On the whole, U.S. colleges and universities don’t get everything right. They’re overpriced, operationally hidebound, and ideologically stagnant. But American higher education does some things very well—well enough that students from around the world still choose to come to the United States to get advanced degrees.
About one-third of all freshmen are enrolled each year in a remedial class. Yet current remedial methods are not very effective. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, a mere 17 percent of four-year students enrolled in remedial reading and 27 percent of four-year students enrolled in remedial math go on to earn a bachelor’s degree. A 2010 study says that only half of the students required to attend remedial classes even complete remediation.
At the end of October, the Department of Education released its much-awaited "gainful employment" rule. It is supposed to fix (or at least lessen) the problem that many students who pursue vocational training with federal student aid money wind up without a job that pays well enough for them to cover their loans.
Ever since it was created in 1995, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni has been trying to help trustees do a better job. ACTA has issued readable, thoughtful reports advising trustees on topics such as advancing intellectual diversity, dealing with grade inflation, measuring academic effectiveness, criticizing accreditation, and cutting costs. But turning the ship of higher education around is a herculean task.
About to retire, Oklahoma senator Tom Coburn, M.D., has just released his 107-page 2014 Wastebook, a tabloid-type listing of over a hundred wasteful government-funded projects. Coburn continues the tradition of the late William Proxmire, the Wisconsin senator who, more modestly, chose just one or two “Golden Fleeces” each year.
It is Thanksgiving week, and six Pope Center staff members express thanks for some things that happened this year in higher education.
In 2012, a UNC-Chapel Hill freshman with a blood level of alcohol nearly three times the legal limit was found dead. Winston Crisp, vice chancellor for student affairs, saw this as indicative of a nationwide problem—one he has been working to address since then.
A new report from the Center for American Progress alleges that the “Great Recession” that began in 2008 devastated public university investments nationwide. Specifically, it says that over a five-year period, tuition has skyrocketed, states have withdrawn public investment, and low-income families have been pushed out of higher education.
Many college leaders speak as though the upward cost spiral is permanent and unavoidable. From experience, I can say that’s not true.
Tuition increases at American colleges began in earnest in the 1960s and ’70s, when I was a mathematics professor and later dean at C.W. Post College. The first changes driving the increases were the reductions in teaching loads.
In the past few months, under the chairmanship of John Fennebresque, the UNC Board of Governors has been more aggressive than in the past, drilling down into more topics and increasing its discussions in committees and in the full board meetings. But now the board is being distracted by a spat over confidentiality at Winston-Salem State University, one of the board’s sixteen college campuses.