Nobody Likes a Tattletale

by Daniel L. Bennett

I was able to muster up a bit of a chuckle when reading this article in the Chronicle. Apparently, Kaplan CEO Andrew Rosen attended and spoke at the recent annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. Public university leaders appear to be upset that some of their faculty have taken part-time positions teaching at for-profit universities without first seeking the permission of their full-time employer and believe it is a conflict of interest for those doing so. As the Chronicle reports, a provost at Texas Tech University asked Mr. Rosen,

"When are you going to get your act together and start publishing that list [of public university faculty working for Kaplan]?"

While at first glance this is not "ha-ha" funny, it is somewhat humorous considering that the public (as well as private non-profit) institutions are quite cryptic with the information that they release to the public. In fact, it has generally taken government mandates, which they have fought viciously with their lobby, to get any information out of them. Yet, these same folks are haranguing the for-profit sector for not releasing information that would likely only be of use to the institutions whose employees are violating their employment contract by not seeking permission (or at least reporting) that they are considering a part-time job. This is akin to the IRS asking citizens to report their neighbors for cheating on their taxes.

While I certainly don't advocate that public university faculty violate their employment contracts by taking such positions, it is not the responsibility of Kaplan or any other college to publish a list of potential offenders. This would actually do more harm than good for the reporting institution, as it would likely have trouble recruiting qualified instructors if it did so. It could however, enforce a contract of its own that includes a provision that any instructors employed by another institution must verify that their existing employment contract allows them to seek outside work.

Unionized TA's

by Peter Neiger

Inside of an institution of higher education there are many players driven by different incentives and goals, but the ultimate mission of educating students is supposed to come first. Unfortunately, the federal government and organized labor are actively working against providing a quality and affordable education for undergraduates. As Inside Higher Ed reported on Monday, the new make-up of the National Labor Relations Board will be actively work to get graduate teaching assistants to collectively bargain at private universities.

Chair Wilma B. Liebman of the NLRB has stated they will take a “more dynamic” approach to pursuing changes to policies implemented by the Bush-era NLRB. While unionization of graduate students may seem like a small step, it could prove to be harmful to both undergraduate students as well as the teaching assistants it is intended to help.

Financial times are tough and if graduate students make themselves less employable by demanding more out of their TA positions they are setting themselves up to be phased out. Universities are becoming increasingly creative at outsourcing grading and teaching, making TA’s more replaceable than ever. Even talk of collective bargaining by the NLRB could be the final straw for many institutions looking to cut costs.

Graduate students should be actively working to prove their value to the universities, not turning themselves into a liability. Universities exist to teach students, not provide graduate students with jobs. When TA’s are no longer working towards that same end, the TA’s will no longer have a job, and the tuition remission that often goes with it.

More on Entry to the Nursing Profession

by Daniel L. Bennett

Last week I wrote in opposition to higher ed's desire to mandate a bachelor's degree for entry to the nursing profession, describing it as a barrier to a profession that is only beneficial to special interest groups due to artificial labor supply reductions that lead to higher compensation for a restricted number of workers. Today, Beverly Malone -CEO of the National League for Nursing - writes for Inside Higher Ed on the matter:

The NLN remains convinced that the more reasoned and effective strategy is to focus attention on how best to propel those with associate degrees, and also those with baccalaureate degrees, to continue their education.

Options (such as RN to BSN or RN to MSN) that are not based on entry but are rather viewed as opportunities for lifelong learning and progression for those who enter the nursing profession through diploma and associate degree programs

Although Malone's statements somewhat support my argument that mandating a credential for entry to a profession is an artificial barrier, I digress that Malone's NLN is not a disinterested party in the debate. Her organization represents nursing education and advocates for increased "lifelong learning" (aka more education credentials) among practicing nurses who have already gained entry to the field.

While I argue that the medical field changes with new discoveries quite frequently and practitioners staying up to date with the latest medical breakthroughs is likely beneficial to the consumer, I seriously doubt that nursing education programs offered by colleges are the best method to achieve this. As with other professional fields, there is often a disconnect between the real world and what is taught in the classroom. Rather, what is likely to be included in college nursing education are the latest fads that scholars think will improve the profession, and are often not based on any empirical evidence.

It appears to me that Malone is representing the interests of NLN members (nursing faculty) in calling for more education of nurse practitioners, only at a point after entry. Her motive is obvious in statements calling for things such as more government support of nursing education and higher compensation for nursing education faculty. Both of these things are certainly in the interests of the nursing education field, but are they in the best interest of the profession and the consumers who rely on its services? These are the questions that need to be addressed empirically before we allow barriers to entry and advancement to be erected for the profession.

Barriers to Career Entry: Law Edition

by Daniel L. Bennett

Last week, I wrote about a proposal from the Carnegie Foundation to mandate a bachelor's degree for entry into the nursing field - one in which the demand for qualified workers exceeds the supply. This week, I'd like to turn the attention to the law profession. There has been significant online chatter this past week (here, here, here) concerning the declining value of law school due mainly to the supply of law school graduates greatly exceeding the demand.

An article in the CHE Monday draws further attention to this matter. Faced with this glut of law school graduates that are unable to find work, the American Bar Association has proposed that Schools of Law develop measurements of what students actually learn in law school that would provide prospective employers with additional information to base their hiring decisions, as opposed to the prevalent mechanism currently in place of ranking candidates by the reputation of their school, which is based on input measures such as faculty size and library holdings. It seems that this proposal stems from law practitioners themselves, who are increasingly dismayed by law school grads that do not possess the core competencies needed to be effective employees. Phillip A. Bradley was cited in the CHE article as likening

law schools to car companies that are "manufacturing something that nobody wants."

Not surprisingly, law schools themselves are adamantly opposed to evaluating what their student's learn, offering predictable establishment rhetoric such as colleges are facing touch budgets and that the costs would be too high to develop an assessment. This is precisely the type of secrecy that Kevin Carey vividly described in a recent Democracy essay. Essentially, colleges have a vested interest in prohibiting information about the value that they add from being known - law schools are no different. In fact, they are much worse because the ABA has a monopoly on the production of lawyers, which has erected barriers to entry in the field via very expensive 3-year postgraduate degrees and passage of the bar exam.

These barriers have artificially driven up the wages of lawyers and greatly distorted the labor market for lawyers due to the expected enumeration of newly minted entrants who arrive with hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt and 3 years of lost wages (opportunity cost). In response, firms are hiring only a fraction of law school graduates, leaving a surplus of workers. Theoretically, this should drive down wages in the field, making it a less desirable career path if the price of law school remains high and it remains a barrier to entry in the field.

If the law schools themselves do not want to serve the needs of the end users (hiring firms)of their product (graduates) via not providing them with the core competencies necessary to be an effective employee, then I suspect that the customers will soon find an alternative supplier. There is evidence of this already taking place as the paralegal field, which only requires an associates degree for entry, is expected to grow by 28% by 2018 (versus 12% for lawyers) as employers (according to BLS) try to

"reduce costs and increase the availability and efficiency of legal services by hiring paralegals to perform tasks once done by lawyers."

The only problem with firms hiring more paralegals as opposed to licensed law practitioners is the other barrier to entry - the bar exam. Theoretically speaking, I see no problem with requiring passage of an exam to prove one's competence in a field, similar to the CPA exam for accountants. In fact, I think that assessment is a better barometer of competence in a given profession than an academic credential. Charles Murray would certainly agree with me. The problem, however, is that the ABA oversees the bar exam and requires that examiners have a JD or LLB before being eligible to sit for the exam. I see no reason that a paralegal should be barred from testing his/her knowledge and competence of the field in order to gain a promotion just because they do not have an academic credential. Such professionals may have very well gained enough experience through OJT and/or self-study to pass the bar exam and should be able to prove their merit for a promotion without having to attain an academic credential at an exorbitant cost to feed the education establishment's industrial complex.

Erecting Barriers to Career Entry

by Daniel L. Bennett

A new book from the Carnegie Foundation recommends that:

The minimal educational level for entry into nursing practice should be the baccalaureate degree.

Currently, one can enter the field with only an associates degree - often a much lower cost proposition for prospective practitioners in terms of actual tuition fees and opportunity costs (lost wages, reduced leisure time, etc). To my knowledge, there is no empirical evidence which suggests that nurses with bachelor degrees outperform those with only associate's degree, so this proposal from the Carnegie Foundation is preposterous. While the authors do make a rational recommendation for more hands-on practical training in nursing education programs, erecting greater entry barriers into the profession in order to enforce this is likely not going to lead to improved performance or better health outcomes - just as education degree requirements for teachers do not improve student outcomes.

In vocational fields such as nursing, on-the-job training plays a huge role in preparing employees for the situations that they are going to face. I'm sure that there are many associate degree-holding nurses who perform exceptionally well on the job, as there are also likely many nurses with bachelor degrees who perform at a low level. No amount of classroom training is going to replace the learning that takes place from practical hands-on experience. In fact, it is in the actual field where nurses prove their value to the medical field - not beforehand by earning a degree. By erecting artificial barriers to entry in the field at a time there is already a shortage of qualified nurses, we would be doing a great disservice to the consumers of health services similar to the disservice that we are doing to K-12 students by erecting artificial barriers to the teaching profession a la education degrees (where there is no evidence that teachers with an education degree perform better in the classroom than teachers without).

Americans needs to move past the stigmatic notion that a bachelors degree is the only path towards a successful life, and wake up to the fact that establishing artificial entry barriers to certain professions linked to education credentials is only beneficial to special interest groups due to artificial labor supply reductions that lead to higher compensation for a restricted number of workers.