Links for 3/12/10

Lloyd Armstrong

The old ABA accreditation, based on such inputs as faculty size and library holdings, has been one of the major levers used by law school deans against their administrations in their efforts to inflate their budgets.

Goldie Blumenstyk

Colleges rightly argue that endowments are not simply rainy-day funds. But this apparent reluctance to use them during an undeniably rainy period, either to stave off cuts or to make strategic investments, can only add weight to the questions that so many already have.

David R. Henderson

In a story Friday about the student protests of budget cuts, The Herald reported, "Some professors took students from their classrooms to the rally."

As an educator, taxpayer and citizen, I find these professors' actions appalling. The classroom is supposed to be a place of safety, where the professors don't indoctrinate students with their views. Discussing the issue in class, and letting those who might disagree do so without attacking them, is a good idea. But leading their students out of their classrooms to a rally on a particular issue, whatever the issue, is a fundamental breach of trust.

Whatever these professors think about budget cuts, they should not be leading their students in protest. These professors should be letting the students think for themselves. Whatever else happened last Thursday, this was not education.

NYT

many of China’s best and brightest, its college graduates, are facing a long stretch of unemployment.

In 1999, the government began a push to expand college education — once considered a golden ticket — to produce more professionals to meet the demands of globalization. This year, more than 6.3 million graduates will enter the job market, up from one million in 1999. But the number of high-skilled, high-paying jobs has not kept pace.

Yasheng Huang:
The Chinese educational system is terrible at producing workers with innovative skills for Chinese economy. It produces people who memorize existing facts rather than discovering new facts; who fish for existing solutions rather than coming up with new ones; who execute orders rather than inventing new ways of doing things. In other words they do not solve problems for their employers…

Although Chinese universities are not without pockets of excellence, they are churning out people with high expectations and low skills. That combination cannot be good for any country…

Loren Brandt:
The problem facing new college graduates is neither the economy nor the migrants. Instead, it is the result of a rapid of expansion in higher education and a serious mismatch in the labor market…