Talkin' 'bout Higher Education...

People try to put us d-down (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Just because we g-g-get around (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Things they do look awful c-c-cold (Talkin' 'bout my generation)
Yeah, I hope I die before I get old (Talkin' 'bout my generation)

I've read a number of articles about the changing nature of higher education recently.

Utne has an article in its September/October issue that takes a Panglossian perspective on how the Web and how individualized learning is the proper pathway to "21st century education," as the cliche goes. "The Learning Class" by Anya Kamenetz has some interesting points, but I guess I'm old fashioned in a number of ways.

In the October issue of Harper's, Christopher R. Beha's "Leveling the Field: What I Learned from For-Profit Education" is an investigative report on the University of Phoenix. Beha posed as a new student,  and he discusses his "educational" experience and tracks the (lack of) progress of his student cohort. The article brings up a number of fine points about the methods of for-profit universities and how they do their business.

But the important turn in the article for me was when the author effectively questions the American belief that everyone needs to go to college, a trope the President has used in numerous speeches and via his goals for higher education--how America needs to be the country producing the largest amount of college graduates in the world and all that shizz.

Citing a report from the Harvard Graduate School of Education, he argues that the "'college for all mentality'" is one of the main problems in our discussions about education in our country. He states, "The authors of the report advocate directing resources to occupational certificates and other non-degree-based programs that prepare students for 'middle skill' jobs--electricians, police officers, construction managers, health-care workers--jobs that are difficult or impossible to outsource. These jobs require more than a high school diploma but something less than--or other than--a college degree. Such training has been a prime casualty of the Obama administration's degree obsession: the president's proposed 2012 budget will increase overall education spending but cut funding for vocational and technical schools by 20 percent" (57).

Beha agrees with the authors of the Harvard report that the U.S. should emulate the models of many European and Scandinavian nations "that have robust apprenticeship and non-degree programs," such as Germany but more so along the lines of Denmark and Finland (57). Beha opines, "These countries feel no need to pretend that everyone can be a college student, since they have already committed to taking care of both the winners and losers in society" (57).

In this post I don't intend to say that college education has little value. Heck, I went to a liberal arts college (a public one though, not a private) because I believe in the liberal arts experience and educating the whole person--not just educating people to be cogs in the machine. However, to believe in and reinforce the "college for all" mentality is foolhardy and just not practical.

To also monkeywrench with the "everyone needs to go to college" belief or just how higher education works in general, I offer "Changing Education Paradigms" from RSA below. Enjoy.