Expanding universities have become sinkhole for resources

By James Palmer Source:Global Times Published: 2014-3-30 22:43:01

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT



For decades, the majority of people in the West didn't go to university. University education was reserved for a particular set of professions, academic, doctor, lawyer, teacher.

It was a system riddled with all manner of biases and barriers, but it was still one where social mobility was significantly higher than today. The massive expansion of university education that began in the 1960s, intended to open up society, has actually created an even worse setup.

In the West, universities have become a combination of arbitrary barrier and con game. If you didn't go to university, many employers won't even look at you.

As South Korean economist Ha-Joon Chang puts it, "not going to university is implicitly declaring that you are in the bottom half of the ability distribution, which is not the greatest way to start your job search."

So for kids from families that cannot support educational ambitions, financially or culturally, the deck is even more stacked against them than in the old days.

Not going isn't an option for anyone with ambition. But at the same time, universities are becoming even more expensive, especially in the US. With student loans guaranteed by the government, schools have been jacking up tuition costs at rates far ahead of inflation.

Meanwhile, governments that previously provided free or low-cost tertiary education, such as most of Europe, are struggling to cope with a system in which 80 percent, rather than 30 percent, of 18-year-olds stay in school. 

Education advocates argue that the advancement of technology and the supposed "knowledge economy" has made it necessary to stay longer in school. But most university programs, especially in the humanities, have barely altered to take in technology, and much technology has actually made it necessary to learn fewer techniques, not more. A chemist educated in the 1950s had to learn to perform procedures that are now as arcane and outdated as alchemy or have become casually automated.

And even if jobs now require more skills, is a classroom the best place to learn them? Hands-on learning is far better suited for many students. In practice, many employers have to train up graduates at 22 anyway; why not do it at 18 instead?

Economic evidence of the direct value of expanding higher education is scanty. The boom periods of most modern countries happened at points when university enrollment hovered at between 30 and 50 percent at most. As Chang points out, Switzerland, with one of the highest productivity rates in the developed world, was able to buck the trend and keep university enrollment at just 10 to 15 percent for decades, until recent pressure to imitate forced efforts to raise it to 47 percent.

Inflationary educational pressure has created degrees in fields that never needed them before. If you wanted to become a journalist in the 1960s, you got a newsroom job out of school and learned in the field. Now newsrooms hire 24-year-olds who went to "J-school" for a Masters' and come out less capable than the cub reporters of the past.

University can broaden the mind and expand people's sense of possibility. But forcing people into school who aren't inclined to academic learning won't make them any keener on it. If we want a wiser society, we'd be better off pouring the money into libraries, arts programs, and adult education that squeezing teenagers into the same mould.

It's not uncommon for students in the US to carry debt in the hundreds of thousands, leaving them economically hamstrung right at the start of the race. That's not a recipe for interesting, creative people, but for drones weighed down by the need to pay off their debt.

Right now, there are thousands of educational "experts" in China preaching the same gospel; get everyone into university. Unsurprisingly, most of them work for universities themselves. The tight job market for graduates has already taught many that a university degree isn't a golden ticket.

The government should encourage universities to limit their ambitions and concentrate on other forms of education, from public libraries to strong elementary schools to supporting on-the-job learning.

The author is an editor with the Global Times. jamespalmer@globaltimes.com.cn

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