America Needs a GED Equivalent for a College Degree

As higher education undergoes dramatic changes thanks to the coronavirus, reformers should aim higher than expanding online education.

Now is a propitious time to end the dominance of accreditation agencies in higher ed and create a GED-like equivalency exam for a college degree.

Many students want a traditional college life: living on campus for four years, attending classes, and socializing. But for the majority of students, what matters most is learning and getting a credential for a good job or ready for graduate education. These students genuinely desire knowledge but don’t always need other aspects of the traditional college experience. What they need is the paper to prove they’ve done the hard work without the debt that two-thirds of graduates currently take on.

For students who do not complete high school, there is the General Educational Development (GED) exam. Passing the GED (or a similar certificate of high school equivalency) equates to earning a high school diploma. We need something similar for a bachelor’s degree.

The first step to creating a bachelor’s equivalency is to co-opt—or make irrelevant—the national Council for Higher Education Accreditation and regional accrediting agencies such as the Higher Learning Commission.

Those agencies judge whether a college, to which parents pay a king’s ransom to educate their children, is legitimate. Though accreditors will approve the occasional online program, it must be connected to or owned by traditional colleges, which charge correspondingly high tuition. Why? Because the people who judge the legitimacy of educational programs are themselves from other academic institutions. The justification is that only academic experts should judge academic institutions, but the effect is to keep non-traditional competitors outside the moat. The accreditors are insiders guarding the gates to higher education. They are part of a trust or a cartel.

A deep problem with a cartel is its control of a market that keeps competition out. It’s time to make formal accreditation one stamp of legitimacy for education—not the only one.

Though accrediting agencies demand that academic programs implement program review and self-assessment, this author is unaware of any rigorous assessment of the accreditation enterprise itself. The accreditation process is focused mainly on inputs to education, such as faculty credentials, mission statements, faculty-student ratio, mechanisms in place to assess some student learning outcomes, facilities, and the like. Though this kind of evaluation does indeed promote high-quality education, it is indirect and fails to measure the attainment of each student in their field of study—allowing many to “slip through” with an inadequate education.

Could a motivated student study and learn on his own and then outscore a traditional college student on an exam? It would not matter if he could because employers, licensing authorities, and graduate schools demand a degree from an accredited institution. There is no path for a modern-day Abraham Lincoln to read law on his own and then sit for the bar exam.

Here is where the U.S. Department of Education could flex one of the truly legitimate muscles of the state: busting trusts. A rigorous standardized exam would be a strong substitute for students to take an independent path to a college degree without accreditation’s issues.

The Department could develop a standardized exam that covers core knowledge expected for a traditional bachelor’s degree and specialized knowledge expected in a major field of study, such as business administration, psychology, computer science, or history. Passing this assessment would equate to a bachelor’s degree, regardless of whether the student enrolled at a college. The Department of Education could require universities to accept this bachelor’s-by-exam (BEx) as equivalent to a traditional bachelor’s degree for admission to graduate and professional programs. If not, the Department could use its power to pressure colleges or encourage employers to see the BEx as legitimate.

Employers would probably be happy to accept the BEx as equivalent to a BA or BS, given the Department’s stamp of approval and the use of a comprehensive exam to be granted a BEx.

Where would those standardized exams come from? The Department could coordinate the development of tests (content and criteria), but private outfits like Pearson Education and Education Testing Service would be far more effective in creating the actual exams than would a federal agency. ETS offers the College Board’s SAT (and other) exams and Pearson Education develops the GED. These organizations are experts at developing rigorous assessments, with the help of academic experts, and delivering them.

Exams in core topics (part 1 of the BEx assessment) would test foundational knowledge of broad subjects such as world history, science, mathematics, humanities, and the arts. The candidate would demonstrate a fundamental understanding of the liberal arts that is expected of one who holds a bachelor’s degree. Developing these exams will involve a good deal of jostling among various interests but would ultimately boil down to a GED-like assessment of basic educational attainment, aimed at university-level knowledge.

ETS already provides exams in several disciplines. Those could be adapted to test candidates for specific knowledge in their chosen major and require candidates to demonstrate their specialized knowledge. These exams should go beyond current exams, which are intended simply to rank students’ potential for graduate study or to support program review and assume that students have already taken assessments during a traditional four-year program.

Testing for part 2 of the BEx in disciplines that require laboratory skills, such as chemistry, or studio skills, such as art, would include validated live demonstrations of relevant skills, possibly provided at local high schools or colleges for modest fees. Broadly speaking, creative and in-depth experiences in the student’s major, including research papers, computer programs, performances, and works of art, would have to be built into any assessment of education deemed equivalent to a bachelor’s degree.

How would independent students acquire the knowledge and skills required to pass those exams?

Tutors and mentors, whose only stamp of legitimacy is their record of success with previous students, could teach students to help them prepare for the BEx. Test preparation businesses such as Kaplan and commercial training companies such as New Horizons are already set up to support independent learners and would likely be eager to expand into this new territory. Online learning platforms such as Khan Academy would be useful. Students could also take courses at a local community college in harder subjects if they feel the need. Libraries are also useful here.

The important point is that students could prepare for the BEx exams however they would like and could start at any age, even during their high school years. They may pay thousands of dollars for tutoring, lab experience, and fees, but the total cost would be a fraction of the college costs that, for too many students, can approach $100,000.

Critics will point out that passing an exam is not the same as learning within a community of scholars, with its rich interaction and mutual growth. This is nonsense. To pass the BEx exams, which by their very nature would be extremely challenging, a candidate would interact with a wide community of other candidates via online or in-person discussions, tutors, and mentors as they work through various subjects. The academic “intensity” of preparing for these exams would likely surpass that of many traditional college experiences and would be a mighty stretch without rich interactions with many other souls.

The non-traditional pathway to earning the equivalent of a bachelor’s degree proposed here would demolish current bureaucratic and financial barriers to higher education for many students. As the song goes: we have the technology, and now we have more reasons than ever to pursue this approach.

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Students, Faculty Punished for Speech on Social Media

Fordham University student Austin Tong has found himself in hot water over a protest picture on Instagram. In it, he posed with a gun to commemorate the 31st anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre.

The private university in New York City found that Tong’s post, as well as another where he criticized the response of left-wing activists to the homicide of retired St. Louis police chief David Dorn, violated university policies prohibiting “threats/intimidation” and “bias and/or hate crimes.” Tong has been placed on probation and will not be allowed to visit campus without prior approval, take leadership roles in student organizations, or participate in athletics.

He will also be required to complete complicit bias training and write an apology letter.

In response, FIRE sent Fordham a letter detailing how the university’s discipline of Tong over his posts are at odds with their stated mission to uphold free speech.

This isn’t the first time a university has punished students for their social media posts. Over the past months, FIRE has addressed several recent cases that violated First Amendment protections or a college’s commitment to free speech.

In May, FIRE wrote to the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC after a professor, John Tieso, was suspended for tweets dating back to 2018 that were critical of former president Barack Obama and senator Kamala Harris. Ignoring FIRE’s letter, CUA fired Tieso in June. Tieso has said that he will sue the university.

A professor at Weber State University in Utah, Scott Senjo, also received backlash over his tweets. After some of Senjo’s tweets supporting violence against rioters and criticizing congresswoman Ilhan Omar surfaced, WSU opened an investigation.

This problem is not exclusive to right-wing content, either. In January, Babson College professor Asheen Phansey was fired over a tweet responding to Trump’s threat to bomb 52 Iranian cultural sites. Babson’s tweet read, “In retaliation, Ayatollah Khomeni should tweet a list of 52 sites of beloved American cultural heritage that he would bomb. Um… Mall of America? …Kardashian residence?”

These are just a few of the many recent instances of universities disciplining students and faculty for political speech on social media. While many of the universities are private, and therefore not beholden to the First Amendment, they assure students of their commitment to open speech and debate in their student handbooks. Too often, when controversy happens, colleges are quick to condemn and fire rather than engage with speech.

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College Reform: Build Lifeboats to Escape the Sinking Ship

In their recent Martin Center policy brief, Joy Pullmann and Sumantra Maitra get much right about the activist professor problem in academia. These professors are dominating the profession in a way I wouldn’t have thought possible three or four years ago. Their control has led to an ideological monoculture, which suppresses freedom of thought and creative inquiry.

One need not look further than the job boards to see how the cycle perpetuates. Here is a sample of some of the positions advertised in my field (religious studies) this year:

A global liberation professor with expertise in “global theologies of liberation and de-colonial theory”

A Latin Patristics professor who can apply the insights of Augustine of Hippo to race, ethnic, and indigenous studies

An Asian religions professor working on “critical approaches to race, gender, sexuality, social hierarchies, and inequality, and power struggles and political movements.”

But as much as I support their diagnosis, I strongly disagree with their proposed solutions. They advocate for the same tactics as the activist professors in order to right the sinking ship of higher education.

I don’t believe that approach will produce any long-lasting reform. Instead, it will further stoke the animosity between liberals and conservatives on campus. A better way for reform lies in targeting accreditation, bypassing the governance issues completely.

Their first proposal is to limit public funds for activist disciplines through regulation.

How would they propose regulating such a quagmire? The federal government gives over $75 billion to higher education annually. State investments amount to another $87 billion. Not to mention the $1.5 trillion of government-backed student loans.

Let’s also not forget that universities have already been forced to hire administrators to keep up with the government rules that come with its monetary support. Most universities devote between 20 percent and 60 percent of their yearly budget to administrative costs. Compelling them to hire even more administrators to decipher those new “anti-activist clauses” in federal grants would only drive up the spiraling costs of education.

Second, they want governing boards to increase scrutiny on departments for ideological bias.

That sounds like another name for a diversity czar, the latest administrative fad at universities. The czar’s job is simple: monitor departments to see whether they are taking steps to actively promote diversity on campus and then “restructure” those that aren’t sufficiently abiding by their standards.

How would Pullmann and Maitra’s independent think tanks—tasked with “discovering, measuring, and producing reports” about ideological bias—be substantially different from the committees some Princeton faculty members now want to “oversee the investigation and discipline of racist behaviors, incidents, research, and publication?”

I certainly agree that it is important to quell active discrimination against those who hold minority views in academia. Surveys suggest that only 4 percent to 8 percent of professors in the humanities feel comfortable self-identifying as conservative. Creating agencies to “review” academic research, however, would just lead to more overreach. Any board investigating ideological bias would, by default, be ideologically biased themselves.

Their third proposal is to return to a selective, traditional conception of academia.

While professors should have more say about what they teach, I strongly disagree that returning to a traditional academic model means focusing on vocational job training. The point of a liberal arts education has always been to educate the leaders of tomorrow. Students must be encouraged to major in history, philosophy, and literature even if they are not profitable fields. We only have to look at our current government to see the dangerous consequences of having elected officials with no understanding of our heritage and traditions.

Finally, Pullmann and Maitra want to crack down on ideology and limitations on academic freedom.

The University of Chicago has been a leader in this regard. As their former president Hanna Holborn Gray observed (a quote included in the report): “Education should not be intended to make people comfortable, it is meant to make them think. Universities should be expected to provide the conditions within which hard thought, and therefore strong disagreement, independent judgment, and the questioning of stubborn assumptions, can flourish in an environment of the greatest freedom.”

Looking at what happened at Williams College when they tried to adopt the Chicago Principles, it might be necessary to pass laws protecting academic freedom. Yet, I remain skeptical about turning to the government for a solution to a problem they have actively aided and abetted.

Rather than develop a strong-armed approach, reformers should instead focus on supporting business endeavors that offer sidelined scholars a platform to teach and present their research. Of course, bringing the free marketplace to higher education is easier said than done. Companies like Udemy—which allow anyone to create, upload, and sell online courses—are not allowed to issue degrees.

That trouble leads to the real problem with higher education: an overly stringent accreditation process.

Accreditation agencies are “independent” commissions that develop minimum standards for colleges. Their ostensible purpose is to hold universities accountable—to ensure that students are not wasting their money on diploma mills and other scams.

But here’s the kicker: the members of the agencies that determine whether universities are in compliance are from those very same institutions. And consequently, the rules they have established concerning tenured faculty, campus facilities, and governing boards make it very difficult for innovative challengers to enter the field.

Some of the main issues with accreditation include:

The process can take 5 or 6 years for new colleges. Also, institutions cannot begin the process until they have students. To attract students, however, an institution needs to show that it is accredited

It is expensive and time-consuming: it costs around $1 million to participate in a review

The agencies require “adequate” physical and technical infrastructure to support its operations. This penalizes newcomers who are either still in the building stage or experimenting with online models. Only 6 percent of regionally accredited colleges were newly accredited between 2007 and 2016.

So how do we get around that roadblock? A couple thoughts:

Focus on high school students

COVID-19 has presented education reformers with a wonderful opportunity—if they choose to take it. If high schools struggle to reopen this fall, parents will look for different options. Independent academics should be ready to offer their services. They can create online versions of Aristotle’s Lyceum and teach a classical liberal arts curriculum. In so doing, they will provide students with a vision of education that is devoid of an activist agenda and perhaps start a grassroots demand for reforming university curricula.

Rediscover the private junior college

Rather than lobby the government for policy changes, lobby philanthropists to set up private junior colleges like Deep Springs College, where equal emphasis is placed on classical study and work. Private junior colleges had their heyday in the 1930s and 1940s, but most were wiped out with the rise of publicly funded community colleges.

With tuition costs skyrocketing, more people might begin to take more interest in two-year degree programs. Junior colleges also tend not to be subject to as many licensing regulations as four-year institutions. Thus, they have the potential to be a space for both pedagogical ingenuity as well as the revitalization of the classical liberal arts curriculum.

With the added pressures of COVID-19, the ship of higher education is sinking. Plugging a few holes as Pullmann and Maitra suggest won’t stop it from going down. It’s time to think about what lifeboats we need to deploy.

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Nightmarish Biden/Harris ticket is the teachers union’s 'dream team'

The low teacher pay fabrication has been exploded more times than Wile E. Coyote.

“You don’t just have a partner in the White House, you’ll have an NEA member in the White House.” Referring to his wife Jill, presidential hopeful Joe Biden uttered those words at the virtual National Education Association convention in early July. He also expressed dissatisfaction with charter schools and said he wanted to triple funding for Title I schools, higher pay for educators, universal pre-k, etc. – all music to the ears of the teacher union faithful.

But as we all know, if elected, Mr. Biden will not be POTUS for long. The man is firmly entrenched on Senility Street, and his legendary gaffes have turned positively daft. When Biden – willingly or otherwise – steps aside, the reins would then be in the hands of Vice President Kamala Harris.

After Biden announced his VP choice, the National Education Association referred to the duo as the “Dream Team” and posted “6 reasons educators are excited about Kamala Harris.” It’s all the usual stuff – increasing k-12 funding, defaming current Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, asserting that “vouchers divert public school funding,” etc. Yup, all the gooey twaddle that does nothing at all for kids, but does get the NEA elite and their flock really excited.

More than anything, Harris has inserted herself as the Wizard of Ed, with all goodies flowing from the White House. The fact that federal programs like No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top and Head Start were all ridiculously expensive and accomplished little, if anything, seems to be if no interest to her.
Teacher salaries are a big issue for Harris. In 2019, she proclaimed that “the United States is facing a teacher pay crisis.” Her evidence? “Public school teachers earn 11 percent less than professionals with similar educations (sic).” Her solution is to give teachers across the country an average yearly $13,500 pay bump.

The low teacher pay fabrication has been exploded more times than Wile E. Coyote. Teachers do indeed make less than some other professionals, but there are valid reasons for that.

The low teacher pay fabrication has been exploded more times than Wile E. Coyote. Teachers do indeed make less than some other professionals, but there are valid reasons for that. According to U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, teachers work on average 1,398 hours per year, whereas lawyers put in 2,036 hours per annum, almost 50 percent more time on the job. Dentists (1,998 hours/year) and accountants (2,074 hours/year) also work many more hours than teachers.

Additionally, salaries alone are not the whole story, as they don’t include the extraordinary perks that most teachers receive. When healthcare and pension packages are included, teachers are actually overpaid, according to a study by researchers Andrew Biggs and Jason Richwine. They found that workers who switch from non-teaching jobs to teaching jobs “receive a wage increase of roughly 9 percent, while teachers who change to non-teaching jobs see their wages decrease by approximately 3 percent.”

The cost of Harris’ teacher pay plan would be prohibitive. As Mike Antonucci points out, the raise would cost taxpayers about $42 billion a year. Not only that, but teacher pensions are typically based on average salary over a period of time. This will greatly stress already underfunded state pension systems.

When Harris was running as a presidential candidate, school desegregation was a key issue. While short on specifics, she did say that busing was an important component and wanted resources for it. But busing has never been popular or effective, except to racial bean counters whose agenda has no room for educational quality. Children can spend hours on a bus, gaining nothing academically by doing so. To achieve greater integration and educational excellence, let’s get rid of the zip code-mandated government-run education system we have throughout most of the country. Since most neighborhoods are not well integrated, neither are the schools. But opening up a system of universal choice would allow parents to expand their education options. In fact, researcher Greg Forster reports that ten empirical studies have examined private school choice programs on segregation and nine found the programs reduced it, while one found no visible difference.

A recent American Federation for Children poll conducted by Beck Research, a Democratic polling firm, reveals that nationally 73 percent of Latinos and 67 percent of African-Americans back “the broad concept of school choice.”

Not surprisingly, Harris and her union friends are mum on these inconvenient facts.

Another idea from Harris that has the unionistas all atwitter is her calling for a federal ban on right-to-work laws, declaring, “I’d use my executive authority to make sure barriers are not in place to do the advocacy (unions) need to do.” Sounds as if, with the stroke of a pen she would try to knock out right-to-work laws for private sector workers in 27 states, as well as similar protections for government workers in all 50 states courtesy of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus decision. Of course, right-to-work laws have nothing to do with “barriers.” Unions are still allowed to function, but forcing workers to pay dues is not legal.

Both Biden and Harris have said they would pick a teacher to be their Secretary of Education. Randi Weingarten, as a former teacher – albeit briefly – and union leader, certainly fits their requirements. If that doesn’t frighten you, nothing will.

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