SEIU won that war, which will only embolden them to try their hardball tactics at other schools. Other unions such as the United Autoworkers have aggressively recruited employees like adjunct faculty and teaching assistants to join their rank. The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education has also seen a rise in unions lately. They report that unionization has risen 24% amongst professors since 1998. They also claim that in the past decade, unionization has skyrocketed for teaching assistants, growing by an astounding 60 percent.
To their credit, most colleges and universities have resisted the push for unionization. (This is especially true at private schools. Public schools are somewhat more prone to unions, but that’s mainly because union-friendly state labor boards rule the roost, not the National Labor Relations Board.) This position is ultimately better for the university, students, taxpayers, and many of the employees themselves. With all of the problems that face higher education today, the last thing that it needs is to become more like heavily unionized industries such as the car companies, airlines, or steel mills. What we know is that those industries underlying labor structure significantly contributed to their unfortunate collapses. Beyond pay and benefits, highly specific work rules curtailed productivity and stifled economic changes that might have spared these industries a trip to the graveyard.
The same exact thing will happen to colleges and universities if they are not careful. Rising salaries and declining productivity are two siren calls of Dr. Vedder and these problems will only get worse if widespread unionization occurs.
CCAP plans on studying this labor issue in greater detail in the future. We specifically will examine the effects of unionization on a campus. Does unionization really make the school better or are union leaders using higher education simply to boost their dwindling membership numbers? My guess is the latter and we will soon find out. Stay posted.
With today being the Labor Day holiday, it seems appropriate to spend some time considering labor unions and their role in higher education. This is a subject which I wrote about in great length for a recent issue of the Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch publication, but I’ll offer another summary of my findings here.
As just about everybody knows, the number of employees that it takes to run a university today has grown tremendously relative to 30 years ago. At the same time, the number of employees that belong to labor unions has plummeted. At their zenith in the 1950’s, about one-third of the private sector workforce belonged to a union; now that number stands at barely 8 percent.
Out of a need for self-preservation, labor unions have been desperately trying to reverse that trend. Part of that process has been pursuing organizing opportunities in places that are pretty far removed from traditional union havens like coal mines or steel mills – enter the ivory tower.
Colleges and universities are a fertile ground for unions due to several related factors. First, the sheer number of non-union employees found on campuses would attract any organizers eye. Second, many of the players on college campuses – in particular professors and teaching assistants – have politics that largely mirror big labor. They often times have an “anti-corporate” mentality and are eager to jump at the first opportunity to join a cause or take part in a march or rally. The 60s have never really died and joining a labor union is a relatively painless way to express that sentiment. There are other reasons why unionization is popular too including professors using unions as protection against administrative reforms such as increased teaching loads.
In the coming years, I predict that labor’s drive to organize university employees will only increase. Already, this past year at the University of Miami we saw the Service Employees International Union engage in an ugly battle to unionize university janitors. SEIU won that war, which will only embolden them to try their hardball tactics at other schools. Other unions such as the United Autoworkers have aggressively recruited employees like adjunct faculty and teaching assistants to join their rank. The National Center for the Study of Collective Bargaining in Higher Education has also seen a rise in unions lately. They report that unionization has risen 24% amongst professors since 1998. They also claim that in the past decade, unionization has skyrocketed for teaching assistants, growing by an astounding 60 percent.
To their credit, most colleges and universities have resisted the push for unionization. (This is especially true at private schools. Public schools are somewhat more prone to unions, but that’s mainly because union-friendly state labor boards rule the roost, not the National Labor Relations Board.) This position is ultimately better for the university, students, taxpayers, and many of the employees themselves. With all of the problems that face higher education today, the last thing that it needs is to become more like heavily unionized industries such as the car companies, airlines, or steel mills. What we know is that those industries underlying labor structure significantly contributed to their unfortunate collapses. Beyond pay and benefits, highly specific work rules curtailed productivity and stifled economic changes that might have spared these industries a trip to the graveyard.
The same exact thing will happen to colleges and universities if they are not careful. Rising salaries and declining productivity are two siren calls of Dr. Vedder and these problems will only get worse if widespread unionization occurs.
CCAP plans on studying this labor issue in greater detail in the future. We specifically will examine the effects of unionization on a campus. Does unionization really make the school better or are union leaders using higher education simply to boost their dwindling membership numbers? My guess is the latter and we will soon find out. Stay posted.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Neglect of Instruction:Even Worse Than We Thought
By Richard Vedder and Jonathan Leirer
The commonly cited government statistics usually show that "instruction" absorbs about 30 percent (give or take a little) of a typical university budget, and many say: where is the rest of the money going? Yet this self-reported statistic may actually overstate the actual importance of instruction in the budgets of medium to large sized universities with some research emphasis.
We took the total amount of money spent on professor salaries and divided it by the stated tuition at three rather different type schools. We calculated the average of this statistic for the eight Ivy League schools, the elite private schools that are widely acknowledged to be amongst the best in America. We did the same for the 11 public schools in the Big Ten athletic conference, a group of high quality flagship state universities. Finally, we did the same for the dozen schools belonging to the Mid-American athletic conference, a group of medium-sized and generally perceived to be medium-quality state institutions with somewhat less of a research emphasis than the Big Ten schools.
We learned a lot of fascinating things, one of which we will preview for you today. In the Ivy League, professorial costs were on average less than 20 percent of stated tuition levels. In the Big Ten, the figure was much higher, close to 70 percent, whereas the Mid-American conference schools average was somewhat below 50 percent. Moreover, these statistics were calculated including graduate and professional students in the enrollment figures. These students absorb a relatively higher portion of faculty resources than undergraduates, suggesting our little ratio may overstate faculty salaries of those actually teaching undergraduates as a percent of tuition.
Assume that universities need facilities and support personnel that cost as much as faculty costs in order to permit instruction. Call that the 100 percent overhead cost assumption. Ignore the overstatement of salaries bias mentioned in the previous paragraph. Then at the average Ivy League school stated tuition rates are well over twice as great as the actual cost of educating students. These schools make a massive profit off undergraduates that is used to subsidize other activities (and also pay themselves handsomely; counting fringe benefits, the average total compensation of a full professor at Harvard now approximates $200,000 a year). And note that, as Jim Heckman so candidly admitted on the Fox News special on college costs last week, professors spend little of their time actually teaching -- so we are counting the entire salary of professors as instructional cost, when in fact on average they spend at most half of their time doing things relating to instruction.
It is rare for professorial costs per student to reach, say, $12,000 a year even in the Ivy League. Yet, assuming a 5 percent spending rate out of endowment, schools like Harvard and Princeton earn in investment income at least five times the amount as they spend on professor salaries -- yet they also charge sky high tuition rates!!! Why do we give tax exemptions to allow people to make donations to these fabulously rich schools that use those donations primarily for purposes other than educating students, including providing huge salaries for personnel?
In the Big Ten schools, tuition may not even fully cover the average cost of educating students if we use the 100 percent overhead figure. But remember, the cost of educating undergrads is much lower than graduate and professional students and, adjusting for that, our guess is that tuition charges in the Big Ten roughly on average cover the cost of educating undergraduates. Then the question is: why do taxpayers provide subsidies for these schools, since tuition covers undergraduate instructional costs and the federal government provides them with vast amounts for graduate instruction and research?
In the Mid-America conference schools, professor salaries, even with 100 percent overhead costs, on average are slighly less than tuition. For undergraduate students, these schools may well make a modest surplus. State government subsdies do not appear to support undergraduate instruction. Again, the question is: why do taxpayers permit this to happen?
Our guess is the picture is rather different for community colleges, and maybe even for private liberal arts colleges where there are no graduate programs to subsidize from "profits" derived from undergraduate instruction. Also, the colleges self-report "instruction" costs that are typically several times larger than the professor salaries cited above, although there are exceptions (e.g., the University of Illinois). Our guess is that a lot of things are listed under instruction that do not directly impact on what goes on in the classroom. If we are right, the official statistics overstate university commitments to instruction, already pretty low to begin with.
To be sure, there are a lot of qualifications to this analysis that we are not discussing here in this already over long blog. For example, "net tuition fees" (after scholarships) are lower than stated "sticker prices." More needs to be said. Therefore,watch for more on this topic in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
The commonly cited government statistics usually show that "instruction" absorbs about 30 percent (give or take a little) of a typical university budget, and many say: where is the rest of the money going? Yet this self-reported statistic may actually overstate the actual importance of instruction in the budgets of medium to large sized universities with some research emphasis.
We took the total amount of money spent on professor salaries and divided it by the stated tuition at three rather different type schools. We calculated the average of this statistic for the eight Ivy League schools, the elite private schools that are widely acknowledged to be amongst the best in America. We did the same for the 11 public schools in the Big Ten athletic conference, a group of high quality flagship state universities. Finally, we did the same for the dozen schools belonging to the Mid-American athletic conference, a group of medium-sized and generally perceived to be medium-quality state institutions with somewhat less of a research emphasis than the Big Ten schools.
We learned a lot of fascinating things, one of which we will preview for you today. In the Ivy League, professorial costs were on average less than 20 percent of stated tuition levels. In the Big Ten, the figure was much higher, close to 70 percent, whereas the Mid-American conference schools average was somewhat below 50 percent. Moreover, these statistics were calculated including graduate and professional students in the enrollment figures. These students absorb a relatively higher portion of faculty resources than undergraduates, suggesting our little ratio may overstate faculty salaries of those actually teaching undergraduates as a percent of tuition.
Assume that universities need facilities and support personnel that cost as much as faculty costs in order to permit instruction. Call that the 100 percent overhead cost assumption. Ignore the overstatement of salaries bias mentioned in the previous paragraph. Then at the average Ivy League school stated tuition rates are well over twice as great as the actual cost of educating students. These schools make a massive profit off undergraduates that is used to subsidize other activities (and also pay themselves handsomely; counting fringe benefits, the average total compensation of a full professor at Harvard now approximates $200,000 a year). And note that, as Jim Heckman so candidly admitted on the Fox News special on college costs last week, professors spend little of their time actually teaching -- so we are counting the entire salary of professors as instructional cost, when in fact on average they spend at most half of their time doing things relating to instruction.
It is rare for professorial costs per student to reach, say, $12,000 a year even in the Ivy League. Yet, assuming a 5 percent spending rate out of endowment, schools like Harvard and Princeton earn in investment income at least five times the amount as they spend on professor salaries -- yet they also charge sky high tuition rates!!! Why do we give tax exemptions to allow people to make donations to these fabulously rich schools that use those donations primarily for purposes other than educating students, including providing huge salaries for personnel?
In the Big Ten schools, tuition may not even fully cover the average cost of educating students if we use the 100 percent overhead figure. But remember, the cost of educating undergrads is much lower than graduate and professional students and, adjusting for that, our guess is that tuition charges in the Big Ten roughly on average cover the cost of educating undergraduates. Then the question is: why do taxpayers provide subsidies for these schools, since tuition covers undergraduate instructional costs and the federal government provides them with vast amounts for graduate instruction and research?
In the Mid-America conference schools, professor salaries, even with 100 percent overhead costs, on average are slighly less than tuition. For undergraduate students, these schools may well make a modest surplus. State government subsdies do not appear to support undergraduate instruction. Again, the question is: why do taxpayers permit this to happen?
Our guess is the picture is rather different for community colleges, and maybe even for private liberal arts colleges where there are no graduate programs to subsidize from "profits" derived from undergraduate instruction. Also, the colleges self-report "instruction" costs that are typically several times larger than the professor salaries cited above, although there are exceptions (e.g., the University of Illinois). Our guess is that a lot of things are listed under instruction that do not directly impact on what goes on in the classroom. If we are right, the official statistics overstate university commitments to instruction, already pretty low to begin with.
To be sure, there are a lot of qualifications to this analysis that we are not discussing here in this already over long blog. For example, "net tuition fees" (after scholarships) are lower than stated "sticker prices." More needs to be said. Therefore,watch for more on this topic in the days, weeks, and months ahead.
Saturday, September 02, 2006
Media Advisory
Friends:
Heads up on two media presentations of CCAP director Richard Vedder.
First, this afternoon at 4:00 p.m.EDT on the Fox News channel, Prof. Vedder will be on a re-run of the special on college costs that first ran last Sunday.
Second, next Wednesday, at 3:00 p.m. EDT on PBS's nationally syndicated radio show "Talk of the Nation," Vedder will be participating in a segment dealing with the growth of on-line higher education in the United States.
Heads up on two media presentations of CCAP director Richard Vedder.
First, this afternoon at 4:00 p.m.EDT on the Fox News channel, Prof. Vedder will be on a re-run of the special on college costs that first ran last Sunday.
Second, next Wednesday, at 3:00 p.m. EDT on PBS's nationally syndicated radio show "Talk of the Nation," Vedder will be participating in a segment dealing with the growth of on-line higher education in the United States.
Friday, September 01, 2006
Fox News Special: Rerun
By Richard Vedder
For those of you who missed the Fox News Special last Sunday night, it will be rerun tomorrow, Saturday, September 1, at 4:00 EDT. The program had higher than usual or expected ratings, outperforming a CNN special on Osama bin Laden running at the same time. Hosted by Newt Gingrich, the program has signficant commentary by Yours Truly, University of Chicago economics professor James Heckman, and several students and their parents confronting the decisions and burdens associated with going to college.
If you get bored of the competing football games, tune in.
For those of you who missed the Fox News Special last Sunday night, it will be rerun tomorrow, Saturday, September 1, at 4:00 EDT. The program had higher than usual or expected ratings, outperforming a CNN special on Osama bin Laden running at the same time. Hosted by Newt Gingrich, the program has signficant commentary by Yours Truly, University of Chicago economics professor James Heckman, and several students and their parents confronting the decisions and burdens associated with going to college.
If you get bored of the competing football games, tune in.
Sara Martinez Tucker
By Richard Vedder
President Bush is an often perplexing man, sometimes doing marvelous things followed by actions (or inactions with respect to vetoing wild spending increases) that are either dumb or generally bad. But he hit a home run with his appointment of Sara Martinez Tucker as Under Secretary of Education.
I have served for the past year with Sara on the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Sara was appointed because of her stellar work with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. She has been a great asset to the Commission. She is bright, energetic, diplomatic, wise and, most important to me, nice. She has a great sense of humor, an overly rare commodity among the grime bureaucrats consumed with their own self-importance who populate our nation's capital.
Sara also impresses me as possessing two qualities that often do not mix well in a single human being. She is compassionate and caring, working tirelessly to help Hispanic youth climb the socioeconomic ladder. Yet she can be tough and analytical, knowing about the limits on resources, having high expectations of the people she helps. American education needs tough love, and Sara is the right kind of person to have at the Department of Education.
Speaking of the Spellings Commission, the ever resourceful Doug Lederman of INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION managed to acquire a bunch of supposedly semi-private emails that reveal a little dustup that occurred recently amongst Commission members. Read today's INSIDE HIGHER ED. Gerri Elliott, VP at Microsoft, was offended at my personal attack, I read. I criticized her for her failure to read the Commission report in a timely fashion, but then trying to change it long after the vote. I am sorry she is offended, but my remarks stand (although I did not intend them to go public). If you accept an assignment, perform it well or face the consequences.
President Bush is an often perplexing man, sometimes doing marvelous things followed by actions (or inactions with respect to vetoing wild spending increases) that are either dumb or generally bad. But he hit a home run with his appointment of Sara Martinez Tucker as Under Secretary of Education.
I have served for the past year with Sara on the Secretary of Education's Commission on the Future of Higher Education. Sara was appointed because of her stellar work with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund. She has been a great asset to the Commission. She is bright, energetic, diplomatic, wise and, most important to me, nice. She has a great sense of humor, an overly rare commodity among the grime bureaucrats consumed with their own self-importance who populate our nation's capital.
Sara also impresses me as possessing two qualities that often do not mix well in a single human being. She is compassionate and caring, working tirelessly to help Hispanic youth climb the socioeconomic ladder. Yet she can be tough and analytical, knowing about the limits on resources, having high expectations of the people she helps. American education needs tough love, and Sara is the right kind of person to have at the Department of Education.
Speaking of the Spellings Commission, the ever resourceful Doug Lederman of INSIDE HIGHER EDUCATION managed to acquire a bunch of supposedly semi-private emails that reveal a little dustup that occurred recently amongst Commission members. Read today's INSIDE HIGHER ED. Gerri Elliott, VP at Microsoft, was offended at my personal attack, I read. I criticized her for her failure to read the Commission report in a timely fashion, but then trying to change it long after the vote. I am sorry she is offended, but my remarks stand (although I did not intend them to go public). If you accept an assignment, perform it well or face the consequences.
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