<p>According to this article I read today in *Inside Higher Ed <a href="plus%20a%20similar%20one%20in%20%5Bi%5DThe%20Chronicle%20of%20Higher%20Education,%5B/i%5D%20which%20may%20require%20a%20subscription%20for%20access">/i</a>, a team of U. of Michigan researchers have found that: </p>
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... four-year colleges that want to attract the vast majority of potential students (those who can't aspire to enroll in highly competitive institutions) may be making wise investments by spending on "consumption" preferences, even if that essentially defines higher education as (in the paper's title) "college as country club."</p>
<p>The article claims that only those students who are aiming at highly competitive institutions are likely to prioritize academic spending (on instruction, museums, libraries, etc.) to the extent that it will influence their college choices. Thus, the study's authors conclude that "the vast majority of four-year colleges and universities will not see increased applications by investing in academics."</p>
<p>Maybe most folks reading this study will shrug and say, "Duh." But as a parent of a high school student, the main "amenity" that I will urge my son to prioritize when the time comes is the campus housing. I do feel that the overall academic experience is affected by the quality of one's dorm room and bathrooms (and by how many others share each) ... at least to a point. </p>
<p>Otherwise, I'll suggest that he focus on class size and academic quality (which can be judged in many ways) and put the nap pods, climbing walls, water slides and arcades on the back burner.</p>
<p>But some parents I know insist that, if their progeny have access to these cruise-ship-esque extras on campus, the academic experience will be enhanced as well. In other words, if Junior can score at skee ball in the Student Union, maybe he can score in the classroom, too.</p>
<p>"“One important implication of our analysis is that for many institutions, demand-side market pressure may not compel investment in academic quality, but rather in consumption amenities,” write the authors, three University of Michigan scholars. They are Brian A. Jacob, the Walter H. Annenberg Professor of Education Policy; Brian P. McCall, professor of education, economics and public policy; and Kevin M. Stange, assistant professor of public policy.</p>
<p>“This is an important finding given that quality assurance is primarily provided by demand-side pressure: the fear of losing students is believed to compel colleges to provide high levels of academic quality. Our findings call this accountability mechanism into question. However, our findings do not speak to the normative issue of whether consumption amenities are good or bad for students and taxpayers.”</p>
<p>Most 17-19 years old see college as the a great opportunity to spend the next 4 to 6 years in a blissfull environment, away from parental controls, and with a higher budget for “discretional” spending. All in exchange for maintaining passing grades on a usually puff schedule. </p>
<p>And, the service providers are all too happy to accommodate them. After all, the faculty at most schools consider the undergraduates as beneath their teaching capabilities and do not mind unloading upon those party-goers an army of TAs or GSIs who also happen to think that teaching the pups is simply a nuisance but a rite of passage to the golden gates of higher education. Anything to preserve the benefits of tenure and the protected life of researching and publishing papers in that closed-looped community of higher education. </p>
<p>In the end, from students to faculty to administration, all are in agreement that college should be a fun and attractive place where academics take a backseat to parties, athletics, college gastronomy, and entertainment. </p>
<p>So where are the losers in this Shangri-La? Well, the immediate losers are the parents who foot the bills and are almost entirely precluded to have a voice or an interest in what REALLY happens in college --until a drama happens, of course. And, later in life, the students will also discover the price they paid from being robbed from a REAL education. </p>
<p>This was often the case at the most elite colleges for many many decades. Did Bush or Kerry or Gore worry much about grades?? Apparently not. Grade-grubbing was for the scholarship students and the “upwardly mobile” (read as Jews back in the day).</p>
<p>The jist of the article is how can ‘non-elite’ schools attract more customers? It implies/acknowledges that undergrad chemistry or business or psychology is basically a commodity product; that the academic differences between most (not all) schools are trivial. Therefore customers may make purchasing decisions based on other factors. </p>
<p>How is this a surprise? If you can’t afford a Mercedes and the Ford and Chevy cost the same, most of us will choose the car that has more of the ‘other features’ we’re most interested in. Why should college be different?</p>
<p>First of all, I’d just like to comment that not all TAs or GSIs (or faculty, for that matter) think the undergrads are beneath them or just a stepping stone. A lot of TAs and GSIs who end up at big research universities really want to teach. Personally, I love working with undergraduate students and it’s my goal to end up at a small teaching-focused institution. And secondly, the kinds of professors who go to small teaching-focused universities (LACs, smaller public comprehensives) are attracted and retained because they enjoy working with undergrads. It’s really only at the elite research universities that professors are sequestered away from the students.</p>
<p>Secondly, although I think many colleges go over the top with the amenities (an arcade? a rock climbing wall?) I think there is something to be said for non-academic spending, as long as academic needs are being met. Of course, the college’s library shouldn’t be lacking or their classroom facilities subpar. But assuming that those facilities are good…let’s face it, the college academic experience isn’t limited to the classroom. To the contrary, I want my students to learn that learning happens everywhere, and sometimes more learning happens OUTSIDE the classroom than in it. The goal of a liberal arts education is to turn out critical thinkers who look for problems and solutions everywhere.</p>
<p>Some kinds of non-academic spending can contribute to that. As a grad student I work in residential life (because I love working with the students!) and I can see first-hand the interference their residential experiences can have in their academic experiences. There are certain types of residence halls that promote communal living and learning (halls with lots of lounges, rooms big enough to hold RA and student group programs in, communal suites with whiteboards for working out problem sets together, music practice rooms, computer labs with printers for those all-nighters/printing runs at 8:57 before your 9 am class, faculty-in-residence to hold monthly roundtable discussions, etc.) There are also certain types of student centers that promote student leadership and involvement. The main complaint at my university is the lack of programming space for student groups; much of the student center has been co-opted for administrative use by the university because space is a scarce resource here. It’s an Ivy League - our students are bright, imaginative, ambitious and born leaders, but they can’t put their heads together if they have nowhere to do it. Or if they’ve been expending all their energy fighting with their roommate about the use of the one desk that’s in their double because it’s too small to fit two.</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone’s being robbed of an education just because they have nap pods in their residence halls (which are kind of cool, actually). It depends on total allocation. Is the university spending money on these things while they are missing vital subscriptions in the library (like to Web of Science or PsycInfo) or while the ceilings in their classrooms are crumbling? Then, yes, maybe we have a problem. But I’d rather the students have state-of-the-art conference rooms where they can plot to take over the world than professors have state-of-the-art offices, and I say that as someone who wants to be a professor.</p>
<p>Even the schools seen as elite in an academic sense may spend a lot on non-educational amenities. For example, there was another thread where Yale was described as spending $600,000 per bed to build new dorms.</p>
<p>Or that, to the students and parents, any academic differences that are there are not easily compared before deciding which school to attend. Yes, there is the ranking industry, but (as argued forever here) many find fault with the rankings, and even if one thinks that they are valuable, the rankings for a given student may differ from the generalized ranking list. And once one gets away from the top end of the rankings, many students and parents do not see too much academic difference between the large number of schools that offer acceptable degree programs in the desired majors. So amenities may seem like bigger distinctions here.</p>
<p>But also remember that a very large percentage of college students commute to the local community college or state university which they find convenient (around existing work, family, and the like activities) and relatively affordable – i.e. the important “amenities” may be location (near where the student already lives), convenience, and cost.</p>
<p>Non-academic amenities of the type described in the original article may only be attractive to a small part of the college student demographic which heads for the residential college experience but does not have the top end academic credentials to get into places where they notice a “prestigious” ranking. Of course, those colleges that try hard to not be commuter schools but are unable to break into the top end of the rankings may have to cater to these students.</p>
<p>Working in a public high school, this report certainly comes as no surprise. For years, kids have been coming back from college visits raving over all the “extras” each college had (or dismissing them if they didn’t). Ditto that to parents. These kids want to be the special one that college wants (their parents expect it too) and they love all the extras from those mailings (even e-mail) to t-shirts. However, if you ask them about the academics available (beyond major) or research opportunities or similar you just get blank stares. </p>
<p>For most, a college is only as good as their sports team or the amenities.</p>
<p>If their world is one where it only matters that they got a piece of paper to check off the “degree” box (true for many), then it doesn’t matter. For those who are talented enough with the desire to go higher in their field I often mention checking more into the academics and where students before them have gone. However, even many of the top schools are starting to compete with each other for amenities. They may be behind the curve in that they have just recently started, but they are catching up.</p>
<p>And one wonders why the cost of college has increased. Someone has to pay for all these amenities. Some, of course, are worth it (updated science equipment, updated dorms to handle all the electronics, better food, etc). Others one has to wonder about (climbing wall, etc).</p>
<p>Ucb I agree that the vast majority of consumers (parents and students) lack the ability or access to information necessary to make a truly insightful decision about academic differences among institutions. But how does that truly effect them? For the average undergraduate, even if they could discern these differences it would have little or no impact. How many are going to get into the lecture class conducted by the Nobel Laureate (who may or may not be a good teacher)? Even if they did get into the class what will they learn that is truly different? The formulae in Organic Chemistry are the same whether you’re at Stanford or a community college in Idaho. The Internal Rate of Return calculation is the same at University of Phoenix as it is at Wharton. </p>
<p>The differences, such as they are, would come down to the teachers presenting the material. Those distinctions are virtually impossible to ascertain even after students are in school. Sure, everyone knows who the good, easy, unintelligible profs are, but from what I see, a student if far more likely to decide on a class based on how early he has to get out of bed than on the perceived quality of the teacher.</p>
<p>Colleges implicitly recognize the problem for consumers and will happily tell you how “this department is ranked in the top 5” or “that school is number 7” knowing that the buyer can’t really quantify the actual effect it will have on their particular child. Schools sell what buyers expect - ivy-covered campuses filled with ernest, well scrubbed, ethnically diverse students sitting enraptured in front of equally ernest professors. But because everyone is well-scrubbed and ernest they’re now forced to compete on other fields: our food/wi-fi/dorms/alumni network/gyms etc. are the best. </p>
<p>Four-year colleges have always had dorms, labs, cafeterias with lousy food and gyms. As for climbing walls, well, when I went to college (back before light had been invented), colleges were plowing money into more tennis and racquetball courts, I fail to see how things changed.</p>
<p>A course at one school may go into more depth, or cover more material at the same depth, than the “same” course at another school, so it is not the case that the “same” courses are necessarily the same. However, this is not all that easy to ascertain from the point of view of a prospective student or parent (and it is not necessarily the case that the higher ranked school will have the more in-depth course or one that covers more material, especially when the selectivity difference is small between the two schools, although that is more often the case when there are very large differences in selectivity between four year schools). Yes, some courses may have home pages right on the college’s web sites, but a student who has not begun the course with parents not in that field may have no idea how to compare them.</p>
<p>Also, different schools may have different required and optional course offerings in any given major. At least this can be more easily checked by looking at catalogs of schedules of the various schools, although deciding on this basis is often more of an issue of academic fit to the individual student rather than the characteristics that people (or ranking organizations) tend to look at for “quality”.</p>