Higher Education Gone Wild. Not, it ain't the costs!

David Leonhardt of the NY Times summarizes the issues:

• The complexity of the financial-aid process is one, because it scares away many poor students; in the ideal system, up-front tuition costs would remain low, and students would pay back colleges with a percentage of their income.
• The patchy — and often shoddy — quality of education at many high schools and colleges is a major problem.
• It’s also a problem that we don’t know which colleges are doing a good job and which are not.
• Finally, it’s a problem that Washington and the states spend billions of dollars subsidizing higher education but do not demand accountability. See this Daniel de Vise article in The Washington Post for more.

It is not clear though whether all these have equal weight, according to Leonhartd, or whether the listing reflects his understanding of the relative importance.  The way I understand the problems of higher education, I would list the same in the following order--with the most important first:

1. Washington and the states spend billions of dollars subsidizing higher education but do not demand accountability.
2. We don’t know which colleges are doing a good job and which are not.
3. The patchy — and often shoddy — quality of education at many high schools and colleges
4. The complexity of the financial-aid process is one, because it scares away many poor students

Even in this re-ordered listing, it is clear thatpoints 1, 2, and 3 are referring to same issue of accountability.  For all purposes then we can summarize the problem into a simple phrase: Higher Education Gone Wild!

Costs are, to a large extent, the symptoms of the disease, and with our preoccupation with costs we seem to be confusing symptoms and causes.  Even there, at the end of everything, do we have any confidence that the costs, which are spiralling out of control, are worth it?



But, if course, most faculty and administrators will come together very quickly on the one issue of accountability--they will fight it because they like the current system where they can keep asking for as much money as possible without being held responsible for constructive outcomes.