Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
From where I sit: Bye-bye, American high
8 October 2009
The era of US dominance in higher education, like the era of the expanding American middle class, seems to be over. Its official death knell might have been sounded when Deborah Solomon's interview with Mark Yudof, president of the University of California, appeared in The New York Times recently.
"UC is facing a budget shortfall of at least $753 million (£689 million), largely because of cuts in state financing," she said. "Do you blame Governor Schwarzenegger for your troubles?"
"I do not," he replied. "This is a long-term secular trend across the entire country. Higher education is being squeezed out. It's systemic. We have an ageing population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with healthcare."
And education, she asked? "The shine is off of it," Professor Yudof said. "It's really a question of being crowded out by other priorities."
This is an appalling thing for a public-university president to say, and Yudof is being properly filleted for it by his faculty. Even more appalling is that it happens to be true.
As recently as the 1980s, states saw it as their obligation to make their public colleges and universities broadly affordable. And then came neoliberalism and with it the evisceration of the ideas of the public sector and the common good.
My own institution, Penn State University, has the dubious distinction of being the most expensive public university in the US. In 1985, we received 45 per cent of our funding from the state, and our tuition fee for state residents was $2,562 a year; today, our level of state support is 9 per cent and dropping, and tuition fees are more than $13,000 a year (more than $24,000 for non-residents).
During that time, we have developed an elaborate kabuki dance with the state legislature. Each year, we ask for a modest 3 to 5 per cent increase in state appropriations, and each year we don't get it, because everyone knows we can make up the shortfall by hiking tuition. We'll just pass the pain on to our paying customers - and encourage them to see themselves as customers.
Students and their families have absorbed the tuition-fee increases by taking out loans: nationally, college graduates now wind up roughly $20,000 in debt.
We try to tell ourselves that it's no worse than asking them to buy a car, but of course the cost of tuition is one car a year - the debt merely represents the "car" payments they are still making. And what happened to our federal student-loan agency? You guessed it: it was privatised years ago.
Meanwhile, the faculty has been flailing about, trying to find ever more instrumentalist justifications for our enterprise. Since it's hard to tell 22-year-olds with five-figure debts that college is supposed to train them for nebulous things such as "critical thinking", "lifelong learning" or "world citizenship", we've tried to argue instead that public universities enhance students' earning potential and therefore indirectly swell the state's tax coffers; that we help them to compete in a global economy; and that we do much of the basic research and development for US industry.
Humanists tend to be uneasy with these rationales, since they seem - and are - 100 per cent intellectual-content-free. But perhaps we need not bother trying to utter them convincingly; they don't seem to work, either.
For Americans - even some American university presidents - the shine is off those bright college years, and no one knows how to bring it back.
Michael Bérubé is Paterno Family professor in literature at Pennsylvania State University.
Readers' comments
Why is it over again ? ratings show it ???? this story is just another example of liberal selfloathing
Does Bérubé seriously believe that the US universities have abandoned the idea that higher education is about enhancing the person (rather than enhancing the economy)? And I suppose US universities no longer talk of producing graduates that will change the world for the better... Budget cuts or not, I seriously doubt it. The value Americans put on education is far too high to believe the shine has come off the US university system. So while their might be a period of budgetary contraction, the US public simply won't allow colleges and universities to fail.
I find the Times's recent focus on the supposed decline of the US universities (with the corresponding rise of the UK ones?) rather annoying and counterproductive.
The truth is that within American universities, there are plenty of people who do continue to believe that education's true mission is improvement of the person. This is a big part of the reason why so many elite faculty continue to teach at places such as Berkeley or UCLA where they will never make as much money as at places like Harvard, Stanford, Yale, etc., which constantly try to "poach" the best professors from their lower-remunerated public university jobs. At the same time, there are also many people who believe that education's purpose is to improve the economy and/or to improve the person's economic prospects. This includes many students and professors in the business and technical fields. I don't mean this as a slander. There are simply many people who have come of age in a time when arts/humanities funding at the elementary and secondary levels has been cut back or eliminated across the country. Many kids are just looking forward to the basic "Game of Life" future of getting a piece of paper called a diploma which serves as your ticket into a well-paying field which enables you to buy a house and support a middle-class lifestyle. In the 1950s, the U.S. prepared for the postwar boom by investing in public education. Clark Kerr, chancellor of the University of California, created the California Master Plan for Higher Education, which served as a blueprint for the massive growth of California universities and R&D. This was intended to guarantee mass access to higher education, and at the time it was deliberately and explicitly sold to the Legislature and the public as an investment in the economy. And with good reason, too: apart from the success of Silicon Valley, thanks to the confluence of Stanford and UC Berkeley, there are also the well-known local industrial "clusters" in electronics/life sciences/biotech which owe their existence in large part to UC Santa Barbara, UC Irvine, and UC San Diego. So, the two missions - economic and humanistic - are not mutually exclusive. In fact I'd say the economic has been successfully used in the past to subsidize the latter. I think there has been some poor leadership and lack of vision, both at the university administration and the state legislature levels, that has allowed these stellar universities to erode.
12 US universities are in top 16 . Era of dominance is over ? Really ? Is literature professor coming up short in math department ?
This article is nonsense. I do not even know how the author can make such a conclusion. US universities will always be the best since we put premium on education no matter what the economy says. Infact some universities saw increase in enrollment this year, showing that education is more important when times are harder. U.S. universities like Princeton, Johns Hopkins, Stanford, etc. will always be on top for their research and diversity.
I share the author's concerns. The point is that students are getting more and more pragmatic. Who will do science then? Higher fees make more difficult the self-selection of future talented scientists.
Bérubé makes a point that may be valid by citing an interview that made a very, very different point which might also be valid. President Yudof of the University of California said "Higher education is being squeezed out. It’s systemic. We have an aging population nationally. We have a lot of concern, as we should, with health care." He was talking about the budgets of historically state-funded institutions. Equating "budget problems" with conflicting political or social priorities is a serious error in reasoning. Funding problems do not (let me repeat this: they do NOT) signal the end of the "era of US dominance in higher education." Yudof and Bérubé -- and higher education professionals who work between California and Pennsylvania -- know that the world is changing. We are muddling through on a global scale. It's not (just) about higher education. But in the world of higher education, we must accept that education and funding are not the same thing. We need to get on with the business of educating for the 21st century. Period.
The Times Higher Table doesn't reveal a decline in US HE, nor a rise in UK HE. In purely citations terms (per staff member), 9 of the top 10 are in the US, while the highest ranked UK university comes in at 49 (Cambridge). The latter list is a better indicator of the *current* quality of research output and passes the bullshit test with a higher mark.
What crap you are talking about. Americans also produce their lists which is totally American -centric and THE list is atleast world -wide. While we have heard of many American universities, Americans will struggle to identify 5 of British universities ( calling Britain as England). Most do not travel out of their country and have very little knowledge of other countries. When I was working there I used to be flabbergasted by their geographical and historical ignorance. In 1970s oil hike by Middle East countries, I watched with amusement them searching Middle East near New Zealand.!
I have been visiting American universities quite frequently and one thing I noticed how the tenure system is acting against modernisation of research groups, departments and faculties in many universities. My colleague Jason has also mentioned this in his posting in another thread. The old so called reputed universities were grand once and they have the rot of tenure setting firmly. Eben minor state universities and indeed colleges suffer from this. The economic down turn means that no change will occur in the foreseeable future. Our top universities here are dynamic, have more new blood as old academics retire at 65. I agree to some extent "To A Shah". The American lead on technologies will diminish fast as China fast catches up. With modest funding we give more bang for the buck. I believe the THE league table. Do not shoot the messenger. As for those academics from US who laugh at the leagiue table, my message is looking around in your deprtment and count how many are not mobile and who needs to retire and so on..
To the ignoramus who responded to my post, I repeat, citations per staff puts the American universities on top in terms of current research quality. These statistics are not made up by Americans. Many non-US, e.g. ETH, are also hard done by on this list. If universities are to be ranked in this way and the results used to imply research prowess, I don't see what purpose criteria like "International staff" and "international student score" serve, other than to skew the results in favour of certain countries/universities....
Indian living in America? The use of your language shows. You are international aren't you?
To A. Shah Simon above makes an extremely valid point which I have drawn attention to in another thread. The academic tenure and no fixed age of retirement has almost killed any innovation and any induction of new blood in many US universities. Americans ado not believe this but it is true. If you care to examine this issue further instead of using flowery epithets, you will understand.
@A Shah " If universities are to be ranked in this way and the results used to imply research prowess, I don't see what purpose criteria like "International staff" and "international student score" serve, other than to skew the results in favour of certain countries/universities...." American universities are proud in advertising that they attract international students and staff saying loud and cleat about the opportunities they create for them. It is strange that you do not recognise this- I am assuming that you are in the USA. As for citations, in some areas like computing and electrical engineering, American journals dominate the scene and the editorial teams and reviewers are almost all Americans. They naturally relate to the style and presentation of work done in USA, and indeed the editorial teams very often solicit papers from American academics in these journals. Hence citations naturally are American -centric. I can give many examples. Non-Americans ( I mean non-citizens) have no hope of getting NSF funds even as co-investigators but Americans (non-European citizens) can join a consortium and present funding proposals to European Commission's Framework Programmes and indeed increasing number of American academics are doing this as the funding are fast drying up in their country. Your observation is one-sided and I am not sure how familiar you are in the current situations at the top American universities. The article is right even if you do not like it. Many top universities in the UK have indeed improved in terms of their quality of delivery. We as Brits are naturally cynical about it.
@"To A Shah", I see that your area of expertise is racial stereotyping. I was born in the UK, grew up here and have studied/worked in UK academia for half of my life, as it happens in 3 of the universities in the table. I've also spent time in Canada and the US at two of the universities in the table. And I am not of Indian origin, but may well satisfy your definition of "international". @Stefan, in my experience, there is no comparison between the UK and US in the research areas I've worked in. Moreover, other European countries like Germany and France are forging ahead with leading scientific research and technology development on a scale that UK scientists can only dream of. We are seriously underfunded; applying to the EPSRC for funding is akin to playing the national lottery, both in terms of the chances of success and the random nature of the decisions. For these reasons I'm skeptical about this table. In particular, don't think it's fair on many institutes in non English speaking countries, e.g., ETH, Ecole Normale Paris. Regarding publications and citations, you are right about the historical US monopoly in certain fields. We mustn't exaggerate this, however, since some of the mainland European universities are managing to match the US universities on this front - they also have to overcome possible language issues. One personal bugbear is that many US journals have page charges, which make it difficult for UK academics to publish there. In contrast, academics in Asia and Europe do publish a fair bit in US based journals, often out of preference. Thankfully, in recent years many of the Europe-based journals have strengthened their positions, increasing their impact factors quite substantially. US academics are, therefore, increasingly (though at a slow rate) looking towards Europe-based journals. These journals are already popular among Asian academics. I think an equally important factor for high citation numbers in the US is a tendency (in sciences) towards large groups of staff, postdocs & PhDs, who naturally cite each other's work. In the UK, on the other hand, it is often difficult to form a critical mass of researchers. @Simon and Jason, I was not trying particularly to sing the praises of the US system. I was merely pointing out that, *currently*, US universities are maintaining a strong position and that predictions of their demise are premature. In time, Asian countries will become more dominant, particularly in novel technologies if they carry on the way they are going, and the US system could already be stagnating, but we are not witnessing a total collapse just yet. You suggest a dynamism in the UK system compared to the US model. With respect, this is not something I recognise, more for reasons to do with the UK than the US. For a start, UK higher education seems to be moving inexorably towards a the US style system: in teaching (semesters, modules, credits, plans for more flexible courses); in the administrative and financial management of universities (plans for increased fees, bursaries, endowments, more industrial funding); as well as Tory plans for encouraging wholly private provision. I don't personally want to see such changes but I believe some are inevitable in the years to come. We are dynamic in the way we recruit staff. It seems a much more open process than than those of the US and some other European countries. I don't know, however, to what extent we are attracting the best candidates. I still get the impression that a majority of non-EU staff, PhD and postdoc applicants are aiming for the top US universities. Many EU academics come here to escape a lack of opportunity in their countries - which is not to say they aren't good. In any case, this admirable aspect of our system is largely nullified by the historical and continuing low funding levels, compared to our main rivals (viewed as a % of GDP). Although we've seen improvements in the last decade, we now seem to be moving in the opposite direction rapidly.
Could you not put what you say in fewer sentences with a focus. Hard to imagine that you were born and studied here. If you write your research proposal the way you express your thoughts here, they will unlikely to be funded.
How's this: If you don't want to engage the points raised, please crawl back to the rock from whence you crawled and mop up the slimy trail on the way back.
@A Shah The UK universities model is not moving inexorably towards US model particularly as the teaching and research methods are very different here. If you are so attracted to US model, why can't you move to US? Not all US universities are generously funded. The funding level there appears to be high as even state universities charge high fee compared to UK universities. Even with page charges, I had no difficulty in publishing in US journals. It appears you do not have external funding support to say this. EPSRC funding cannot be called as lottery but proposals meet heavy competition just as proposals for NSF funding do. In the coming decades private university education is going to play a bigger part whether you like it or not.
And good night
@Simon, yes, I suggested the UK system is moving towards a US style system, but I didn't say I liked the US system not that all US universities are generously funded? I said that the top US universities have until now been generously funded, which has allowed them to maintain their position. No, I don't have much external (non EPSRC) funding; mine isn't bigger than yours. Have you seen the success rates for the last few EPSRC panels?
No use in hurling these epithets. Unless you are able to write with a focus, no EPSRC panel would entertain a poorly written proposal.