Comments on Higher Ed Economics: How to Have an Informed National Conversation?

• Why not start with a Facebook group?
• Posted by Brian Mulligan , Open Learning Coordinator at Institute of Technology Sligo, Ireland. on August 12, 2010 at 7:15am EDT

• And make it international while you are at it! We could start by looking at Shai Reshef's University of the People. www.uopeople.org/

• Posted by SR on August 12, 2010 at 10:00am EDT

• This article by Steven Pearlstein in Washington Post yesterday may be of interest

   

  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/08/10/AR2010081006390.html

• It's not happening yet
• Posted by sibyl on August 12, 2010 at 11:30am EDT

• No, there is no current national conversation on cost. Mostly, some people complain about costs, and a few advocates make their usual comments (drop tenure! teach more students!), and then it goes away in the direction of, say, some rapacious nonprofits misusing federal grant aid. The underlying issues don't get addressed because they are way too complicated.

  The conversation also never gets off zero because "productivity" is ill defined. If you define it as “delivering a fixed amount of instruction as measured by seat time,” then of course there’s no productivity gain; 45 hours of seat time in 1917 is the same as 45 hours of seat time in 2010. At the same time, the introductory biology class of 2010 covers a good deal more material than the introductory biology class of 1917, and includes more laboratory time. I’d count that as an improvement in productivity. The amount of scholarly research produced by today’s faculty is larger than the amount produced by yesterday’s faculty; I suspect most faculty would say that, too, is increased productivity.

  There’s been a huge increase in staffing in the last 50 years in several administrative areas: development (as endowment takes on a more important budgetary role), regulatory compliance (many more regulations), student activities (much more organizational support), and student support (mental health services, ADA accommodations, advising, etc.). While there must be some bloat in there, surely those people are also providing at least some services and benefits that were not provided in the 1950s: and that is a productivity gain as well.

  Because "productivity" is usually defined by the "seat-time" idea, the conversation has nowhere to go other than delivering the same material to more students, usually with the help of low-wage assistants.
  
  I think that what we need is some kind of blended platform. Announce a summit meeting on higher ed economics, to be held next June (or some other future date), with various bigfeet in attendance. Announce that in the months prior to the summit, there will be a website that hosts discussion forums based on readings as well as occasional events (e.g. videoconferences). The summit will deal in part with the issues and the discussions on the website. Obviously this will need a moderator who can keep things moving during the year and who can adequately represent the asynchronous conversation at the summit.

  Government and higher education officials tend to be lured by the media, and the media tend to cover events, which is why you need a summit. If the summit is successful, you can plan for a later one.

• Posted by West Coast Historiana on August 12, 2010 at 1:15pm EDT

• Thanks for the reading list. I cannot pretend to be an expert in this, but based on my own experience (dangerous, yes, to cite this as evidence, but this is a conversation) as a professor for ten years and a student for many years before that, the issue of the rising cost of college in America should be seen as part of a wide-reaching shift in what college actually is. One is tempted (especially curmudgeonly cranks like me) to blame the proliferation of administrators for the problem. This obscures the fact that while colleges used to offer an education (provided by professors mostly, with a skeletal support staff), they now offer an experience (in which professors only form part of the picture). That broader experience includes world-class recreational and entertainment facilities and a wide range of services from psychological counseling to career placement that were largely unavailable in distant past. My guess is that the cost of an education proper has not risen much (the percentage of tuition dollars that goes to faculty salaries or books for instance), but that these other things have exploded. If we ceased to offer students such amenities for free or at deep discounts (or were clear about what those would cost off campus), it might become clearer what they are really paying for. A gym membership, to cite one example, at my university costs $11/month, which would run close to $100 at a comparable facility a mile away. What is more, every one of our classrooms has in excess of $10,000 of technology that largely goes unused (sad, though true), but which requires servicing (available by a fantastic staff, I might add, who will be there in five minutes whenever you need them -- how much would that cost on the open market?) and regular software upgrades. When I was in college, the "gym" was a grubby old machine in the basement of the dorm (free personal training was, need I add, not an option) and classrooms were considered "smart" because of the professors and students, not the hardware.

• Productivity in Higher Education
• Posted by Eduardo M. Ochoa , Assistant Secretary for Postsecondary Education at Department of Education on August 12, 2010 at 10:30pm EDT

• Are these discussions on the economics of higher ed already taking place? Has the Obama administration brought together college presidents, CIOs, CFOs, provosts, deans, faculty and students to talk about productivity, costs, and access in higher education? Has the Department of Education published a set of best-practices and case studies of institutions that have lowered costs (lowered tuition), while increasing enrollment and quality? Are their grants available aimed specifically at programs that increase enrollments while lowering costs?

  These questions anticipate the direction that we are planning to focus on at the Office of Postsecondary Education in the coming year. Progress on this front will be a indispensable element in achieving President Obama's educational goal for 2020. We hope to facilitate this conversation, as well as support efforts at developing and identifying best practices and--most critically--diffusing them and bringing them to scale. Your thoughts on how to accomplish this are welcome.

• Why Prices and Costs Rise
• Posted by John Galt on August 16, 2010 at 7:45pm EDT

• Price is generally dictated by supply and demand. Considering the relatively new attitude that a higher education is something everyone should have, it's easy to see that demand has recently risen dramatically. But that's icing on the cake; it's a little more complicated than that.

  A customer paying out of pocket will refuse to pay for an institution after its price has escalated beyond a certain point (for obvious reasons.) A customer who uses the government to pay has no such incentive. Without government controlls on price, prices skyrocket. Couple that with the fact that that the customers have little incentive to get a quality product (a "bad" education is typically an easy diploma and employers don't have a yardstick to compare institutions). Then add the fact that most of these institutions are non-profit, where would-be profits are not easily seen and usually go to fund better, more expensive facilities, student care, and rising regulation-oriented administrative costs, and it's easy to see why the cost of education is rising.

  Note that I'm not advocating price controls.