By Richard Vedder
Following up on yesterday’s blog complaining about the state of intercollegiate athletics, my post begs the question -- what can be done? Given the popularity of sports, and the huge amounts of money involved, there are limits probably as to how the system can be reformed, and the notion that a few brave university presidents will lead piecemeal reform is sheer fantasy. As Vanderbilt's President Gordon Gee said after modestly downgrading the athletic bureaucracy at that school, "If I tried this at Ohio State, I would be pumping gas today."
Here is a scenario that just might be possible. The Presidents of the Ivy League schools gather together the presidents of many academic respectable schools from several important athletic conferences, as well as a respected independent (non-conference) school or two. For example, the presidents of the University of Michigan, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, Notre Dame, University of Washington, University of Texas, University of Georgia, University of Virginia, University of Southern California, University of North Carolina, and Vanderbilt (to pick 16 schools) declare, along with the 8 Ivy League Presidents (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, Pennsylvania) that we insist that intercollegiate athletics be constrained in several ways or we are going to remove our schools from our respective conferences. Some possible constraints:
* Seasons and training periods would be drastically shortened (e.g., 9 game football seasons plus one bowl game as a maximum; 35 game baseball seasons)
*No games may be played during examination periods, nor may any athlete miss more than 2 consecutive days of school for any athletic purpose
* Redshirting would be prohibited
*Maximum team sizes in football would be reduce to 65 (partly as a cost containment measure)
*The salaries of coaches will be constrained to that to not exceed that of the President of the United States, or the President of the University, whichever is smaller
*The college presidents would endorse and agree to testify for an end to tax exempt status for any gift to a university for athletic purposes.
An alternative approach would be for the aforementioned group of 24 university presidents, perhaps joined by some other presidents of prestigious schools (e.g. University of Chicago, Washington University in Saint Louis, Georgetown, New York University, M.I.T, Cal Tech, Emory, George Washington University, Rice University, the University of Rochester) to appeal to Congress to insist that schools wanting federal grants adhere to these standards (I am somewhat weary of Congressional intervention myself because it opens the door to future federal interference).
Whether any of this could work, who knows? As long as millions of dollars in revenue are at stake, I am skeptical, but it might be worth a try. An alternative approach would be go the other direction, openly declare that "we are in the professional sports business", and start paying athletes more (and, by inference, coaches less). If this route is taken, we should also remove tax exempt status for any charitable contributions to athletic departments, and also tax exempt status for such things as sky boxes in stadiums. Also subject sports operations to income taxation. And end the fiction of the "student-athlete" for the big revenue sports, football and basketball.
I am not against sports. I think athletic participation can build leadership qualities, instill discipline, promote hard work, and improve interpersonal relationships. But the Aristotle golden mean is needed here, some moderation and perspective that is lacking at many of our nation's institutions of higher learning. This is further evidence that the socialization dimension of higher education is increasingly trumping the educational function on many campuses, and that should stop.
Friday, January 26, 2007
Thursday, January 25, 2007
The Intercollegiate Athletics Scandal
By Richard Vedder
As we enter the wilderness period between the college bowl games in football and basketball's March Madness, perhaps it is time to reflect on the state of intercollegiate athletics. Let's face it: it is a disgrace, an embarrassment to higher education, a scandal.
As usual, a historical perspective is useful. Let us compare today's college sports with, say, how they existed at the middle of the 20th century, in 1950. In 1950, a typical football player at a major college campus played nine games a year for three years --27 games total. Today's counterpart plays perhaps on average 13 games a year for four years -52 games. In baseball, the season has expanded even more, and teams often play 60-70 games, double the norm of two generations ago.
In 1950, athletes were truly students, playing two to three sports while attending classes. Long spring practices in football, accompanied by summer camps, along with living in a segregated environment far away from the academic center of campus -- today's norm --was unknown. Coaches of repute, such as Ohio State's Woody Hayes, made about the same as a moderately senior college professor, and far less than the president (of either the university or the United States). There was no "redshirting" --keeping so-called students around for five years or more in order to maximize the quantity and quality of their athletic prowess. The notion that football players would take off two to three weeks of classes in order to prepare for a bowl game was not even considered. Having a sporting event scheduled during examination periods was absolutely taboo. To be sure, athletics even in those days were "big men on campus", and the prestigious schools of the era took in some "dumb jocks" in order to improve athletic competitiveness. But the abuses were far less than they are today. Yet people enjoyed the athletic competition with the same fervor as today, and tens of thousands of persons filled stadiums on Saturday afternoons. If sports success induces alumni giving now, it did back then as well.
Today, at the big name schools, the colleges are really running minor league professional teams, but, unlike pro deems, they exploit the athletes by not paying them, trying to keep the fiction going that they are truly educating the "student-athletes" in order to justify paying them somewhat less than 10 or 20 percent what they would have earned if they truly were playing with a minor league professional team. To be sure, that is not true, at least to the same extent, in the so-called minor sports, or with women athletics, which were of secondary importance 50-60 years ago. Nor is it as true at non-Division I schools. And even at the top jock schools, there are occasional football and basketball players who are true scholars, who go on to graduate school or become doctors or lawyers. But they are becoming the exception at many schools rather than the rule. Dropout rates, particularly among minorities at top flight sports schools, are alarmingly high.
What about the smaller colleges, say the private liberal arts schools? Even there, the fixation on sports today is much greater than decades ago. Schools try to recruit swimmers, baseball players, basketball players, etc. just as the bigger schools do, and a larger portion of students are athletic participants than at say Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, or Penn State. But sports remain somewhat lower key, the athletes mingle with the non-jocks much more, and studying is still more of a priority.
At the major schools, sports have corrupted institutions. Academics are often subordinated to athletics. University presidents kowtow to alums whose pocketbooks exceed their intelligence and sense of proportion. An immoral and shameful exploitation of "students" occurs as the Sports Cartel, better known as the NCAA, works to assure that the financial gains of sports accrue to the universities and the adults running athletic operations, not to the children verging on adults who are providing the entertainment.
It is a scandal. The notion that athletics promote scholarly greatness is pure bull, by and large. To be sure, there are a few schools, Notre Dame most notably, that have probably used sports to attain an element of academic prestige. But most of the greatest universities in the country --Harvard, Princeton, M.I.T., Cal Tech, Chicago-- have indifferent or mediocre sports teams by today's standards. The correlation between athletic and academic success is modest indeed. And without question, the notion that universities are non-profit institutions motivated by the love of learning to serve our society is severely compromised by intercollegiate athletics as it operates in contemporary American society.
As we enter the wilderness period between the college bowl games in football and basketball's March Madness, perhaps it is time to reflect on the state of intercollegiate athletics. Let's face it: it is a disgrace, an embarrassment to higher education, a scandal.
As usual, a historical perspective is useful. Let us compare today's college sports with, say, how they existed at the middle of the 20th century, in 1950. In 1950, a typical football player at a major college campus played nine games a year for three years --27 games total. Today's counterpart plays perhaps on average 13 games a year for four years -52 games. In baseball, the season has expanded even more, and teams often play 60-70 games, double the norm of two generations ago.
In 1950, athletes were truly students, playing two to three sports while attending classes. Long spring practices in football, accompanied by summer camps, along with living in a segregated environment far away from the academic center of campus -- today's norm --was unknown. Coaches of repute, such as Ohio State's Woody Hayes, made about the same as a moderately senior college professor, and far less than the president (of either the university or the United States). There was no "redshirting" --keeping so-called students around for five years or more in order to maximize the quantity and quality of their athletic prowess. The notion that football players would take off two to three weeks of classes in order to prepare for a bowl game was not even considered. Having a sporting event scheduled during examination periods was absolutely taboo. To be sure, athletics even in those days were "big men on campus", and the prestigious schools of the era took in some "dumb jocks" in order to improve athletic competitiveness. But the abuses were far less than they are today. Yet people enjoyed the athletic competition with the same fervor as today, and tens of thousands of persons filled stadiums on Saturday afternoons. If sports success induces alumni giving now, it did back then as well.
Today, at the big name schools, the colleges are really running minor league professional teams, but, unlike pro deems, they exploit the athletes by not paying them, trying to keep the fiction going that they are truly educating the "student-athletes" in order to justify paying them somewhat less than 10 or 20 percent what they would have earned if they truly were playing with a minor league professional team. To be sure, that is not true, at least to the same extent, in the so-called minor sports, or with women athletics, which were of secondary importance 50-60 years ago. Nor is it as true at non-Division I schools. And even at the top jock schools, there are occasional football and basketball players who are true scholars, who go on to graduate school or become doctors or lawyers. But they are becoming the exception at many schools rather than the rule. Dropout rates, particularly among minorities at top flight sports schools, are alarmingly high.
What about the smaller colleges, say the private liberal arts schools? Even there, the fixation on sports today is much greater than decades ago. Schools try to recruit swimmers, baseball players, basketball players, etc. just as the bigger schools do, and a larger portion of students are athletic participants than at say Alabama, Oklahoma, Ohio State, or Penn State. But sports remain somewhat lower key, the athletes mingle with the non-jocks much more, and studying is still more of a priority.
At the major schools, sports have corrupted institutions. Academics are often subordinated to athletics. University presidents kowtow to alums whose pocketbooks exceed their intelligence and sense of proportion. An immoral and shameful exploitation of "students" occurs as the Sports Cartel, better known as the NCAA, works to assure that the financial gains of sports accrue to the universities and the adults running athletic operations, not to the children verging on adults who are providing the entertainment.
It is a scandal. The notion that athletics promote scholarly greatness is pure bull, by and large. To be sure, there are a few schools, Notre Dame most notably, that have probably used sports to attain an element of academic prestige. But most of the greatest universities in the country --Harvard, Princeton, M.I.T., Cal Tech, Chicago-- have indifferent or mediocre sports teams by today's standards. The correlation between athletic and academic success is modest indeed. And without question, the notion that universities are non-profit institutions motivated by the love of learning to serve our society is severely compromised by intercollegiate athletics as it operates in contemporary American society.
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Bon Voyage American Higher Ed?
By Bryan O’Keefe
That just might be the message that some students are finally sending to the elite colleges and universities. It has long been the view of this blog that as college costs continue to rise with no end in sight, many students will be forced to consider non-traditional alternatives such as for-profit education, community colleges, certification programs, etc.
Marketplace has a very interesting story about another possible alternative to paying $44,000 a year for American higher ed: studying abroad at a prestigious school for a fraction of the costs. As the story points out, the cost of a year at Oxford is only $10,000, which is considerably less expensive than Harvard and Yale and even less expensive than many second rate and third rate colleges. There is also the exotic aspect of studying in a different country, which is certainly appealing to some students. (We know that studying abroad is attractive because many students do it for a semester or two during their undergrad years. I think that it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to think that students wouldn’t mind doing it for all four years too.) The Oxford Admissions Department reports that applications are on the rise and it’s entirely plausible that this trend will only continue as American colleges and universities continue to raise costs.
My only question is – why stop with Oxford? There are many terrific colleges and universities all over the world that, from an affordability perspective, are much better than our own. Could we possibly see a trend in the future where more American students say the heck with racking up huge amounts of debt, I am going abroad for my degree? Some food for thought.
That just might be the message that some students are finally sending to the elite colleges and universities. It has long been the view of this blog that as college costs continue to rise with no end in sight, many students will be forced to consider non-traditional alternatives such as for-profit education, community colleges, certification programs, etc.
Marketplace has a very interesting story about another possible alternative to paying $44,000 a year for American higher ed: studying abroad at a prestigious school for a fraction of the costs. As the story points out, the cost of a year at Oxford is only $10,000, which is considerably less expensive than Harvard and Yale and even less expensive than many second rate and third rate colleges. There is also the exotic aspect of studying in a different country, which is certainly appealing to some students. (We know that studying abroad is attractive because many students do it for a semester or two during their undergrad years. I think that it wouldn’t be a huge stretch to think that students wouldn’t mind doing it for all four years too.) The Oxford Admissions Department reports that applications are on the rise and it’s entirely plausible that this trend will only continue as American colleges and universities continue to raise costs.
My only question is – why stop with Oxford? There are many terrific colleges and universities all over the world that, from an affordability perspective, are much better than our own. Could we possibly see a trend in the future where more American students say the heck with racking up huge amounts of debt, I am going abroad for my degree? Some food for thought.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
The Ivy League's Declining Dominance
By Matthew Denhart
The Ivy League has a history and reputation of prestige. Graduation from one of these schools would surely bring career success -- right? A recent study done here at CCAP shows this may not be the case at all, and suggests there is still great hope for the rest of us at institutions of lesser prestige.
Piggy-backing off the Time Magazine article “Where the Fortune 50 CEOs Went to College” appearing in August of last year, CCAP has embarked on a similar but much deeper study of this topic. We tracked down the CEOs for the top 100 Fortune companies for the years 2006, 1980 and 1955. Together, this represents roughly three different generations of business leaders. From there, we researched where these CEOs completed their undergraduate and graduate work, in addition to levels and types of degrees obtained. Some striking results have been unearthed.
Historically, the Ivy League has produced a fair share of the top 100 business leaders. In 1955, 39 CEOs obtained a bachelors degree from an Ivy League School. Furthermore, 50 CEOs — half the total — attended their undergraduate years at a “prestigious” school—categorized as belonging to the top 25 US News and World Report 2007 college rankings. Thus, in 1955, (the first year Fortune magazine published its 500 list) the Ivy League and other highly prestigious schools were dominant in producing our nation’s top business leaders. But over time, the Ivy League has experienced a decline. By 1980, the number of CEOs attending undergraduate school at Ivy League institutions had fallen to 19, a 50 percent drop from the previous generation. Fewer CEOs attended the prestigious schools as well, with only 32 in 1980.
This trend away from the Ivy League as well as America’s “prestigious” universities continued into 2006. Of the top 100 Fortune CEOs of companies last year, only 12 did their undergraduate work at an Ivy institution and 20 at a prestigious school.
The presence of graduate schools in today’s educational system is a possible explanation for this decline. Graduate school attendance among the Fortune 100 CEOs has greatly increased over the past half century. For example, in 1955, only 17 CEOs attended graduate school. This number increased to 46 in 1980 and 61 in 2006. The number that attended Ivy graduate schools grew from 4 in 1955 to 16 in 1980 where it remained in 2006. This statistic remaining the same in the period from 1980 to 2006, despite increasing graduate school attendance, seems to further suggest the declining influence of the Ivy League—even among graduate schools.
It’s important to note that while the Ivy League has experienced this decline, America’s companies continue to perform as among the best (if not the best) in the world. Perhaps this suggests that an Ivy League or even “prestigious” education is not really necessary to be very successful in one’s business career.
Of course, this is only one attempt at measuring the output of universities and because we only examined business leaders, we are limited in scope. However it does at least suggest that the Ivy League has lost some of its importance in America’s educational system and that an education from a less prestigious – and less expensive – school may be just as well. Expect more on this issue in the coming days.
Matthew Denhart is a research assistant at CCAP, and an undergraduate student at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
The Ivy League has a history and reputation of prestige. Graduation from one of these schools would surely bring career success -- right? A recent study done here at CCAP shows this may not be the case at all, and suggests there is still great hope for the rest of us at institutions of lesser prestige.
Piggy-backing off the Time Magazine article “Where the Fortune 50 CEOs Went to College” appearing in August of last year, CCAP has embarked on a similar but much deeper study of this topic. We tracked down the CEOs for the top 100 Fortune companies for the years 2006, 1980 and 1955. Together, this represents roughly three different generations of business leaders. From there, we researched where these CEOs completed their undergraduate and graduate work, in addition to levels and types of degrees obtained. Some striking results have been unearthed.
Historically, the Ivy League has produced a fair share of the top 100 business leaders. In 1955, 39 CEOs obtained a bachelors degree from an Ivy League School. Furthermore, 50 CEOs — half the total — attended their undergraduate years at a “prestigious” school—categorized as belonging to the top 25 US News and World Report 2007 college rankings. Thus, in 1955, (the first year Fortune magazine published its 500 list) the Ivy League and other highly prestigious schools were dominant in producing our nation’s top business leaders. But over time, the Ivy League has experienced a decline. By 1980, the number of CEOs attending undergraduate school at Ivy League institutions had fallen to 19, a 50 percent drop from the previous generation. Fewer CEOs attended the prestigious schools as well, with only 32 in 1980.
This trend away from the Ivy League as well as America’s “prestigious” universities continued into 2006. Of the top 100 Fortune CEOs of companies last year, only 12 did their undergraduate work at an Ivy institution and 20 at a prestigious school.
The presence of graduate schools in today’s educational system is a possible explanation for this decline. Graduate school attendance among the Fortune 100 CEOs has greatly increased over the past half century. For example, in 1955, only 17 CEOs attended graduate school. This number increased to 46 in 1980 and 61 in 2006. The number that attended Ivy graduate schools grew from 4 in 1955 to 16 in 1980 where it remained in 2006. This statistic remaining the same in the period from 1980 to 2006, despite increasing graduate school attendance, seems to further suggest the declining influence of the Ivy League—even among graduate schools.
It’s important to note that while the Ivy League has experienced this decline, America’s companies continue to perform as among the best (if not the best) in the world. Perhaps this suggests that an Ivy League or even “prestigious” education is not really necessary to be very successful in one’s business career.
Of course, this is only one attempt at measuring the output of universities and because we only examined business leaders, we are limited in scope. However it does at least suggest that the Ivy League has lost some of its importance in America’s educational system and that an education from a less prestigious – and less expensive – school may be just as well. Expect more on this issue in the coming days.
Matthew Denhart is a research assistant at CCAP, and an undergraduate student at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
Monday, January 22, 2007
Birmingham Southern College: A City on a Hill?
By Jonathan Leirer
Frank Deford has written an article for Sports Illustrated, that was also featured (in audio form) on NPR, discussing a revealing series of events at Birmingham Southern College. While I strongly suggest reading or listening to the article, here are the basics of the story.
Birmingham Southern decided to stop giving athletic scholarships, with perhaps unexpected results: alumni giving increased, as did the number of freshman applications and the percentage of African American undergraduates; and with the money saved, Birmingham Southern can further support its academic goals, as well as offer more sports programs with ultimately a greater number of students participating.
In a previous perspective, I opined on the merits of athletic scholarships. The events at Birmingham Southern College provide evidence, albeit anecdotal, supporting my views. Colleges and universities ought to be in the business of education, a novel idea, I’m sure, but one for which I hold a steadfast resolve; and in their capacity as purveyors of education, it would be both wise and prudent for them to reward and otherwise promote scholastic achievement over athletic achievement. Unfortunately, the system of incentives set up by Colleges and Universities does just the opposite. Before their laudatory efforts, Birmingham Southern College offered “a total of 116 full athletic scholarships, at about $30,000 apiece -- a total of $3.5 million -- while the college awarded, outright, exactly one full academic scholarship.” This hardly seems to be in line with an institution whose primary goal was to provide an education. I would not be surprised to find this perversion of priorities to be less the exception and more the rule.
Still, this is a story of hope. Birmingham Southern, without outside provocation, voluntarily decided to rectify this clash between ideals and operations and is reaping the benefits. Let Birmingham Southern College be a leader, signaling the beginning of a higher education renaissance - to a renewed commitment to scholastics and education.
Frank Deford has written an article for Sports Illustrated, that was also featured (in audio form) on NPR, discussing a revealing series of events at Birmingham Southern College. While I strongly suggest reading or listening to the article, here are the basics of the story.
Birmingham Southern decided to stop giving athletic scholarships, with perhaps unexpected results: alumni giving increased, as did the number of freshman applications and the percentage of African American undergraduates; and with the money saved, Birmingham Southern can further support its academic goals, as well as offer more sports programs with ultimately a greater number of students participating.
In a previous perspective, I opined on the merits of athletic scholarships. The events at Birmingham Southern College provide evidence, albeit anecdotal, supporting my views. Colleges and universities ought to be in the business of education, a novel idea, I’m sure, but one for which I hold a steadfast resolve; and in their capacity as purveyors of education, it would be both wise and prudent for them to reward and otherwise promote scholastic achievement over athletic achievement. Unfortunately, the system of incentives set up by Colleges and Universities does just the opposite. Before their laudatory efforts, Birmingham Southern College offered “a total of 116 full athletic scholarships, at about $30,000 apiece -- a total of $3.5 million -- while the college awarded, outright, exactly one full academic scholarship.” This hardly seems to be in line with an institution whose primary goal was to provide an education. I would not be surprised to find this perversion of priorities to be less the exception and more the rule.
Still, this is a story of hope. Birmingham Southern, without outside provocation, voluntarily decided to rectify this clash between ideals and operations and is reaping the benefits. Let Birmingham Southern College be a leader, signaling the beginning of a higher education renaissance - to a renewed commitment to scholastics and education.
Robert Novak Nails the Student Loan Interest Rate Proposal
By Bryan O'Keefe
As everyone who reads us knows, we had very serious doubts last week about the student loan interest rate reduction proposal that the Democrats in the House passed. Robert Novak has an excellent column this morning that summarizes both some of the policy and politics of the issue. Basically, Novak agrees with us, though I strongly suggest reading his entire piece because it is full of interesting tidbits. Here is his column in full. Enjoy!
As everyone who reads us knows, we had very serious doubts last week about the student loan interest rate reduction proposal that the Democrats in the House passed. Robert Novak has an excellent column this morning that summarizes both some of the policy and politics of the issue. Basically, Novak agrees with us, though I strongly suggest reading his entire piece because it is full of interesting tidbits. Here is his column in full. Enjoy!
Princeton's Tuition Plan
By Bryan O'Keefe
The big news in higher ed over the weekend was the decision by Princeton to freeze tuition for the upcoming academic year. Much like the recent proposals from the Democrats in Congress, this decision can be both cheered and jeered at the same time.
Freezing tuition at universities with robust endowments has been a hobby horse of this blog for some time now, so it’s only fair that we give credit where credit is due. There is no reason for Princeton to keep raising tuition -- in fact, there is a case to be made that Princeton should eliminate tuition entirely. Of course, the chances that will ever happen are slim. In any event, at least freezing tuition for the next year is a small step in the right direction and we can only hope that other elite universities with billion dollar endowments follow the Tiger’s lead.
That being said, the devil is often times in the details and this is no exception. As INSIDE HIGHER ED reports, any financial savings that would be passed onto students is being wiped out by a large increase in room and board costs. The University denies that these new room and board fees are linked to the tuition plan, but one can only wonder if they are being 100 percent honest here. They claim that the university heavily subsidizes student housing (which may or may not be true) – but why cut that subsidy in the same year that you are freezing tuition? Purely a coincidence?
There will be more to write about on this topic in the days and weeks ahead. For now though, realize that while the tuition freeze might generate a lot of positive public relations for Princeton, the actual cost of attending Princeton and living on campus will not be going down for most students.
The big news in higher ed over the weekend was the decision by Princeton to freeze tuition for the upcoming academic year. Much like the recent proposals from the Democrats in Congress, this decision can be both cheered and jeered at the same time.
Freezing tuition at universities with robust endowments has been a hobby horse of this blog for some time now, so it’s only fair that we give credit where credit is due. There is no reason for Princeton to keep raising tuition -- in fact, there is a case to be made that Princeton should eliminate tuition entirely. Of course, the chances that will ever happen are slim. In any event, at least freezing tuition for the next year is a small step in the right direction and we can only hope that other elite universities with billion dollar endowments follow the Tiger’s lead.
That being said, the devil is often times in the details and this is no exception. As INSIDE HIGHER ED reports, any financial savings that would be passed onto students is being wiped out by a large increase in room and board costs. The University denies that these new room and board fees are linked to the tuition plan, but one can only wonder if they are being 100 percent honest here. They claim that the university heavily subsidizes student housing (which may or may not be true) – but why cut that subsidy in the same year that you are freezing tuition? Purely a coincidence?
There will be more to write about on this topic in the days and weeks ahead. For now though, realize that while the tuition freeze might generate a lot of positive public relations for Princeton, the actual cost of attending Princeton and living on campus will not be going down for most students.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Inconvenient Truths in the Academy...and Student Hedonism
By Richard Vedder I was asked yesterday afternoon to testify before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress along with Larry Summers, former Treasury of the Secretary and President of Harvard (the testimony likely will be aired on CSPAN on January 31; live testimony is at 9:30 a.m.) That reminds me that I wanted to blog about Summers and his travails at Harvard, and what it says more generally about academe. Most of the news is bad, but some is good.
The bad news is that Summers lost his job for telling the truth. He was (and is) undiplomatic, blunt, not smooth, not "Presidential" in the university sense of the word. But the things that pushed him (and Harvard) over the edge were his utterances -- his speech. He had the nerve to tell a senior faculty member, Cornell West, that it was time for him to get back to serious work instead of doing rap records and issuing polemics. Since West was a well known African-American scholar, that was a doubly big no-no. Then he made the factually correct observation about women being underrepresented in math and science which caused a huge brouhaha. To borrow from Al Gore (something I am seldom prone to do), Summers spoke "inconvenient truths." The academy is supposed to be about spreading the truth, but today, if the truth is inconsistent with prevailing ideological fads, often you are expected to disguise it. The Age of Enlightenment beginning in the 18th century may be coming to an end, replaced by a secular form of left-wing theology/ideology that is less ennobling then the earlier Christian theology that constrained thought during the middle ages and into the Renaissance. For it to happen at Harvard is a really bad thing.
The good news, however, is that this incident had the unintended consequence of increasing the accountability of university presidents everywhere. In the wake of the Harvard incident, presidents went by the wayside at several other institutions (e.g. Case Western Reserve University). This is not necessarily good (ideologically crazed faculty could do the same thing as they did at Harvard), but it at least suggests that university presidents are accountable not only to usually compliant boards of trustees, but to others as well.
All of this leads me to ask: why should we publicly fund institutions that often suppress the truth, violating their very mission to society? And why should we publicly fund schools that do not make their students work very much? The NSSE results showing seniors study on average 13 hours a week are shocking, but ignored. To borrow from Ben Wildavsky, who wrote the marvelous first draft of the Spellings Commission report, why should we subsidize "hedonistic" college students in country club settings?
With that, I am off on a cruise to Nowhere to recharge the batteries for the battles ahead. Cheers.
The bad news is that Summers lost his job for telling the truth. He was (and is) undiplomatic, blunt, not smooth, not "Presidential" in the university sense of the word. But the things that pushed him (and Harvard) over the edge were his utterances -- his speech. He had the nerve to tell a senior faculty member, Cornell West, that it was time for him to get back to serious work instead of doing rap records and issuing polemics. Since West was a well known African-American scholar, that was a doubly big no-no. Then he made the factually correct observation about women being underrepresented in math and science which caused a huge brouhaha. To borrow from Al Gore (something I am seldom prone to do), Summers spoke "inconvenient truths." The academy is supposed to be about spreading the truth, but today, if the truth is inconsistent with prevailing ideological fads, often you are expected to disguise it. The Age of Enlightenment beginning in the 18th century may be coming to an end, replaced by a secular form of left-wing theology/ideology that is less ennobling then the earlier Christian theology that constrained thought during the middle ages and into the Renaissance. For it to happen at Harvard is a really bad thing.
The good news, however, is that this incident had the unintended consequence of increasing the accountability of university presidents everywhere. In the wake of the Harvard incident, presidents went by the wayside at several other institutions (e.g. Case Western Reserve University). This is not necessarily good (ideologically crazed faculty could do the same thing as they did at Harvard), but it at least suggests that university presidents are accountable not only to usually compliant boards of trustees, but to others as well.
All of this leads me to ask: why should we publicly fund institutions that often suppress the truth, violating their very mission to society? And why should we publicly fund schools that do not make their students work very much? The NSSE results showing seniors study on average 13 hours a week are shocking, but ignored. To borrow from Ben Wildavsky, who wrote the marvelous first draft of the Spellings Commission report, why should we subsidize "hedonistic" college students in country club settings?
With that, I am off on a cruise to Nowhere to recharge the batteries for the battles ahead. Cheers.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Rate My Professor and MTV -- and Charles Murray Revisted
By Richard Vedder
I understand that MTV is entering the higher education business. About time, I'd say. They want to buy rateyourprofessor.com. I think rateyourprofessor.com is a great Web site. The private sector is providing information that the higher education consuming public wants -- are the prospective professors of courses I need or might want to take any good? The fact that an important business like MTV wants to own this site shows that if colleges and universities will not be transparent and provide information to students, then the private sector will.
A suggestion for MTV/rateyourprofessor: go the next step, and start rating universities themselves. One way of doing so is by using the technique used to evaluate professors -- ask the students. But also, provide some other measures -- sample recent alums to see if they are working, going to grad school, or unemployed/homeless. Push schools for more meaningful information on outcomes of higher education, not just inputs. Give US News a run for their money. Competition and information have done wonders to raise the quality of life for Americans who buy goods from, and work for, the private sector firms operating in markets that have made America an economic powerhouse. Let's take some more of that to higher education.
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On another note, I loved both of Bryan O'Keefe's blogs recently posted. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray and Bryan are absolutely right in what they say about the overinvestment in higher education. I would only add that perverse federal court decisions, notably Duke v. Griggs Power, have enhanced the economic power of college's as screening devices. The rising college/high school earnings differential has allowed tuition fees to explode, and that, in turn, reflects the inability of employers to meaningful evaluate prospective employees fully. Raw intelligence trumps college provided skill enhancements a majority of the time, I suspect, as an explanation for that earnings differential.
I understand that MTV is entering the higher education business. About time, I'd say. They want to buy rateyourprofessor.com. I think rateyourprofessor.com is a great Web site. The private sector is providing information that the higher education consuming public wants -- are the prospective professors of courses I need or might want to take any good? The fact that an important business like MTV wants to own this site shows that if colleges and universities will not be transparent and provide information to students, then the private sector will.
A suggestion for MTV/rateyourprofessor: go the next step, and start rating universities themselves. One way of doing so is by using the technique used to evaluate professors -- ask the students. But also, provide some other measures -- sample recent alums to see if they are working, going to grad school, or unemployed/homeless. Push schools for more meaningful information on outcomes of higher education, not just inputs. Give US News a run for their money. Competition and information have done wonders to raise the quality of life for Americans who buy goods from, and work for, the private sector firms operating in markets that have made America an economic powerhouse. Let's take some more of that to higher education.
********************************************************************************
On another note, I loved both of Bryan O'Keefe's blogs recently posted. My American Enterprise Institute colleague Charles Murray and Bryan are absolutely right in what they say about the overinvestment in higher education. I would only add that perverse federal court decisions, notably Duke v. Griggs Power, have enhanced the economic power of college's as screening devices. The rising college/high school earnings differential has allowed tuition fees to explode, and that, in turn, reflects the inability of employers to meaningful evaluate prospective employees fully. Raw intelligence trumps college provided skill enhancements a majority of the time, I suspect, as an explanation for that earnings differential.
Something Bad, Something Good
By Bryan O’Keefe
Well, as expected, the House voted last night to slash interest rates on student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. The final vote itself was fairly overwhelmingly in favor, though one must suspect that many Republicans voted for the bill not because they agreed with it, but rather because they feared the electoral consequences of being on record against the bill. (Our friends over at INSIDE HIGHER ED have all of the juicy details of the debate, for those people who have a life and didn't watch it on C-SPAN)
The people who actually believed in the bill, of course, are the Democrats. They campaigned on it and are now following through on their promises. As our loyal readers know, CCAP was not particularly excited with this proposal and a post yesterday from Dr. Vedder explained why this interest rate cut will probably not make college more affordable or accessible.
That all being said, CCAP also likes to give politicians credit where credit is due. And the Democrats, despite the student interest rate debacle, deserve praise for recently promising to stop doling out congressional earmarks to academia. The explosion of these earmarks was a travesty in the last Congress and compelled colleges and universities to pay lobbyists insanely high fees just so they could possibly capture some earmark dollars. The whole process perverted the normal government-academic grant system, which usually entails putting together a scientifically-sound proposal, competitively working against other colleges, being judged on your academic merits, etc. But with earmarks, your actual academic credentials didn’t matter – the key to bringing home the dough was finding a lobbyist with the right connections.
It’s a good thing that the Democrats are ending this practice. And if the Republicans manage to ever get back into power again, they should follow the lead of Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has aggressively opposed academic earmarks and actually started an investigation into the matter.
Well, as expected, the House voted last night to slash interest rates on student loans from 6.8 percent to 3.4 percent. The final vote itself was fairly overwhelmingly in favor, though one must suspect that many Republicans voted for the bill not because they agreed with it, but rather because they feared the electoral consequences of being on record against the bill. (Our friends over at INSIDE HIGHER ED have all of the juicy details of the debate, for those people who have a life and didn't watch it on C-SPAN)
The people who actually believed in the bill, of course, are the Democrats. They campaigned on it and are now following through on their promises. As our loyal readers know, CCAP was not particularly excited with this proposal and a post yesterday from Dr. Vedder explained why this interest rate cut will probably not make college more affordable or accessible.
That all being said, CCAP also likes to give politicians credit where credit is due. And the Democrats, despite the student interest rate debacle, deserve praise for recently promising to stop doling out congressional earmarks to academia. The explosion of these earmarks was a travesty in the last Congress and compelled colleges and universities to pay lobbyists insanely high fees just so they could possibly capture some earmark dollars. The whole process perverted the normal government-academic grant system, which usually entails putting together a scientifically-sound proposal, competitively working against other colleges, being judged on your academic merits, etc. But with earmarks, your actual academic credentials didn’t matter – the key to bringing home the dough was finding a lobbyist with the right connections.
It’s a good thing that the Democrats are ending this practice. And if the Republicans manage to ever get back into power again, they should follow the lead of Senator Tom Coburn (R-OK), who has aggressively opposed academic earmarks and actually started an investigation into the matter.
Wednesday, January 17, 2007
Cutting Student Interest Rates: A Half-Baked Idea
Washington, DC is abuzz with talk today about the Democrat’s proposal to cut student interest rates on loans in half. While the idea might sound nice, we are not too impressed with it and the proposal will probably end up doing more harm than good.
Below is an op-ed from Richard Vedder that appeared on National Review Online this morning and addresses the issue more fully.
Let’s Not Be 3.4 Percenters
American students don’t need government’s heavy hand.
By Richard Vedder
The new Democratic congressional majority is voting Wednesday to lower the interest rate of some subsidized student loans from 6.8 to 3.4 percent. On the face of it, this appears a welcome move to reduce the rising burden of student debt. Various student groups have been quick to endorse the idea.
Though I’ve written much about how high tuition costs have imposed increased financial burdens on college students, I oppose the new Democratic proposal. There is, of course, the legitimate Republican procedural objection that decisions of this sort should be made only after experts are consulted, evidence is gathered and presented, and reasoned debate concluded.
My concerns are different: the federal student-loan program is already Byzantine in its complexity, and has even been harmful to some students. The Democrats’ new move will do nothing to address these old problems.
A historical perspective is useful. The great growth in college participation in the United States occurred before federal financial aid was a reality. With the single, but important, exception of the GI Bill, there were no large federal student-aid programs before 1970.
In that year, total federal student assistance amounted to $1.6 billion. About $1,000 per student in 2007 dollars, this was less than one-fifth the commitment today, even adjusting for inflation and the higher cost of tuition. Yet the number of college students per 1,000 Americans aged 18 to 24 grew from 23 in 1900 to 324 in 1970.
The explosion in aid began in the 1990s. From 1990 to 2000, federal student assistance more than tripled, going from $19 billion to $63 billion, but the proportion of the population in the 18 to 24 age group going to college rose only modestly (from 506 to 545 in a thousand). Among some groups, including males, there was no growth at all over this period.
The explosion in aid has actually accompanied a slowdown in the growth in college participation. There is little evidence that the aid epidemic has increased the proportion of adult Americans who are college graduates.
Why? First, much of the increased student aid has gone to students who would have gone to college without the aid (e.g., recipients of federal tuition tax credits, who could afford tuition in the first place).
Second, and relevant to the current debate, more federal money increased the demand for higher education, raising sticker prices. The greater demand was not offset by supply increases, partly because prestigious colleges have put limits on undergraduate admissions.
Third, as the Education Trust showed convincingly recently, institutional financial assistance shifted sharply away from need to merit-based aid in recent times. The result? Higher tuition costs often more than offset higher aid for poorer students, so the burden of college attendance has risen, not fallen.
The real problem is not high interest rates on student loans, but exploding college costs. There are easily a dozen causes for this, but a few especially stand out.
Third parties (e.g., the federal or state governments, private philanthropists) pay a large chunk of the bills, rendering the customers relatively insensitive to prices (health care revisited).
Universities are mostly nonprofit institutions with few incentives to cut costs. The lack of a well-defined “bottom line” makes universities strive to improve their US News & World Report rankings, which are perversely enhanced by spending more money and restricting access.
A lack of well-defined property rights (who owns and controls universities) means the faculty is able to promote its own interests over those of relatively disenfranchised students and parents. For example, a drop in teaching loads has occurred not because of any nationally articulated research imperative, but because faculties have simply done it, with the approval of nominal bosses who politically need faculty support.
Why have universities raised tuition fees dramatically, creating the current brouhaha over student aid? Because they can get away with it. The solution to the problem is not reducing interest rates on loans, but getting the rise in college costs to remain below the income curve.
It would be far preferable simply to give students money in the form of an educational voucher and to let them use it in whatever fashion they wish than to try to artificially change the price of one of many cost items that determine the financial burden of college.
The method that the Democrats seek to pay for these new lower interest rates is predictable and problematic. The fees paid to private loan programs are to be cut, and the guaranteed reimbursement provided in cases of default are also to be reduced.
This is the strategy used in health care (cut fees to doctors and drug companies, lower costs to consumers), a move that has not stemmed the rise of health care costs, but rather threatens its quality in the long run. A similar outcome is likely if followed through in higher education.
In an ideal world, the government would get out of the financial-aid business. Excepting the GI Bill, it has not improved access to college. Financial markets, capable of handling small loans for home repairs and car purchases as well as billion-dollar loans to giant corporations, can meet borrowing needs of individuals wanting to go to college.
And still, there is growing evidence that governmental higher education support does not promote economic growth, the rhetoric those “educrats” who benefit mightily from rising subsidies notwithstanding. Why, then, shouldn’t the federal government limit its involvement at most to a Pell Grant program for truly low-income students, or perhaps get out of the aid business altogether?
Our great hope in stopping this express train is President Bush. One hopes he is beginning to realize that his role in history would be enhanced, not retarded, by just saying no to something. Vetoing an interest-rate subsidy bill would be a good place to start.
Below is an op-ed from Richard Vedder that appeared on National Review Online this morning and addresses the issue more fully.
Let’s Not Be 3.4 Percenters
American students don’t need government’s heavy hand.
By Richard Vedder
The new Democratic congressional majority is voting Wednesday to lower the interest rate of some subsidized student loans from 6.8 to 3.4 percent. On the face of it, this appears a welcome move to reduce the rising burden of student debt. Various student groups have been quick to endorse the idea.
Though I’ve written much about how high tuition costs have imposed increased financial burdens on college students, I oppose the new Democratic proposal. There is, of course, the legitimate Republican procedural objection that decisions of this sort should be made only after experts are consulted, evidence is gathered and presented, and reasoned debate concluded.
My concerns are different: the federal student-loan program is already Byzantine in its complexity, and has even been harmful to some students. The Democrats’ new move will do nothing to address these old problems.
A historical perspective is useful. The great growth in college participation in the United States occurred before federal financial aid was a reality. With the single, but important, exception of the GI Bill, there were no large federal student-aid programs before 1970.
In that year, total federal student assistance amounted to $1.6 billion. About $1,000 per student in 2007 dollars, this was less than one-fifth the commitment today, even adjusting for inflation and the higher cost of tuition. Yet the number of college students per 1,000 Americans aged 18 to 24 grew from 23 in 1900 to 324 in 1970.
The explosion in aid began in the 1990s. From 1990 to 2000, federal student assistance more than tripled, going from $19 billion to $63 billion, but the proportion of the population in the 18 to 24 age group going to college rose only modestly (from 506 to 545 in a thousand). Among some groups, including males, there was no growth at all over this period.
The explosion in aid has actually accompanied a slowdown in the growth in college participation. There is little evidence that the aid epidemic has increased the proportion of adult Americans who are college graduates.
Why? First, much of the increased student aid has gone to students who would have gone to college without the aid (e.g., recipients of federal tuition tax credits, who could afford tuition in the first place).
Second, and relevant to the current debate, more federal money increased the demand for higher education, raising sticker prices. The greater demand was not offset by supply increases, partly because prestigious colleges have put limits on undergraduate admissions.
Third, as the Education Trust showed convincingly recently, institutional financial assistance shifted sharply away from need to merit-based aid in recent times. The result? Higher tuition costs often more than offset higher aid for poorer students, so the burden of college attendance has risen, not fallen.
The real problem is not high interest rates on student loans, but exploding college costs. There are easily a dozen causes for this, but a few especially stand out.
Third parties (e.g., the federal or state governments, private philanthropists) pay a large chunk of the bills, rendering the customers relatively insensitive to prices (health care revisited).
Universities are mostly nonprofit institutions with few incentives to cut costs. The lack of a well-defined “bottom line” makes universities strive to improve their US News & World Report rankings, which are perversely enhanced by spending more money and restricting access.
A lack of well-defined property rights (who owns and controls universities) means the faculty is able to promote its own interests over those of relatively disenfranchised students and parents. For example, a drop in teaching loads has occurred not because of any nationally articulated research imperative, but because faculties have simply done it, with the approval of nominal bosses who politically need faculty support.
Why have universities raised tuition fees dramatically, creating the current brouhaha over student aid? Because they can get away with it. The solution to the problem is not reducing interest rates on loans, but getting the rise in college costs to remain below the income curve.
It would be far preferable simply to give students money in the form of an educational voucher and to let them use it in whatever fashion they wish than to try to artificially change the price of one of many cost items that determine the financial burden of college.
The method that the Democrats seek to pay for these new lower interest rates is predictable and problematic. The fees paid to private loan programs are to be cut, and the guaranteed reimbursement provided in cases of default are also to be reduced.
This is the strategy used in health care (cut fees to doctors and drug companies, lower costs to consumers), a move that has not stemmed the rise of health care costs, but rather threatens its quality in the long run. A similar outcome is likely if followed through in higher education.
In an ideal world, the government would get out of the financial-aid business. Excepting the GI Bill, it has not improved access to college. Financial markets, capable of handling small loans for home repairs and car purchases as well as billion-dollar loans to giant corporations, can meet borrowing needs of individuals wanting to go to college.
And still, there is growing evidence that governmental higher education support does not promote economic growth, the rhetoric those “educrats” who benefit mightily from rising subsidies notwithstanding. Why, then, shouldn’t the federal government limit its involvement at most to a Pell Grant program for truly low-income students, or perhaps get out of the aid business altogether?
Our great hope in stopping this express train is President Bush. One hopes he is beginning to realize that his role in history would be enhanced, not retarded, by just saying no to something. Vetoing an interest-rate subsidy bill would be a good place to start.
Are Too Many Students Going to College?
By Bryan O’Keefe
That’s the question that Charles Murray, a prolific thinker and our friend up at AEI, asks in a provocative essay in today’s Wall Street Journal. Murray’s basic answer is yes and I would be inclined to agree.
Murray bases most of his argument on IQ scores, which is a topic that he has written about frequently over the years. He argues very persuasively that, based on IQ scores, only about 25 percent of high school graduates – at the max – should be attending college. Unfortunately, that number has soared to 45 percent in recent years, meaning that many students simply do not have the intellectual capabilities to sustain themselves in higher education – no matter how hard they try
He also makes the excellent point that many students really aren’t learning anything in college these days and that these students would be better off in either two-year colleges or pursuing vocational careers. I can second his notion about vocational careers with my own personal experience. A very good friend of mine from high school decided that instead of going to college, he would learn how to become a plumber. Through a combination of classes and apprenticeships, he has mastered the trade and now works as an industrial plumber and steamfitter, working on various large-scale industrial piping projects in the Pittsburgh area. He has a satisfying job and his income is well north of my own. Contrast that experience with many other people from my high school who were labeled as “not college material”. Most of these students took two paths: They tried to go to college and they failed miserably. Or they graduated from high school and didn’t do too much afterwards. Both of these groups usually end up in low-wage jobs and probably harbor some resentment about why they cannot get ahead more in life.
There is no doubt that both of these groups would have benefited enormously from learning a vocation or trade, like my friend. But psychologically, we have unfortunately conditioned students these days to think that it’s either succeeding in college or serving up hamburgers at McDonald’s, when, in reality, there are many more options available.
I won’t steal any more of Charles’s thunder, especially since he lays out the case better than I can.
(Another author who has written on this topic is Jackson Toby, a noted sociologist from Rutgers University, and somebody that CCAP is working with now on this subject.)
That’s the question that Charles Murray, a prolific thinker and our friend up at AEI, asks in a provocative essay in today’s Wall Street Journal. Murray’s basic answer is yes and I would be inclined to agree.
Murray bases most of his argument on IQ scores, which is a topic that he has written about frequently over the years. He argues very persuasively that, based on IQ scores, only about 25 percent of high school graduates – at the max – should be attending college. Unfortunately, that number has soared to 45 percent in recent years, meaning that many students simply do not have the intellectual capabilities to sustain themselves in higher education – no matter how hard they try
He also makes the excellent point that many students really aren’t learning anything in college these days and that these students would be better off in either two-year colleges or pursuing vocational careers. I can second his notion about vocational careers with my own personal experience. A very good friend of mine from high school decided that instead of going to college, he would learn how to become a plumber. Through a combination of classes and apprenticeships, he has mastered the trade and now works as an industrial plumber and steamfitter, working on various large-scale industrial piping projects in the Pittsburgh area. He has a satisfying job and his income is well north of my own. Contrast that experience with many other people from my high school who were labeled as “not college material”. Most of these students took two paths: They tried to go to college and they failed miserably. Or they graduated from high school and didn’t do too much afterwards. Both of these groups usually end up in low-wage jobs and probably harbor some resentment about why they cannot get ahead more in life.
There is no doubt that both of these groups would have benefited enormously from learning a vocation or trade, like my friend. But psychologically, we have unfortunately conditioned students these days to think that it’s either succeeding in college or serving up hamburgers at McDonald’s, when, in reality, there are many more options available.
I won’t steal any more of Charles’s thunder, especially since he lays out the case better than I can.
(Another author who has written on this topic is Jackson Toby, a noted sociologist from Rutgers University, and somebody that CCAP is working with now on this subject.)
Maybe I Didn't Waste My Time
By Richard Vedder
Just before heading off on a little winter vacation, I read two things in INSIDE HIGHER ED that warms my heart. I had served on the Spellings Commission and was beginning to believe my wife, who claimed I was wasting my time -- nothing would come of the recommendations.
First, I read that the Ed Department means business in pushing accreditors to actually do something meaningful to improve quality in higher education rather than merely driving up costs through arcane barriers to entry that they impose. The accreditors are upset, which I suspect is good news for Americans who want the accreditors to provide information that allows them to evaluate colleges, or at least assure them about colleges meeting minimal standards of quality.
Second, the private sector, as usual, is out front in actually DOING things, rather than talking. The Spellings Commission harped on the need for better assessment, for the measurement of outcomes, etc. Blackboard, the giant course management company, is moving forward on course assessment programs for universities. Maybe they will help us learn whether the kids are learning anything, whether graduates are actually getting jobs, etc. The big question is: will colleges buy their services and then actually use the results to improve higher education? Blackboard joins other smaller firms, and thus furthers the development of something that needs nurturing.
Heading South, where temperatures are higher, but where there is less hot air than in the academy and Washington, my usual wintertime haunts. However, this space will be filled with blogs in the coming days -- stay tuned.
Just before heading off on a little winter vacation, I read two things in INSIDE HIGHER ED that warms my heart. I had served on the Spellings Commission and was beginning to believe my wife, who claimed I was wasting my time -- nothing would come of the recommendations.
First, I read that the Ed Department means business in pushing accreditors to actually do something meaningful to improve quality in higher education rather than merely driving up costs through arcane barriers to entry that they impose. The accreditors are upset, which I suspect is good news for Americans who want the accreditors to provide information that allows them to evaluate colleges, or at least assure them about colleges meeting minimal standards of quality.
Second, the private sector, as usual, is out front in actually DOING things, rather than talking. The Spellings Commission harped on the need for better assessment, for the measurement of outcomes, etc. Blackboard, the giant course management company, is moving forward on course assessment programs for universities. Maybe they will help us learn whether the kids are learning anything, whether graduates are actually getting jobs, etc. The big question is: will colleges buy their services and then actually use the results to improve higher education? Blackboard joins other smaller firms, and thus furthers the development of something that needs nurturing.
Heading South, where temperatures are higher, but where there is less hot air than in the academy and Washington, my usual wintertime haunts. However, this space will be filled with blogs in the coming days -- stay tuned.
Tuesday, January 16, 2007
New College Tuition Initiatives And the Savings Rate
By Richard Vedder
The "in" thing this year is for high quality colleges to announce they are ending tuition fees for low income students. Many of the prestige Ivies have done this, along with some other high quality privates (e.g., Emory University) as well as flagship public universities (e.g., the University of Washington). In general, I have applauded this, although if this is done in a revenue neutral fashion, this means even greater tuition for the non-poor students, and a greater divergence between the sticker price and the actual average tuition paid. In other words, more price discrimination. The "end tuition" movement in the long run makes colleges more affordable to students collectively only if real cost-cutting is instituted, and I have seen little evidence that that is happening.
There are also some severe unintended economic consequences of this trend. Universities are, in effect, imposing a private marginal tax on income and wealth, and a tax that is of consequential magnitude. Suppose a family with a $50,000 income sends a child to a prestigious school and pays no tuition fees. Suppose a family with a $100,000 income sends their child to the same institution and is expected to pay $30,000 in fees. The family, in effect, is paying the equivalent of a 60 percent tax on the difference between $50,000 and $100,000 in income, which, in addition to state and local income taxes of perhaps 35 percent, reduces the family's effective tax rate on that income to 95 percent (assuming non-deductibility of tuition fees), removing almost all incentives to work and earn. Suppose the $100,000 income family derives its income from two spouses each earning $50,000. If one spouses simply quits work, the family foregoes only about $2,500 in disposable spending a year, since income taxes fall by about $17,500 and college tuition bills by $30,000. While this example probably exaggerates somewhat the true typical dimension of the problem, it is nonetheless substantial. College price discrimination policies impose significant disincentive effects to work and save in American society.
The question then becomes, "why work hard to save to send kids to college?" The national personal savings rate is extremely low, and although the official statistics probably understate the true savings of Americans, the true rate is no doubt very low, and probably has been lowered over the past generation by the increased price discrimination of universities.
The truly rich schools can and should simply end tuition for all. Harvard, Yale and Princeton, for example, all earn at least $75,000 in endowment income for every student, including graduate and professional students. With other private gifts and government grants, total non-tuition income per student far exceeds $100,000. This is several times the national average spending per student. If Berea College, Coopers Union and the service academies can be tuition free, so can Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The reason they are not is that these schools do not want to engage in a modest amount of belt-tightening that such policies would entail, and do not want to end the explosion in the salaries of their most prominent faculty and administrators that has gone on in recent years. Rent-seeking behavior trumps access issues or the national interest.
The "in" thing this year is for high quality colleges to announce they are ending tuition fees for low income students. Many of the prestige Ivies have done this, along with some other high quality privates (e.g., Emory University) as well as flagship public universities (e.g., the University of Washington). In general, I have applauded this, although if this is done in a revenue neutral fashion, this means even greater tuition for the non-poor students, and a greater divergence between the sticker price and the actual average tuition paid. In other words, more price discrimination. The "end tuition" movement in the long run makes colleges more affordable to students collectively only if real cost-cutting is instituted, and I have seen little evidence that that is happening.
There are also some severe unintended economic consequences of this trend. Universities are, in effect, imposing a private marginal tax on income and wealth, and a tax that is of consequential magnitude. Suppose a family with a $50,000 income sends a child to a prestigious school and pays no tuition fees. Suppose a family with a $100,000 income sends their child to the same institution and is expected to pay $30,000 in fees. The family, in effect, is paying the equivalent of a 60 percent tax on the difference between $50,000 and $100,000 in income, which, in addition to state and local income taxes of perhaps 35 percent, reduces the family's effective tax rate on that income to 95 percent (assuming non-deductibility of tuition fees), removing almost all incentives to work and earn. Suppose the $100,000 income family derives its income from two spouses each earning $50,000. If one spouses simply quits work, the family foregoes only about $2,500 in disposable spending a year, since income taxes fall by about $17,500 and college tuition bills by $30,000. While this example probably exaggerates somewhat the true typical dimension of the problem, it is nonetheless substantial. College price discrimination policies impose significant disincentive effects to work and save in American society.
The question then becomes, "why work hard to save to send kids to college?" The national personal savings rate is extremely low, and although the official statistics probably understate the true savings of Americans, the true rate is no doubt very low, and probably has been lowered over the past generation by the increased price discrimination of universities.
The truly rich schools can and should simply end tuition for all. Harvard, Yale and Princeton, for example, all earn at least $75,000 in endowment income for every student, including graduate and professional students. With other private gifts and government grants, total non-tuition income per student far exceeds $100,000. This is several times the national average spending per student. If Berea College, Coopers Union and the service academies can be tuition free, so can Harvard, Yale and Princeton. The reason they are not is that these schools do not want to engage in a modest amount of belt-tightening that such policies would entail, and do not want to end the explosion in the salaries of their most prominent faculty and administrators that has gone on in recent years. Rent-seeking behavior trumps access issues or the national interest.
Reforming Intercollegiate Athletics
By Richard Vedder
Recently, I posted a blog complaining about the state of intercollegiate athletics. But what can be done? Given the popularity of sports, and the huge amounts of money involved given the entertainment value of revenue sports like football and basketball, there are limits probably as to how the system can be reformed, and the notion that a few brave university presidents will lead piecemeal reform is sheer fantasy. As Vanderbilt's President Gordon Gee said after modestly downgrading the athletic bureaucracy at that school, "if I tried this at Ohio State, I would be pumping gas today."
Here is a scenario that just might be possible. The Presidents of the Ivy League schools gather together the presidents of many academic respectable schools from several important athletic conferences, as well as a respected independent (non-conference) school or two. For example, the presidents of the University of Michigan, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, Notre Dame, University of Washington, University of Texas, University of Georgia, University of Virginia, University of Southern California, University of North Carolina, and Vanderbilt (to pick 16 schools) declare, along with the 8 Ivy League Presidents (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, Pennsylvania) that we insist that intercollegiate athletics be constrained in several ways or we are going to remove our schools from our respective conferences. Some possible constraints:
* Seasons and training periods would be drastically shortened (e.g., 9-game football seasons plus one bowl game as a maximum; 35-game baseball seasons;
* No games may be played during examination periods, nor may any athlete miss more than 2 consecutive days of school for any athletic purpose
* Redshirting would be prohibited
* Maximum team sizes in football would be reduced to 65 (partly as a cost containment measure);
* The salaries of coaches will be constrained so that they would not exceed that of the President of the United States, or the President of the University, whichever is smaller;
* The college presidents would endorse an agreement to testify for the end of tax exempt status for any gift to a university for athletic purposes.
An alternative approach would be for the aforementioned group of 24 university presidents, perhaps joined by some other presidents of prestigious schools (e.g. University of Chicago, Washington University in Saint Louis, Georgetown, New York University, M.I.T, Cal Tech, Emory, George Washington University, Rice University, the University of Rochester) to appeal to Congress to insist that schools wanting federal grants adhere to these standards (I am somewhat weary of Congressional intervention myself because it opens the door to future federal interference).
Whether any of this could work, who knows? As long as millions of dollars in revenue are at stake, I am skeptical, but it might be worth a try. An alternative approach would be go the other direction, openly declare that "we are in the professional sports business", and start paying athletes more (and, by inference, coaches less). But remove tax exempt status for any charitable contributions to athletic departments, and also tax exempt status for such things as sky boxes in stadiums. Also subject sports operations to income taxation. And end the fiction of the "student-athlete" for the big revenue sports, football and basketball.
I am not against sports. I think athletic participation can build leadership qualities, instill discipline, promote hard work, and improve interpersonal relationships. But the Aristotelean golden mean is needed here, some moderation and perspective that is lacking at many of our nation's institutions of higher learning. This is further evidence that the socialization dimension of higher education is increasingly trumping the educational function on many campuses, and that should stop.
Recently, I posted a blog complaining about the state of intercollegiate athletics. But what can be done? Given the popularity of sports, and the huge amounts of money involved given the entertainment value of revenue sports like football and basketball, there are limits probably as to how the system can be reformed, and the notion that a few brave university presidents will lead piecemeal reform is sheer fantasy. As Vanderbilt's President Gordon Gee said after modestly downgrading the athletic bureaucracy at that school, "if I tried this at Ohio State, I would be pumping gas today."
Here is a scenario that just might be possible. The Presidents of the Ivy League schools gather together the presidents of many academic respectable schools from several important athletic conferences, as well as a respected independent (non-conference) school or two. For example, the presidents of the University of Michigan, University of Illinois, University of Wisconsin, University of Minnesota, Duke, Northwestern, Stanford, University of California at Berkeley, UCLA, Notre Dame, University of Washington, University of Texas, University of Georgia, University of Virginia, University of Southern California, University of North Carolina, and Vanderbilt (to pick 16 schools) declare, along with the 8 Ivy League Presidents (Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Cornell, Dartmouth, Brown, Pennsylvania) that we insist that intercollegiate athletics be constrained in several ways or we are going to remove our schools from our respective conferences. Some possible constraints:
* Seasons and training periods would be drastically shortened (e.g., 9-game football seasons plus one bowl game as a maximum; 35-game baseball seasons;
* No games may be played during examination periods, nor may any athlete miss more than 2 consecutive days of school for any athletic purpose
* Redshirting would be prohibited
* Maximum team sizes in football would be reduced to 65 (partly as a cost containment measure);
* The salaries of coaches will be constrained so that they would not exceed that of the President of the United States, or the President of the University, whichever is smaller;
* The college presidents would endorse an agreement to testify for the end of tax exempt status for any gift to a university for athletic purposes.
An alternative approach would be for the aforementioned group of 24 university presidents, perhaps joined by some other presidents of prestigious schools (e.g. University of Chicago, Washington University in Saint Louis, Georgetown, New York University, M.I.T, Cal Tech, Emory, George Washington University, Rice University, the University of Rochester) to appeal to Congress to insist that schools wanting federal grants adhere to these standards (I am somewhat weary of Congressional intervention myself because it opens the door to future federal interference).
Whether any of this could work, who knows? As long as millions of dollars in revenue are at stake, I am skeptical, but it might be worth a try. An alternative approach would be go the other direction, openly declare that "we are in the professional sports business", and start paying athletes more (and, by inference, coaches less). But remove tax exempt status for any charitable contributions to athletic departments, and also tax exempt status for such things as sky boxes in stadiums. Also subject sports operations to income taxation. And end the fiction of the "student-athlete" for the big revenue sports, football and basketball.
I am not against sports. I think athletic participation can build leadership qualities, instill discipline, promote hard work, and improve interpersonal relationships. But the Aristotelean golden mean is needed here, some moderation and perspective that is lacking at many of our nation's institutions of higher learning. This is further evidence that the socialization dimension of higher education is increasingly trumping the educational function on many campuses, and that should stop.
Friday, January 12, 2007
Assessing Graduate Education: A Different Approach
By Richard Vedder
The Chronicle of Higher Education had a great piece the other day about a new method of rating graduate programs. In the past, the National Research Council (NRC) has done rankings, as well as the ubiquitous US News & World Report (USN&WR). They have been largely based on reputations of schools as assessed by senior scholars, department chairs, etc. Now a private firm, Academic Analytics (AA), has come up with a Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index that evaluates the research output of each faculty member within institutions, based on publications in respected journals, books, research grants, etc. Presumably the higher the research output of the faculty, the better the graduate program. This measure is strictly objective, not based on subjective opinions.
It is interesting how this approach leads to sharply different results than the reputation approach used by the NRC and USN&WR. Take English. Only 3 of the top 11 schools (there was a tie for 10th place) in the AA rankings are in both the last NRC and USN&WR rankings --Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, and Chicago. The AA evaluations rank very highly the Universities of Georgia and Illinois, Penn State, and Washington University in St. Louis -- not in the top 10 in either of the other rankings. The AA rankings tend to emphasize the prestigious old line private schools less, and are based more on merit criteria than with the "old boy’s network" of evaluating things. In my field of economics, the University of California at San Diego is ranked higher than UC rivals Berkeley and UCLA, unlike in virtually all other surveys. If the AA rankings catch on, schools will find it harder to coast by on their reputations for decades after scholarly output peaked.
Three cheers for AA. 30 or so schools are now paying for detailed information regarding their own programs relative to peer institutions. This is an honest attempt to create some sort of bottom line that is objectively determined. It is far from perfect, and what is far more important than the quality of the inputs used (faculty productivity) is what sort of output results. Are the newly minted Ph.D.s in these programs good researchers themselves? And, dare I ask, can they teach? Do they get top jobs?
Much more needs to be done to truly move to good measurement of outcomes in higher education, and this new evaluation does not truly even attempt to do it. But it points the way to solutions. Private entrepreneurs can make money, I think, developing truly objective measures of what students learn or derive from college, information if provided in user-friendly form would help parents make better choices -- and instill more competition into higher education. I would love to see a "learning per dollar spent" measure developed, for example. Along with the National Institute of Deaf's use of Social Security earnings data, this is a promising approach to finding true bottom lines in higher education.
The Chronicle of Higher Education had a great piece the other day about a new method of rating graduate programs. In the past, the National Research Council (NRC) has done rankings, as well as the ubiquitous US News & World Report (USN&WR). They have been largely based on reputations of schools as assessed by senior scholars, department chairs, etc. Now a private firm, Academic Analytics (AA), has come up with a Faculty Scholarly Productivity Index that evaluates the research output of each faculty member within institutions, based on publications in respected journals, books, research grants, etc. Presumably the higher the research output of the faculty, the better the graduate program. This measure is strictly objective, not based on subjective opinions.
It is interesting how this approach leads to sharply different results than the reputation approach used by the NRC and USN&WR. Take English. Only 3 of the top 11 schools (there was a tie for 10th place) in the AA rankings are in both the last NRC and USN&WR rankings --Cal-Berkeley, Stanford, and Chicago. The AA evaluations rank very highly the Universities of Georgia and Illinois, Penn State, and Washington University in St. Louis -- not in the top 10 in either of the other rankings. The AA rankings tend to emphasize the prestigious old line private schools less, and are based more on merit criteria than with the "old boy’s network" of evaluating things. In my field of economics, the University of California at San Diego is ranked higher than UC rivals Berkeley and UCLA, unlike in virtually all other surveys. If the AA rankings catch on, schools will find it harder to coast by on their reputations for decades after scholarly output peaked.
Three cheers for AA. 30 or so schools are now paying for detailed information regarding their own programs relative to peer institutions. This is an honest attempt to create some sort of bottom line that is objectively determined. It is far from perfect, and what is far more important than the quality of the inputs used (faculty productivity) is what sort of output results. Are the newly minted Ph.D.s in these programs good researchers themselves? And, dare I ask, can they teach? Do they get top jobs?
Much more needs to be done to truly move to good measurement of outcomes in higher education, and this new evaluation does not truly even attempt to do it. But it points the way to solutions. Private entrepreneurs can make money, I think, developing truly objective measures of what students learn or derive from college, information if provided in user-friendly form would help parents make better choices -- and instill more competition into higher education. I would love to see a "learning per dollar spent" measure developed, for example. Along with the National Institute of Deaf's use of Social Security earnings data, this is a promising approach to finding true bottom lines in higher education.
Thursday, January 11, 2007
Emory's New Initiative
By Richard Vedder
Our nation's leading universities are feeling a bit guilty about the pronounced decline in the proportion of lower income students in their midst, and worried about rising anger over the growing reality that these schools are becoming taxpayer-subsidized country clubs with some academics thrown in. Across the land, schools are deciding to drop tuition for students from families with relatively low incomes. Today President James Wagner of Emory announced the latest of these initiatives (I am indebted to Andrea Jones of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for bringing this to my attention).
The Emory plan guarantees that students from families with less than $50,000 a year in income will graduate with no student loans, and those from families with incomes of between $50,000 and $100,000 a year will graduate with no more than $15,000 in loans. The Emory program is somewhat different in that it limits financial liability for a wide range of middle income students, and it ties its programs explicitly to student loan debt, not to tuition levels.
This is a good news, bad news story. The good news is that a major private university is making a real effort to improve affordability and access to persons, and trying to reduce somewhat the "rich kid’s school" image of the place. It is showing some appreciation for the recently neglected role of higher education as an engine of social mobility and equal economic and educational opportunity.
The bad news is that the program has some technical defects that could prove embarrassing, and masks a more fundamental problem. Speaking first to technical issues, as I read the press release, a family whose income is $50,500 a year and sends a kid to Emory can expect that kid to incur $15,000 in debt, while the family with a $49,500 percent income will have a student who will go debt free. The earning of an extra $1,000 in income (say over 4 years) will lead to a tax on that income of several hundred percent -- making it worse off than before. There are tremendous negative incentives to work hard and more to pay for college -- or do other productive things to help the economy. A similar problem exists for students whose incomes are just over $100,000 -- they are royally hurt relative to those with just a wee bit less income.
If this program is ultimately financed by bigger increases in sticker tuition fees (paid by those with high incomes), all that has been accomplished is a redistribution of income from one class of students to another, with the university attempting to set social policy (regarding income distribution) through its complex discriminatory pricing scheme. Putting that aside, the big problem is that the Emory program, like many other ones previously announced, deal with the symptoms, not the disease. They provide a temporary patch for lower income kids, but do nothing to change the fundamental problem (the disease, if you will), namely the huge increase in the cost of higher education in modern times, and the unwillingness to make the necessary structural changes to alter this. As long as per student college costs rise substantially in real terms, someone, maybe not students themselves, will be burdened by covering the bills. That problem still needs to be addressed.
Our nation's leading universities are feeling a bit guilty about the pronounced decline in the proportion of lower income students in their midst, and worried about rising anger over the growing reality that these schools are becoming taxpayer-subsidized country clubs with some academics thrown in. Across the land, schools are deciding to drop tuition for students from families with relatively low incomes. Today President James Wagner of Emory announced the latest of these initiatives (I am indebted to Andrea Jones of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution for bringing this to my attention).
The Emory plan guarantees that students from families with less than $50,000 a year in income will graduate with no student loans, and those from families with incomes of between $50,000 and $100,000 a year will graduate with no more than $15,000 in loans. The Emory program is somewhat different in that it limits financial liability for a wide range of middle income students, and it ties its programs explicitly to student loan debt, not to tuition levels.
This is a good news, bad news story. The good news is that a major private university is making a real effort to improve affordability and access to persons, and trying to reduce somewhat the "rich kid’s school" image of the place. It is showing some appreciation for the recently neglected role of higher education as an engine of social mobility and equal economic and educational opportunity.
The bad news is that the program has some technical defects that could prove embarrassing, and masks a more fundamental problem. Speaking first to technical issues, as I read the press release, a family whose income is $50,500 a year and sends a kid to Emory can expect that kid to incur $15,000 in debt, while the family with a $49,500 percent income will have a student who will go debt free. The earning of an extra $1,000 in income (say over 4 years) will lead to a tax on that income of several hundred percent -- making it worse off than before. There are tremendous negative incentives to work hard and more to pay for college -- or do other productive things to help the economy. A similar problem exists for students whose incomes are just over $100,000 -- they are royally hurt relative to those with just a wee bit less income.
If this program is ultimately financed by bigger increases in sticker tuition fees (paid by those with high incomes), all that has been accomplished is a redistribution of income from one class of students to another, with the university attempting to set social policy (regarding income distribution) through its complex discriminatory pricing scheme. Putting that aside, the big problem is that the Emory program, like many other ones previously announced, deal with the symptoms, not the disease. They provide a temporary patch for lower income kids, but do nothing to change the fundamental problem (the disease, if you will), namely the huge increase in the cost of higher education in modern times, and the unwillingness to make the necessary structural changes to alter this. As long as per student college costs rise substantially in real terms, someone, maybe not students themselves, will be burdened by covering the bills. That problem still needs to be addressed.
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Combat Pay or Economic Rent?
By Richard Vedder
The New York Times yesterday had an interesting story about how college presidents are facing increasing pressure from faculty and other members of the university community to perform, or be given the boot. The Larry Summers incident at Harvard has triggered more questioning of university presidents, overt votes of no confidence, and even faculty threats to strike unless changes are made at the top. Focusing on Pace University, the story notes rising resentment by faculty over the rapidly widening differential between their salaries and that of the senior administrators (the president at Pace makes over $700,000 a year, yet the school is reeling from falling enrollments and budgetary woes).
With the help of Whiz Kid Matt Denhart, I have been documenting the soaring salaries of college presidents. One interpretation is that as colleges have more research money come their way, and as they raise tuition fees mightily because they can get away with it owing to generous federal student financial aid policies and the rising high school-college earnings differential, universities use some of the incremental funds to reward themselves. This is the "rent-seeking" explanation -- pleas by university presidents for more funding from alums, legislators, and the federal government are partly a scheme to enrich themselves, or at least that has been the unintended consequence of this quest for funds.
The second explanation is the market explanation. The supply of good university president material is shrinking because of the rising possibility of job loss and public humiliation. This forces up salaries and the rise can be considered the equivalent of combat pay in the military. A related market explanation is that university presidents, like others, are paid roughly their marginal revenue product, that is the incremental funds they bring into an institution. A good university president can bring in millions of more annually than a mediocre one, so the age of the million dollar college president is the result. As universities think and behave more like for-profit institutions, trying to maximize something akin to profit, they start to pay according to the economic theory governing wage determination in profit maximizing firms in competitive markets. This is the age of the multi-million dollar corporate executives and entertainers, each exploiting their unique talents. Why should not the same thing happen in universities?
One thing to keep in mind, however, is the funding differences. Entertainers make their money from people willing to pay directly or indirectly for their service --if the demand falls off, so does their income. Corporate executives earn tens of millions if they add to profits and stock price, but usually (but not always) suffer if performance suffers. Private individuals buying goods and services fund their salaries. With universities, the funds are largely indirectly coming from taxpayers, and people are increasingly questioning whether government subsidies should be used to finance salaries many, many times those earned by the politicians who devise the funding policies, or, for that matter, the taxpayers who pay the bills.
The New York Times yesterday had an interesting story about how college presidents are facing increasing pressure from faculty and other members of the university community to perform, or be given the boot. The Larry Summers incident at Harvard has triggered more questioning of university presidents, overt votes of no confidence, and even faculty threats to strike unless changes are made at the top. Focusing on Pace University, the story notes rising resentment by faculty over the rapidly widening differential between their salaries and that of the senior administrators (the president at Pace makes over $700,000 a year, yet the school is reeling from falling enrollments and budgetary woes).
With the help of Whiz Kid Matt Denhart, I have been documenting the soaring salaries of college presidents. One interpretation is that as colleges have more research money come their way, and as they raise tuition fees mightily because they can get away with it owing to generous federal student financial aid policies and the rising high school-college earnings differential, universities use some of the incremental funds to reward themselves. This is the "rent-seeking" explanation -- pleas by university presidents for more funding from alums, legislators, and the federal government are partly a scheme to enrich themselves, or at least that has been the unintended consequence of this quest for funds.
The second explanation is the market explanation. The supply of good university president material is shrinking because of the rising possibility of job loss and public humiliation. This forces up salaries and the rise can be considered the equivalent of combat pay in the military. A related market explanation is that university presidents, like others, are paid roughly their marginal revenue product, that is the incremental funds they bring into an institution. A good university president can bring in millions of more annually than a mediocre one, so the age of the million dollar college president is the result. As universities think and behave more like for-profit institutions, trying to maximize something akin to profit, they start to pay according to the economic theory governing wage determination in profit maximizing firms in competitive markets. This is the age of the multi-million dollar corporate executives and entertainers, each exploiting their unique talents. Why should not the same thing happen in universities?
One thing to keep in mind, however, is the funding differences. Entertainers make their money from people willing to pay directly or indirectly for their service --if the demand falls off, so does their income. Corporate executives earn tens of millions if they add to profits and stock price, but usually (but not always) suffer if performance suffers. Private individuals buying goods and services fund their salaries. With universities, the funds are largely indirectly coming from taxpayers, and people are increasingly questioning whether government subsidies should be used to finance salaries many, many times those earned by the politicians who devise the funding policies, or, for that matter, the taxpayers who pay the bills.
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
A Nude Awakening: The Naked Truth About Ivy League Voyeurism
By Richard Vedder
My sidekick Bryan O'Keefe brings to my attention an article in the Scotsman, Scotland's leading newspaper, about the new "in" social trend at elite American universities -- having naked parties, where participants shed all their clothes. These events are supposedly not sex parties, but a place where student's can shed their inhibitions and have a different experience. According to the story, one participant said it is implicitly agreed that you are allowed one good look at the physique of fellow partygoers, then expected to look at each other at eye level. It is the in thing at Yale, we are told, and is spreading rapidly to wannabe Yales.
This is another example of how the "socialization" dimension of higher education is crowding out the more utilitarian educational dimension. To some extent directly or indirectly, these activities are subsidized by taxpayers. What we have is a bunch of mostly rich kids partying naked at public expense. The colleges, of course, refuse to do anything to stop it, officially not wishing to interfere with freedom of expression, but unofficially not wanting to offend tuition paying kids who are future alumni donors. As to the public, the hedonism, moral relativism, falling academic standards and soaring costs of college campuses are all largely ignored, since everyone wants the certification that colleges provide. Besides, outwardly college has continued to be a decent financial investment for a large percentage of kids.
Maybe I am just jealous, since they did not have these kinds of parties when I went to school. I wonder if 18 year old boys, for example, do not view this as a disguised form of voyeurism, the equivalent of looking into the girl’s locker room in a quasi-legitimate way. But I also wonder if public policy should separate the legitimate teaching and research functions of universities from the social dimensions in a way that assures that funding does not support the latter effort. In fact, I believe that public policy has indirectly and unconsciously promoted this hedonistic behavior in a variety of ways, such as not having much discipline in our K-12 schools, or tolerating a lack of standards, as evidenced by grade inflation, that allows students to party more and work less. Moreover, our financial aid policies often at the margin provide the financial resources to finance some of the partying in the first place. How many of our partying nudists have federal student loans or Pell Grants, for example?
My sidekick Bryan O'Keefe brings to my attention an article in the Scotsman, Scotland's leading newspaper, about the new "in" social trend at elite American universities -- having naked parties, where participants shed all their clothes. These events are supposedly not sex parties, but a place where student's can shed their inhibitions and have a different experience. According to the story, one participant said it is implicitly agreed that you are allowed one good look at the physique of fellow partygoers, then expected to look at each other at eye level. It is the in thing at Yale, we are told, and is spreading rapidly to wannabe Yales.
This is another example of how the "socialization" dimension of higher education is crowding out the more utilitarian educational dimension. To some extent directly or indirectly, these activities are subsidized by taxpayers. What we have is a bunch of mostly rich kids partying naked at public expense. The colleges, of course, refuse to do anything to stop it, officially not wishing to interfere with freedom of expression, but unofficially not wanting to offend tuition paying kids who are future alumni donors. As to the public, the hedonism, moral relativism, falling academic standards and soaring costs of college campuses are all largely ignored, since everyone wants the certification that colleges provide. Besides, outwardly college has continued to be a decent financial investment for a large percentage of kids.
Maybe I am just jealous, since they did not have these kinds of parties when I went to school. I wonder if 18 year old boys, for example, do not view this as a disguised form of voyeurism, the equivalent of looking into the girl’s locker room in a quasi-legitimate way. But I also wonder if public policy should separate the legitimate teaching and research functions of universities from the social dimensions in a way that assures that funding does not support the latter effort. In fact, I believe that public policy has indirectly and unconsciously promoted this hedonistic behavior in a variety of ways, such as not having much discipline in our K-12 schools, or tolerating a lack of standards, as evidenced by grade inflation, that allows students to party more and work less. Moreover, our financial aid policies often at the margin provide the financial resources to finance some of the partying in the first place. How many of our partying nudists have federal student loans or Pell Grants, for example?
Monday, January 08, 2007
Football Champions Are Not Academic Champions
By Richard Vedder,
Let us start this 150th CCAP post by paying homage to the national championship football game tonight between Ohio State and Florida. Both universities historically have had so-so academic reputations but have worked hard, with some success, in improving it. Indeed, both have argued they need more funds in order to fund national excellence. Ohio State, for example, has received in some years partial special dispensation from tuition caps imposed on other state institutions. Both schools, believe, however, that big time football contributes to making them better academically, for example by improving the number of applicants for admission and thereby institutional selectivity.
But Columbus Dispatch columnist Mike Harden points out the corrupting side of big time athletics. Licensing vendors to sell merchandise with the school logo on it is big business. A win tonight for OSU is estimated to net a minimum of $3 million more in the next year for that institution. One Ohio State vendor had made a good business selling tee shirts and other OSU stuff for years, giving eight percent of receipts to Ohio State as a licensing fee. Then word came that OSU was going to sign an exclusive contract with Nike, giving them sole licensing rights. The small vendor complained loudly and publicly. The result? He was given a registered letter saying "You no longer can sell our merchandise." Now. And, inferentially, he was told that people you supply who make a living selling the merchandise retail are hurt too.
This shows that Ohio State does not care much for freedom of expression when it might hurt them. It shows an arrogance, a "public be damned" attitude. It shows support for a big Oregon corporation over little Ohio businesses. I have nothing against Nike, and, indeed, I have frequently defended it against complaints from anti-globalization critics that it is a "sweatshop" employer. OSU maybe should give Nike some franchising business, if not a monopoly. But all of this reeks a little of cruelty and arrogance. OSU might have the best college football team in the nation, but the vendor episode suggests that it lacks civility, class, and an appreciation for the values that are the rationale for public support. A truly great school (Harvard?) probably would not do this -- I hope.
Let us start this 150th CCAP post by paying homage to the national championship football game tonight between Ohio State and Florida. Both universities historically have had so-so academic reputations but have worked hard, with some success, in improving it. Indeed, both have argued they need more funds in order to fund national excellence. Ohio State, for example, has received in some years partial special dispensation from tuition caps imposed on other state institutions. Both schools, believe, however, that big time football contributes to making them better academically, for example by improving the number of applicants for admission and thereby institutional selectivity.
But Columbus Dispatch columnist Mike Harden points out the corrupting side of big time athletics. Licensing vendors to sell merchandise with the school logo on it is big business. A win tonight for OSU is estimated to net a minimum of $3 million more in the next year for that institution. One Ohio State vendor had made a good business selling tee shirts and other OSU stuff for years, giving eight percent of receipts to Ohio State as a licensing fee. Then word came that OSU was going to sign an exclusive contract with Nike, giving them sole licensing rights. The small vendor complained loudly and publicly. The result? He was given a registered letter saying "You no longer can sell our merchandise." Now. And, inferentially, he was told that people you supply who make a living selling the merchandise retail are hurt too.
This shows that Ohio State does not care much for freedom of expression when it might hurt them. It shows an arrogance, a "public be damned" attitude. It shows support for a big Oregon corporation over little Ohio businesses. I have nothing against Nike, and, indeed, I have frequently defended it against complaints from anti-globalization critics that it is a "sweatshop" employer. OSU maybe should give Nike some franchising business, if not a monopoly. But all of this reeks a little of cruelty and arrogance. OSU might have the best college football team in the nation, but the vendor episode suggests that it lacks civility, class, and an appreciation for the values that are the rationale for public support. A truly great school (Harvard?) probably would not do this -- I hope.
Friday, January 05, 2007
Ph.D. Scandals: More Evidence
By Richard Vedder
"Doctoral education is..one of the most wasteful of all the activities of the university" Frank H.T. Rhodes, former president of Cornell University opined in a 2001 book. I agree, and there is new evidence confirming this.
I am an economic historian and love history, but think we are training far too many PhD.s in history, most of whom are lucky to get $50,000 a year in earnings after completing around 10 years of post-secondary education. The typical B.A. in my field, economics, makes nearly the same as a newly minted history Ph.D.
New evidence from the American Historical Association shows that less than 25 percent of Ph.D. candidates complete their degree within 5 years,and that the 10 year graduation rate is only 59 percent (meaning 41 percent of candidates have not received a degree).
Why is this so? Universities love to have their graduate students hang around. They are cheap teachers of undergraduates. At state schools, they often trigger large public subsidy payments (where subsidies are based on enrollments). They help their professors get papers and books published. Therefore, us professors pile on requirements to keep them around longer. We nitpick them over trivial issues in their dissertations, often making them take many months or years to do marginal additional research to fulfill the eccentric wishes of dissertation committee members. I have been on many history Ph.D. committees, and have seen all of this first hand. Moreover, some of the students like the long years at universities, since job prospects are slim. Better teach at some respectable university as a graduate student than teach part-time at night as an adjunct professor at Last Resort U., or work at Pizza Hut.
In the for-profit private sector, withering demand would lead to a reallocation of resources away from such programs, but it appears that this is happening only very slowly in this discipline. I am not picking on history. The same thing can be said of other disciplines and programs. Tenure adds somewhat to the problem, since we tend to keep programs going for tenured senior faculty who are teaching courses in ever diminishing demand.
Moreover, the newly minted historians are often not trained in the areas where there is a popular demand --political history, for example, but rather they have focused on topics that are politically correct and trendy in leftish academic circles, but of little interest to either undergraduate students or to the broader public that might buy an new historical account by, say,a David McCullough or my colleague Alonzo Hamby (who is writing a new short biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt). Here is still another area where reform is desirable.
"Doctoral education is..one of the most wasteful of all the activities of the university" Frank H.T. Rhodes, former president of Cornell University opined in a 2001 book. I agree, and there is new evidence confirming this.
I am an economic historian and love history, but think we are training far too many PhD.s in history, most of whom are lucky to get $50,000 a year in earnings after completing around 10 years of post-secondary education. The typical B.A. in my field, economics, makes nearly the same as a newly minted history Ph.D.
New evidence from the American Historical Association shows that less than 25 percent of Ph.D. candidates complete their degree within 5 years,and that the 10 year graduation rate is only 59 percent (meaning 41 percent of candidates have not received a degree).
Why is this so? Universities love to have their graduate students hang around. They are cheap teachers of undergraduates. At state schools, they often trigger large public subsidy payments (where subsidies are based on enrollments). They help their professors get papers and books published. Therefore, us professors pile on requirements to keep them around longer. We nitpick them over trivial issues in their dissertations, often making them take many months or years to do marginal additional research to fulfill the eccentric wishes of dissertation committee members. I have been on many history Ph.D. committees, and have seen all of this first hand. Moreover, some of the students like the long years at universities, since job prospects are slim. Better teach at some respectable university as a graduate student than teach part-time at night as an adjunct professor at Last Resort U., or work at Pizza Hut.
In the for-profit private sector, withering demand would lead to a reallocation of resources away from such programs, but it appears that this is happening only very slowly in this discipline. I am not picking on history. The same thing can be said of other disciplines and programs. Tenure adds somewhat to the problem, since we tend to keep programs going for tenured senior faculty who are teaching courses in ever diminishing demand.
Moreover, the newly minted historians are often not trained in the areas where there is a popular demand --political history, for example, but rather they have focused on topics that are politically correct and trendy in leftish academic circles, but of little interest to either undergraduate students or to the broader public that might buy an new historical account by, say,a David McCullough or my colleague Alonzo Hamby (who is writing a new short biography of Franklin D. Roosevelt). Here is still another area where reform is desirable.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
The First 100 Hours
By Richard Vedder
The new Congress is beginning, and in the first 100 legislative hours the Democrats plan on doing half-dozen things. Some of them, like attacking subsidies to oil companies have relatively little to do with higher education, while others such as raising the minimum wage have more impact. However, one issue, reducing the interest rates on student loans, is exclusively higher education related.
CCAP sources imbedded in the Democratic caucuses tell us that January 17 is the day that Congress will take up the lowering of interest rates on student loans. While Nancy Pelosi can ram things through the House, Harry Reid does not have that clout in the Senate, where the minority's power to delay is still intact. Nonetheless, I expect that, perhaps without any hearings or evaluations of the consequences of the action, Congress will approve the student loan move, albeit maybe later in the year (Secretary of Education Spellings told me yesterday that she does not see immediate action on this and other higher education initiatives).
A case can be made to provide more generous aid to incoming students, although frankly I think it is a very weak case. Almost no case can be made, however, to reduce the financial obligation already occurred by students. It is an outright income transfer from taxpayers to a special group, many of whom are relatively affluent. As I have said before, altering prices by legislative fiat is a recipe for disaster, or is at the very least poor public policy. It would be more efficient and less costly to simply drop money out of airplanes over some college campuses --junior colleges if you are a liberal Democrat, tony private schools like Princeton, Duke, Northwestern or Stanford if you are a Country Club Republican. There is little evidence that cheaper loans will do much to improve graduation rates, and even if there were, the costs almost certainly would be high relative to the benefits. As usual, however, Congress does not want to be troubled with facts, with evidence, etc.
It probably would be too much to ask President George Bush to veto anything. How a President who talks with such authority and toughness about Iraq wilts when it comes to confronting Congress is beyond me. But this would be a place where a veto is in order, assuming the Republicans in Congress are not part of a Parliament of Wimps.
The new Congress is beginning, and in the first 100 legislative hours the Democrats plan on doing half-dozen things. Some of them, like attacking subsidies to oil companies have relatively little to do with higher education, while others such as raising the minimum wage have more impact. However, one issue, reducing the interest rates on student loans, is exclusively higher education related.
CCAP sources imbedded in the Democratic caucuses tell us that January 17 is the day that Congress will take up the lowering of interest rates on student loans. While Nancy Pelosi can ram things through the House, Harry Reid does not have that clout in the Senate, where the minority's power to delay is still intact. Nonetheless, I expect that, perhaps without any hearings or evaluations of the consequences of the action, Congress will approve the student loan move, albeit maybe later in the year (Secretary of Education Spellings told me yesterday that she does not see immediate action on this and other higher education initiatives).
A case can be made to provide more generous aid to incoming students, although frankly I think it is a very weak case. Almost no case can be made, however, to reduce the financial obligation already occurred by students. It is an outright income transfer from taxpayers to a special group, many of whom are relatively affluent. As I have said before, altering prices by legislative fiat is a recipe for disaster, or is at the very least poor public policy. It would be more efficient and less costly to simply drop money out of airplanes over some college campuses --junior colleges if you are a liberal Democrat, tony private schools like Princeton, Duke, Northwestern or Stanford if you are a Country Club Republican. There is little evidence that cheaper loans will do much to improve graduation rates, and even if there were, the costs almost certainly would be high relative to the benefits. As usual, however, Congress does not want to be troubled with facts, with evidence, etc.
It probably would be too much to ask President George Bush to veto anything. How a President who talks with such authority and toughness about Iraq wilts when it comes to confronting Congress is beyond me. But this would be a place where a veto is in order, assuming the Republicans in Congress are not part of a Parliament of Wimps.
Abomination in Alabama
By Richard Vedder
I am a moderately enthusiastic sports fan. I enjoy a good football or basketball game, and will be watching both my university play in a bowl game Sunday night and the national championship match between Ohio State and Florida on Monday night. Yet the Nick Saban contract at the University of Alabama shows with renewed intensity the problem with intercollegiate athletics. It is reported that Saban will earn roughly $4 million a year, about 50 percent more than any other college coach. He will be paid the better part of one percent of the revenue of the entire university, and at least 20 times as much as any professor, I suspect. I expect his salary will be perhaps 10 or 15 times as great as Alabama's legendary Bear Bryant ever received.
My concerns are not anger generated by resentment over high salaries -- I am an economist and know that one has to pay what is necessary to obtain talent. I am concerned about two things. First, and most important, the original and noble mission of universities is being overshadowed and subordinated by the entertainment dimension. The fact that tax policy works to provide taxpayer subsidies of this trend is particularly reprehensible. Second, this cost escalation is going to have a far reaching impact that is going to ultimately cost less exalted football powers some money, adding to pressures to raise tuition fees.
For example, suppose Ohio State beats USC Monday. There is a clause in Coach Jim Tressel's contract that allows him to reopen salary compensation issues if he wins another national championship. He can legitimately say, "You are paying me a paltry $2.5 million a year, and I have won two national championships in five years. I insist on $4 million like Nick Saban is getting." I can assure you that OSU will pay up. Then my school 75 miles down the road, Ohio University (OU), which loses $10 million or so a year on intercollegiate athletics, will see an impact if its coach (Frank Solich) comes and says, "I won a bowl game (assuming that happens), and deserve at least $750,000 a year” (perhaps triple his current salary). Another $25 per student increase in tuition will be needed to cover the salary increase. And OU would pay it as well.
As Jim Duderstadt (former Michigan president and one of the soundest minds in higher education) has said on countless occasions, there is no way in hell an individual university president can reform the system. All of them, collectively, might be able to do so if they collectively agreed on a plan and put their foot down. But university presidents are timid souls, not political risk-takers, and it will not happen. Another approach that would modestly help: the government could say that sky boxes and other athletic department contributions are taxable. Indeed, the athletic departments of universities should be subject to income, property and sales taxes, since they are in the entertainment business, not higher education.
The irony of it is that much of the $$$ flowing into coaches salaries comes because players are paid far less than their marginal financial contribution, at least that is the case of the big time teams. Troy Smith added perhaps $1-$10 million to Ohio State's revenue this year, and got about $15,000 or so in compensation. The coach that recruited him (Trussel) gets money that ordinarily would go to the so-called "student athlete." This "exploitation" is quantitatively greater than who occurred under slavery (I know: in my academic life I have estimated slave exploitation rates). The system stinks, is morally dubious, and hurts American higher education. It is time for radical change.
I am a moderately enthusiastic sports fan. I enjoy a good football or basketball game, and will be watching both my university play in a bowl game Sunday night and the national championship match between Ohio State and Florida on Monday night. Yet the Nick Saban contract at the University of Alabama shows with renewed intensity the problem with intercollegiate athletics. It is reported that Saban will earn roughly $4 million a year, about 50 percent more than any other college coach. He will be paid the better part of one percent of the revenue of the entire university, and at least 20 times as much as any professor, I suspect. I expect his salary will be perhaps 10 or 15 times as great as Alabama's legendary Bear Bryant ever received.
My concerns are not anger generated by resentment over high salaries -- I am an economist and know that one has to pay what is necessary to obtain talent. I am concerned about two things. First, and most important, the original and noble mission of universities is being overshadowed and subordinated by the entertainment dimension. The fact that tax policy works to provide taxpayer subsidies of this trend is particularly reprehensible. Second, this cost escalation is going to have a far reaching impact that is going to ultimately cost less exalted football powers some money, adding to pressures to raise tuition fees.
For example, suppose Ohio State beats USC Monday. There is a clause in Coach Jim Tressel's contract that allows him to reopen salary compensation issues if he wins another national championship. He can legitimately say, "You are paying me a paltry $2.5 million a year, and I have won two national championships in five years. I insist on $4 million like Nick Saban is getting." I can assure you that OSU will pay up. Then my school 75 miles down the road, Ohio University (OU), which loses $10 million or so a year on intercollegiate athletics, will see an impact if its coach (Frank Solich) comes and says, "I won a bowl game (assuming that happens), and deserve at least $750,000 a year” (perhaps triple his current salary). Another $25 per student increase in tuition will be needed to cover the salary increase. And OU would pay it as well.
As Jim Duderstadt (former Michigan president and one of the soundest minds in higher education) has said on countless occasions, there is no way in hell an individual university president can reform the system. All of them, collectively, might be able to do so if they collectively agreed on a plan and put their foot down. But university presidents are timid souls, not political risk-takers, and it will not happen. Another approach that would modestly help: the government could say that sky boxes and other athletic department contributions are taxable. Indeed, the athletic departments of universities should be subject to income, property and sales taxes, since they are in the entertainment business, not higher education.
The irony of it is that much of the $$$ flowing into coaches salaries comes because players are paid far less than their marginal financial contribution, at least that is the case of the big time teams. Troy Smith added perhaps $1-$10 million to Ohio State's revenue this year, and got about $15,000 or so in compensation. The coach that recruited him (Trussel) gets money that ordinarily would go to the so-called "student athlete." This "exploitation" is quantitatively greater than who occurred under slavery (I know: in my academic life I have estimated slave exploitation rates). The system stinks, is morally dubious, and hurts American higher education. It is time for radical change.
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