I remember how it was -- JR
The Decline (and Fall?) of College
“A majority of Americans don’t think a college degree is worth the cost,” wrote Wall Street Journal reporter Douglas Belkin in late March. That revelation was inspired by the results of a survey of over 1,000 adults by the highly respected research organization NORC (formerly National Opinion Research Center) at the University of Chicago, in conjunction with WSJ.
Worse yet for colleges, the proportion of Americans with unfavorable assessments of an undergraduate degree’s worth has been rising steadily and rather considerably over the past decade and probably longer. A decade ago, an already worrisome 40 percent thought colleges were “not worth the cost because people often graduate without specific job skills and with a large amount of debt to pay off.” Now that proportion has risen to 56 percent.
At one time, public dissatisfaction with college was far stronger among Republicans, rural citizens, and males than among Democrats, urban dwellers, and females. But even here the data are discouraging for universities, with significant upticks in negative reactions from previously supportive groups. To colleges, the most frightening trend should be that younger (near college-age) adults have become markedly less fervent believers in the positive economic advantages of a college degree.
To be sure, the operational impact of this negative attitudinal change no doubt varies considerably across the higher-education landscape. I doubt the administration and faculty at Harvard or Stanford are worrying much, but employees at mid- or lower-reputation schools should be concerned, as should present and prospective students and those marketing the bonds with which universities finance capital improvements and other needs. On the latter point, in December, Fitch Ratings indicated it “anticipates a deteriorating credit environment for U.S. Public Finance Higher Education in 2023 relative to 2022.”
Edward Gibbon took a couple of decades and six volumes to depict the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, most of which occurred over 300 or so years in the Christian era. The modern history of American higher education suggests its own decline may be far shorter and, optimistically, could even be a transitory phenomenon. The erosion of American higher education might soon reverse itself and lead to ever greater growth and human accomplishment, not to mention prosperity for the advanced learning communities that dot the American landscape.
Yet, as a sometime teacher of the economic history of the ancient world, I see certain similarities between American higher ed and the fall of Rome. For example, the Roman Empire overextended militarily, while colleges have overextended educationally, reaching out to marginal students without the aptitude or the desire for higher learning.
The Roman Empire’s decline occurred in a fiscally precarious era, which featured an early version of deficit financing (debasing its currency, the denarius) not too dissimilar to America’s massive debt issuances to finance today’s bread and circuses.
Gibbon believed that the rise of a new theology, Christianity, was a disrupting influence that weakened Rome, just as the rise of wokeness in the universities is arguably destroying whole learning environments arising from the free but peacefully disputed expression of ideas.
It is not inevitable or even probable that American higher education will disappear like the Roman Empire. After all, America is a geographic entity not likely to vanish anytime soon, and organized higher learning has existed through war, peace, and famine for hundreds of years, maybe thousands if one reaches back to Socrates or his student Plato.
That’s enough history. What explains the deteriorating public perception of American higher education, and what are its consequences? Executive summary: The costs of higher education have risen, while the perceived benefits have declined as higher education has become a very risky investment.
Let me give a personal example. When I began teaching in 1965 at my very typical state institution, Ohio University, the in-state tuition fee was $450 a year, or $4,298 in February 2023 dollars (using the Consumer Price Index-U). The tuition today is $13,352, a more than tripling after adjusting for inflation.
For elite private schools, the numbers are even worse. The undergraduate tuition the year I entered Northwestern University in 1958 was $795, or $8,276 in current dollars. The current listed fee is $62,391, nearly eight times as much (and that excludes some additional mandatory fees to finance student government, attendance at athletic events, and “student health”).
While it is at least plausible that the quality of the educational product has grown enormously over time, my sense is that this has, in fact, not happened. Indeed, maybe just the opposite has occurred given the watering down of the curriculum and the prevalence of grade inflation.
To be sure, tuition discounting, known by most Americans as “scholarships,” has grown over time, as well. But, on balance, the real cost of attending college has soared for most Americans, growing even more than their incomes. While nearly everything else in life has become less burdensome to purchase in modern times because of rising incomes, higher education is an exception.
The American public is becoming increasingly aware that college is a risky investment. Roughly 36 percent of entering full-time students at baccalaureate colleges do not earn a degree within six years. Moreover, of those who do, about 40 percent of them become what the New York Federal Reserve Bank appropriately calls “underemployed” for a meaningful time after college, taking jobs traditionally filled by those with lesser educations.
With very rare exceptions, American colleges and universities are financially dependent on third parties—individuals other than their immediate customers and producers. For some schools, alumni donors are important, but nearly every school, including so-called “private” ones, directly or indirectly derives much of its income from the public (some of it indirectly through tuition fees obscenely inflated by federal financial assistance programs).
Not only does public skepticism about college lead directly to fewer college applications, but it indirectly leads politicians and philanthropists to be less supportive, contributing importantly to continuing woes for America’s colleges and universities.
The way forward, it seems to me, is for American colleges and universities to regain the confidence of the people that they have lost. That can be done only by focusing once again on educational excellence. This will require colleges to stop worrying about how to maximize revenue by enrolling students who have little interest in college-level work. It will also require universities to jettison their obsession with “diversity,” which has done much to turn them away from worthwhile curricula and the hiring of the best possible faculty.
https://www.independent.org/news/article.asp?id=14597&omhide=true&trk=title
*********************************************Private school sicced FBI on us when we protested critical race theory, moms claim
Two mothers whose kids were expelled from an exclusive private school after they campaigned against critical race theory have filed suit against the school and its headmaster – accusing them of calling in the FBI against them.
Andrea Gross and Amy Gonzalez allege in their suit, filed June 12, that Columbus Academy, just outside Columbus, Ohio, bullied them and took retaliatory action after they pushed back teaching critical race theory teaching and questioned how the school, a non-profit like most private schools, was handling its finances.
The moms told The Post they were just doing their due diligence and watching out for their kids but the school “overreacted” to the point where administrators called the police and alerted the FBI.
Gross, an attorney, and Gonzalez, who is a pharmacist, said the saga, which began during the pandemic in 2021 – started with what they saw as irregularities in how the $35,000-a-year school handled its money.
They have now set up their own private school, Columbus Classical Academy, with the first students starting late summer.
Gonzalez, who served on the Columbus Academy’s parent association, said she noticed that money that she believed had been earmarked to pay a bill had instead been “misdirected” to fund a pandemic-related account for black families at the school.
Gonzalez, whose daughter is Latina, said the money was not made available to any other minority students at the school.
“Everyone wants to make this about DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion),” Gross said. “It’s much more than that. What we don’t accept is kids being hurt and the predatory alienation of parents for asking questions. It’s a pattern – a way to shut down parents, malign them and throw the kids out like they are trash.”
At the same time the mothers accused the school, under its head Melissa Soderberg, of developing an extreme left-wing bias in recent years.
“One teacher stated, on the first day of class, that he would not communicate with any student who supported President Trump,” the complaint said.
“Politically charged issues were regularly taught and discussed in the classroom without opposing viewpoints presented.”
Among other things, the mothers’ suit said that activities involving racial pride were skewed away from Latinos. There was only one Latino costume available during a historical dress-up project: Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. Gonzalez’s daughter, who is Latina, was told she had to dress as Coretta Scott King.
The mothers said it was devastating for both them and their kids to be on the receiving end of calls to law enforcement agencies and to be made pariahs at the school after they spoke out.
“Columbus called the faculty – 863 people – in and said they had alerted the FBI,” Gonzalez said. “The takeaway was that we were dangerous. The headmaster even hired personal security for protection against us.”
The school, which includes pre-K through 12th-grade students, effectively expelled – or “denied re-enrollment” – to two of Gross’ children and one of Gonzalez’s.
“The school said we violated the ‘politeness agreement’ of our parent contract,” Gross said.
“They said we were violent and dangerous and it worked,” Gross said. “It destroyed our relationships with the school and our friends.”
Gross said it was particularly painful for her family, as her husband is a graduate of the school and credits it with being a formative part of his life.
They accuse the school of an attempt to “destroy their reputations in the community” in the suit, in a state court in Ohio. They are accusing the school of harassment and of breaking Ohio sales law by claiming to cater to diverse students but offering nothing to those with conservative viewpoints.
They seek unspecified compensation for damages in response, calling the actions of the head and the president of the board a “conspiracy.”
“This is a pattern across the country with private schools,” Gross said. “The boards of (non-profits) have responsibilities and they should be responsible for kids. Their finances are at the root. There is a pattern with the way they operate with their finances. It’s shockingly similar.”
Columbus Academy and its headmaster, Melissa Soderberg, did not respond to calls from The Post, but issued a statement through Werth PR, a crisis communications firm.
It said Gross and Gonzalez were motivated to sue by launching their own school, and called their case “lies,” saying that parts had been filed and withdrawn last year.
“These two individuals launched a national media attack against Columbus Academy two years ago,” the statement said.
“Columbus Academy will withstand this assault as we did the last one, and continue to stand for independence and excellence in the education of young scholars.”
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Charter Schools Are Outperforming Public Schools, New Study Shows
Townhall covered how California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) told teachers unions in his 2018 gubernatorial campaign that “vouchers and for-profit charter schools have no place in this state.” Despite being adamantly opposed to charter schools, and school choice altogether, Newsom sent his children to a private school that reopened after lockdowns sooner than most public schools in the state.
A study released by the nonpartisan Center for Research on Education Outcomes at Stanford University found that students at charter schools are outperforming students in public schools in standardized tests on math and reading.
According to Fox News, the center has compared standardized state test scores from the two types of schools since 2009. The first four studies showed that public schools outperformed the charter schools. Four years later, the schools were tied. Now, charter schools are outperforming public schools.
"Students who are enrolled in charter schools get more learning in a year's time in both reading and mathematics than they would have gotten had they gone to their local district schools," Dr. Macke Raymond, an author of the report, told the outlet. "To have so many thousands of schools each getting a little bit better to create this trend line was really quite a revelation."
Reportedly, the test scores suggest that charter schools outperform public school students by 16 added days of learning in reading and 6 added days of learning in math.
"That is a huge move that translates to more than two extra weeks of school," Raymond explained. "Imagine having your child go to school two extra weeks every year, year in, year out. That accumulates."
In the study, network charter schools did better, with their students gaining 27 extra days of reading and 23 in math.
“Gains are especially strong for low income, black and Hispanic students who 'advance more than their TPS(traditional public school) peers by large margins,’” Fox noted, adding that more than 1,000 schools have eliminated learning disparities and moved past their state’s average performance. And, charter schools enroll more students of color than their neighboring public schools.
Last year, a federal report showed that students suffered irreparable learning loss in the past two years due to pandemic lockdowns that kept children out of school. According to the National Assessment of Educational Progress, math and reading scores among 9-year-olds fell across all race and income levels in the past two years, though they were significantly worse among low-ranking students. Those in the 90th percentile showed a 3 percent drop in math scores, while students in the 10th percentile fell 12 points, which Leah covered. Average 9-year-old scores declined the most on record for math (seven points) and in reading since 1990 (five points).
This year’s report shows that 13-year-olds’ math and reading scores are the lowest in decades, according to The New York Times.
“More than ever before, educators and policymakers need reliable examples of strong student learning that they can emulate to make up for past shortfalls," Raymond said in a press release. "The results of this study, along with the longer story of improvement by charter schools, provide critical insights that can accelerate student learning in more communities.”
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My other blogs: Main ones below
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://australian-politics.blogspot.com/ (AUSTRALIAN POLITICS)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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