Carnegie Perspectives: A different way to think about ... the worth of a college degree

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Carnegie Perspectives <http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/>

 May 2005

A different way to think about ... the worth of a college degree

When award-winning journalist John Merrow started work on his PBS
documentary about the state of American higher education, "Declining by
Degrees," he met with noted educators, policy makers, and researchers
before he shot the first minute of video. Many of us here at Carnegie
spoke with him at that time. Yet, even with this degree of preparation,
John admits that he wasn't ready for what he found once he began to
visit campuses and started talking to faculty and students.

In this month's Carnegie Perspective, John takes on one of the primary
issues raised in the documentary, the decline in the quality of
education experienced by many of America's college students. For anyone
who cares about the state of the academy, it's a tough piece to read,
just as his documentary may be uncomfortable for many to watch. Rest
assured that during his frequent periods of residence as a visiting
scholar at the Carnegie Foundation, John's role is often that of
challenging all of us with equally uncomfortable questions.

You're invited to join our online forum-Carnegie Conversations-where you
can engage publicly with John Merrow and read and respond to what others
have to say. Carnegie Conversations is on the Web at:
perspectives.carnegiefoundation.org
<http://perspectives.carnegiefoundation.org/> .

However, if you would prefer that your comments not be read by others,
you may still respond to the author of the piece through
CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org.

If you would like to unsubscribe to Carnegie Perspectives, use the same
address and merely type unsubscribe in the subject line of your email to
us.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Sincerely,
 
<http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/html/assets/LeeShulman.g
if>
Lee S. Shulman
President
The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching

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Declining by Degrees

By John Merrow, Carnegie Visiting Scholar

Of all the students I met during nearly two years of working on our PBS
documentary about higher education, I continue to be intrigued by a
sophomore named Nate. After proudly proclaiming that he was maintaining
a 3.4 GPA despite studying less than an hour a night, he wondered aloud,
"It's not supposed to be this easy, is it? Shouldn't college be
challenging?" Nate was one of the more enlightened students that we
interviewed.

He talked about his "boring" classes, including an English class he
described as "a brain dump." We sat in on that class. The teacher had
assigned students to write parodies of The Road Not Taken, knowing that
to do the assignment well, they would have to read and understand
Frost's poem. She was meeting students at their level ... and trying to
push them to go beyond it, attempting to move them out of their
"intellectual comfort zone" and lead them in new directions. Tough job,
because Nate-and undoubtedly most of his classmates-had obviously NOT
read the assignment. Nate had succeeded in high school by figuring out
what was going to be on his tests and doing as little as possible. And
since that approach also got him into college and was now earning him a
solid B average, he saw no reason to change. Ask Nate the purpose of
college, and he would probably say something about "getting a good job."
The learning part wasn't necessarily what he was paying good money for.

Although we found this English class stimulating, we could see how
frustrating it became for the teacher because of the lack of
student-directed engagement and motivation. In this case, the students'
expectations didn't match the professor's. Teaching becomes a difficult
transaction when students expect to get the diploma that they pay for
without caring whether they learn anything in the process. The situation
is made more difficult because professors begin classroom teaching at a
disadvantage. Few have any training in how to teach. We were very
impressed by Tom Fleming, a senior lecturer at the University of
Arizona, who took advantage of a faculty development course offered by
his institution on teaching theory and effective practices. Using
technology in a huge lecture hall, he deftly engaged students, allowing
very few to merely get by.

College used to be a "sink or swim" environment, but today, either
colleges are giving much-needed "swimming lessons"-investing in student
success-or they're allowing students to "tread water"- giving decent
grades for very little work. In the first case, students actually
receive an education; in the second, they merely get a degree. It's all
too easy for some students and faculty members to settle into a pattern
of behavior that looks like an unspoken "non-aggression treaty," in
which professors don't ask much of students and the students don't
expect much from their professors (as long as they get A's and B's).

The good news is that many faculty members-those giving swimming
lessons-work with energy and imagination to move their students beyond
that simplistic "diploma=$$" formula. The relationship between Tom
Fleming and his students falls into this category. Even more heartening
is the fact that many students intuitively know that they're being
denied an education and seek out campus experiences that give them what
they need. But that 20 or so percent out there treading water are
shortchanging themselves and future employers who think that a college
degree indicates achievement as well as persistence. And those
professors who find it more comfortable to demand little of their
students are denied the satisfaction that good teaching affords.

The shift in the expectations of students and faculty members began
around the time that America learned that college graduates made more
money than high school graduates-as much as a million dollars more over
their working lives. The mantra became, "If you want an education, then
you pay for it." The old social contract-the idea that education of
individuals is a public good and therefore should in part be publicly
financed-is on life support and barely breathing. Instead, "Education
Pays" is proclaimed on billboards around Kentucky, encouraging kids to
go to college just to nail down that good job.

Kids arrive on campus determined to major in "business" and often remain
impervious to the efforts of their professors to expose them to new
ideas and new information. Our student financial aid system supports the
"investment in me" approach by making less money available in the form
of grants to needy students, and more in the form of loans to be paid
back as a return on the individual's investment in themselves. The
message our kids get is that they're not students; they're consumers.
And if they're willing to settle for "purchasing" a degree that means
nothing in terms of educational achievement, it's their right. It's
their investment. In this environment, professors, colleges, and
universities are forced into giving the customers what they want, not
necessarily what they should want.

I admire students who squeeze as much as they can from the college
experience, and I salute the teachers who dedicate their energies to
seeing students succeed. Too much is left to chance, however, and too
many lives are blighted by our national indifference to what is actually
happening on our campuses during the years between admission and
graduation. What we found is not the equivalent of a few potholes on an
otherwise passable highway. Serious attention must be paid at a national
level. Other countries are not standing still. Those that have not
surpassed us already in educational attainment levels are clearly
visible in the rear-view mirror.

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John Merrow, president of Learning Matters Inc. and a visiting scholar
at the Carnegie Foundation, produced the documentary "Declining by
Degrees: Higher Education at Risk," which will air on PBS stations
Thursday, June 23. Check your local listings for exact times. To learn
more, go to http://www.decliningbydegrees.org/.

We invite you to respond to the author of the piece through
CarnegiePresident@carnegiefoundation.org or you can join a public
discussion at Carnegie Conversations
<http://perspectives.carnegiefoundation.org/> .

For permission to reprint or redistribute or for a text-only version,
please contact Gay Clyburn at Clyburn@carnegiefoundation.org

To read all the Carnegie Perspective pieces, visit:
http://www.carnegiefoundation.org/perspectives/

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Received on Wed May 25 15:38:21 2005