Colleges should focus spending on education

April 7, 2008 —

A GROWING INDUSTRY -

As the education industry booms, the amount of students seeking advanced degrees in the humanities in particular and the liberal arts in general has skyrocketed. According to a review in the Chronicle of Higher Education, in his book How the University Works, Marc Bousquet argues that colleges and universities across America take advantage of graduate students in those disciplines.

They're forced to teach lower-level composition and general education courses while they perform graduate research in hopes of securing a full-time professorship after receiving a Ph.D. But, Bousquet argues, that's the end of many academic careers. Once a student is granted his or her Ph.D, the job hunt commences. And for many students, that job hunt feels a lot like rolling the dice. Simply put: There are far fewer positions than there are qualified candidates for those positions. And that situation, Bousquet argues, only figures to worsen as more and more classes are taught by adjuncts and graduate students (the two often are the same).

Most graduate students are expected to follow the rules and be rewarded with a job. We've tried to outline some of the rules in our front-page feature this week.

Yet, it's a troublesome picture that Bousquet paints. But what trends are responsible for this state of affairs?

Perhaps it's because colleges are acting increasingly like companies in the private sector. The product (liberal arts education) is manufactured as efficiently as possible, hiring part-timers to teach the majority of classes, a practice widely exercised at universities across the country. Big bosses (provosts, presidents and deans) are paid vast sums with bountiful perks to oversee day-to-day operations. Some "classes" are "taught" over the Internet, all but eliminating the costs associated with hosting students and a professor on campus.

Perhaps it's because schools spend more on non-educational stuff: Multi-million dollar stadiums. Expansive study-abroad programs with questionable academic goals. Humongous research laboratories that make faculty feel really important. PR divisions to craft a brand and an image. Tae Kwon Do courses. Coffee bars with wireless Internet.

Do any of the above tangibly improve the quality of a student's education? Moreover, do such projects justify the never-ending rising cost of tuition across the United States?

Colleges should reexamine their educational goals. This involves, first and foremost, reigning in non-instructional costs. The more money focused on classroom instruction, the better. Some major athletic colleges, like the University of Florida, spend up to $1 million per year per varsity athlete. That same figure could employ 10 to 15 more Ph.Ds. Granted, for many large universities, it's already too late to realign priorities in such a drastic way. But for smaller colleges and universities like SVSU, it's not too late.

SVSU's fiscal conservatism has prevented a lot of these worrisome trends from taking hold. But some indicators exist. There are more adjunct instructors than ever before. Class sizes are increasing, ever-so-slightly. A word of advice to SVSU's decision-makers: ignore pleas for stuff we don't need, and focus on education.