SCSU prof explains how college has become a very expensive, complete joke

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Education: SCSU prof explains how college has become a very expensive, complete joke



The five-year party.

If you're a high school junior or senior thinking about options for college - or the parent of such a budding adult - I hope you've recognized by now that the time and money invested in a college degree is not necessarily the value society is always trying to convince you it is. But just in case you're still wallowing in that delusion, you might want to listen to Geoffrey L. Collier. He is in the trenches, a professor of psychology at South Carolina State University, and yesterday he published a devastating piece in the Wall Street Journal that lays bare what a joke higher education has really become.

If you've already committed a lot of money to higher education, you might want to be sitting down while you read this. If you haven't but you're thinking about it, well . . .


Education thus has degenerated into a game of "trap the rat," whereby the student and instructor view each other as adversaries. Winning or losing is determined by how much the students can be forced to study. This will never be a formula for excellence, which requires intense focus, discipline and diligence that are utterly lacking among our distracted, indifferent students. Such diligence requires emotional engagement. Engagement could be with the material, the professors, or even a competitive goal, but the idea that students can obtain a serious education even with their disengaged, credentialist attitudes is a delusion.

The professoriate plays along because teachers know they have a good racket going. They would rather be refining their research or their backhand than attending to tedious undergraduates. The result is an implicit mutually assured nondestruction pact in which the students and faculty ignore each other to the best of their abilities. This disengagement guarantees poor outcomes, as well as the eventual replacement of the professoriate by technology. When professors don't even know your name, they become remote figures of ridicule and tedium and are viewed as part of a system to be played rather than a useful resource.

To be fair, cadres of indefatigable souls labor tirelessly in thankless ignominy in the bowels of sundry ivory dungeons. Jokers in a deck stacked against them, they are ensnared in a classic reward system from hell.

All parties are strongly incentivized to maintain low standards. It is well known that friendly, entertaining professors make for a pleasant classroom, good reviews and minimal complaints. Contrarily, faculty have no incentives to punish plagiarism and cheating, to flunk students or to write negative letters of reference, to assiduously mark up illiterate prose in lieu of merely adding a grade and a few comments, or to enforce standards generally. Indeed, these acts are rarely rewarded but frequently punished, even litigated. Mass failure, always a temptation, is not an option. Under this regimen, it is a testament to the faculty that any standards remain at all.

It really should come as no surprise that higher education has devolved into such a racket. Professors are protected by tenure rules, and respond to incentives to graduate students in high numbers. Students learn the game and play along, being more motivated at their age to party and pursue their social lives than to pursue academic excellence. Administrators' primary concern is to keep everything looking good, keep alumni happily writing checks and keep legislators approving generous state allocations. (Oh, and fund that football program!)

And as for parents, what method is available for them to really check into the claims they hear that this or that institution is a "first-rate school" or has a "top engineering program"? You hear this stuff. How would you really know if it's true? With all the pressure on students to go to college, along with the dire warnings that their earning potential will be diminished if they don't - and with student loans so easily accessible - who can resist the proposition of getting the kid in school and worrying about the debt later?

It's sort of like the way the federal government works, and in more ways than one. A major state university is a huge employment generator, for professors, administrators, staff, lawyers, custodians, football coaches . . . an awful lot of people need these institutions to survive and thrive so they can keep their jobs, and it's in everyone's best interests to keep graduation rates high and not to say a word about some of what really goes on. So if people have to go into debt in order to keep the enterprise running, what do they care?

Yeah. See? They learn this thinking while they're young.

This is pretty much what you get when government creates institutions that cater to wide sectors of the population. The perpetuation of the institution becomes the most important thing. Private alternatives are often better, but remember many of them largely follow the same model.

To be sure, some students show up well prepared and take their education seriously, doing their best in spite of the perverse incentives because this is who they are. But an awful lot more enroll because they have no other plans, they qualified for financial aid, college was a family expectation (or goal) . . . and dude, parties!

For those who flame out after a year or two, or those who graduate poorly prepared for the career that was supposed to be waiting for them on the other end, but facing years of payments on their student loan debt . . . you can't help but wonder if they would have been better off skipping all this and pursuing alternate career paths. As we discussed back in April, [such alternatives are plentiful], and for smart kids they can lead to a much quicker start on a good career without the massive investment or the debt.

You do what you want, but don't let society tell you that your only choices are between college and destitution. That is simply not true, and if they want you to go to college that badly, you should demand that they make it a better value.

[Companion article here]

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