The Future of Undergraduate Education

Parents Forum
1

<p>Andrew Delbanco of Columbia University hosted a gathering that included college presidents, professors, and foundation officials to talk about who goes to college, who doesn't and what they learn there.</p>

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Those gathered are worried - deeply worried - about whether top colleges are sufficiently open to low-income students, and whether colleges are providing the right experience for all of their students. "Anxiety about waste" is how Andrew Delbanco, director of American studies at Columbia and organizer of the conference, described it, and he wasn't talking about the environment but "wasted human potential."

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<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/16/ugrad%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/16/ugrad&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

2

<p>Silliness is the right word. The free labor of students clamoring for EC's to take them even further into a crazy, crazy system is fast becoming a way to outsource the lacking social welfare net the American system is unable or unwilling to provide.</p>

<p>You had the money to fly to Honduras and kiss some homeless babies? Gift "FITNESS MAGAZINE" to kids dying of cancer (true story, I know several people doing this as a so-called community service thing)? How good for you. Absolutely useless for the rest of the world.</p>

3

<p>and don't forget "irrational". The participants in the gathering, including Pres. Marx of Amherst, share the worry that elite colleges are becoming increasingly inaccessible - driven by both an "irrational admissions process" and the ever-escalating cost of college. So the question they pose, whether it is elitist or common sense to focus the discussion on highly competitive colleges seems to me to be a good one. It is a good reality check to underscore that the public doesn?t look at the whole process the same way academics look at these issues. Especially since these are the very issues that so many of us are most eager to talk - or better said - complain about. Delbanco clearly recognizes that it is the higher education system itself that "?not only sustains, but enlarges the gap? between societal haves and have-nots," and that the admissions frenzy to get into top colleges - EC padding, SAT retakes and the whole crazy deal ?dominates and distorts the lives of adolescents?. I think it ought to be a no-brainer for the public and academics to readily agree that it is an incredible waste of energy and resources if "students enter college so burnt out and cynical that they don?t want to open their minds, where campus counseling centers are overwhelmed with patients, and where cheating is rampant."</p>

4

<p>But is it all true or are there just better diagnostic tools and different criteria for admitting students?</p>

<p>For example, how much of an impact has ADA had not only on college policies but also on the applicants who might not have otherwise considered applying to some colleges because of their limitations? Are colleges just better at diagnosis mental problems, or have the problems increased as a result of unprecedented pressure? Is there more cheating or have tools such as turnitin made it easier to detect plagiarism?
Has college become less affordable or are college presidents more concerned than ever about increasing educational access (and before the GI Bill gets mentioned, let's think about how many young men and women go into the military these days and thus would qualify for the GI Bill, as opposed to the post-WWII generation).</p>

<p>This is not to say that what Delbanco et al are worried about is insignificant, but it seems based on impression rather than solid and historically-grounded data.</p>

5

<p>In this age of de facto increased college access, presidents of highly selective elite colleges face intense criticism from the public when it comes to the class divide and escalating college costs. Marks asks if dropping tuition - a quick fix - would serve any real purpose for the public good. According to Marx, Amherst would need to double its endowment to subsidize ?Bill Gates?s kid? and others who can afford to pay. Since very few colleges - about 10 - are even in a position to consider this kind of solution, an unintended consequence would possibly create an even stronger ?bifurcation? among colleges in a way that wouldn?t be healthy for society.</p>

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Does the very competitiveness of top colleges act against diversifying them? Marx said that there is nothing wrong with being highly competitive, but he said colleges that share that value need to be open to ways to make real changes to diversify. Amherst is getting larger, for example, so efforts to attract more minority and international students need not be seen as competing with the constituencies that care about enrollment slots.

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<p>Austin E. Quigley, dean of Columbia College, said Columbia was considering an increase in undergraduate enrollments similar to that of Princeton University.</p>

6

<p>Dang! If these EC's are worried about "wasted human potential" because of limited access why don't they increase the number of seats at their dear institutions? Is their commitment to developing human potential or to maintaining their eliteness? I think we already know which comes first. These institutions are run by smart people and they could see the increase in high school graduates coming a dozen years ago. What did they do to prepare, other than raise tuition year after year at twice the rate of inflation?</p>

7

<p>US College suck...lol. not to be obnoxious but kids in other countries do not have anywhere near the pressure we have in the country about college. I got a foot in the door at my upcoming college because my parents scraped together money to send me to summer college. What about those students whose parents don't have the funds or means to send them to summer programs and such? I think that this whole college process is getting out of hand and I am definitely glad that I am finally finished with this process. </p>

<p>~ a current senior concerned for future college process participants</p>

8

<p>Maybe in view of yesterday's VTech incident, and in view of the "craziness"/ stress level for college admissions - -perhaps colleges should be admitting the most mentally stable, or at least as few mentally unstable ones as possible. Perhaps also once/yr, or even once/semester Mental Health checks at campus health centers would help to identify those at risk to self or others. (Suicides occur at the rate of approx. one per year per college campus, I hear.)</p>

9

<p>You faith in the mental health profession is greater than mine. If I believed that there was some sort of reliable "Mental Health checks," I would say we should start with our political leaders.</p>

10

<p>While I wish there were a set of reliable health check list that could set off alarm bells as well as unmask the symptoms related to burn out and undue stress, when it comes to dealing with clear "signs of mental health" I have to agree with the spirit of edad's post. Thankfully, these days college counseling services are widely available and provide excellent resources to students in need. On that score, the future of undergraduate education seems to be on a good track - especially when it comes to freshman orientation and the adjustment from high school to college life. The trick is how to help those students, including stressed-out upperclassmen who do not or, for whatever reason, are not able to reach out and use these resources. College administrators and health professionals do what they can but, sadly, it is not always possible to foresee just how stress and other factors can affect students nor predict what situations can trigger such a tragic and destructive outburst of violence.</p>

<p>Two extremely interesting articles in Inside Higher ed touch on these important issues:</p>

<p>"When Creative Writing Provides a Clue"</p>

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....The new developments raise uncomfortable questions for creative writing faculty everywhere who, by nature of the craft they teach, almost inevitably end up with periodic glimpses into the destructive – or, as is more often the case, self-destructive — attitudes that their students may hold. How to walk the fine line, to encourage expression and, in one creative writing instructor’s words, “grant” students the privilege of writing, well, fiction, while of course looking out for the student, and his or her peers’, best interests?....

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<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/18/writing%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/18/writing&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>and</p>

<p>"Action and Realism on Security"</p>

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Michael Dorn, executive director and a former police officer at Mercer University, said that he believes many college are just beginning to put in place measures that schools have been using effectively....</p>

<p>While Dorn advocated much more activity, he also said that Virginia Tech isn’t by any means the norm on which institutions should base policies. He noted that most campus gun incidents — not all of which involve shooting — involve one or two people. In many cases, Dorn said, these can be escalations of fights without guns, and he said that another thing colleges can do is to take more of those altercations seriously. Dorn said that when he visits campuses, he asks officials “how do you deal with fights?” Then, he said: “If they say ‘we’ll send them to the dean’, I say ‘you are asking for shooting.’ “....

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<p><a href="http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/18/security%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2007/04/18/security&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

11

<p>Time to get this discussion back on track. I have mulled over the cited article in the OP for several days and am a bit concerned about the attitudes of the college officials quoted in it.</p>

<p>Lets put the admissions issue aside. The issues related to highly selective admissions have been discussed ad nauseum and I have no desire to begin anew with this issue.</p>

<p>The officials quoted in the article express a lot of hand wringing about diversity within its student bodies. If one looks at the statistics, most highly selective colleges have 40%+ of its student body coming from the upper or upper middle classes. Surprised? No, when one considers that these families have access to superior elem/middle/primary schools and these families typically highly value education, have higher expectations for their children and are in a position to give them the most opportunities to succeed. If these highly selective institutions have angst about their racial/economic diversity, simply instruct their admissions committee to adopt selection policies which will ensure that it happens. Don't they claim that they turn away many more qualified students than they accept. If they truely wanted to significantly increase diversity, I am certain there are hundreds of qualified applicants who are passed by for one reason or another. Stop the insincere handwringing please.</p>

<p>Maybe it is me, but I also detected a somewhat elitist attitude in the voicing of their concerns. The higher education system in the US offers more choices for more students than any other country. The level of finaid is also astronomical by any other standard. Combine these two factors and almost any person can obtain a college education if they have the determination. The concerns of the cited officials seem to discount the value of higher education at institutions other than those most highly selective ones. If this is their attitude I consider it disturbingly elitist.</p>

<p>The fact is that the majority of our most talented students do not attend the handfull of colleges which are the most highly selective. But most are not going the community college route either. They are attending great universities and colleges like Cal-Berkeley and UTexas, K'zoo and Howard. These and hundreds of other colleges like them.</p>

12

<p>I agree with originaloog. Additionally, even if the top selective colleges opened their doors far wider, they would not significantly address the issue of access to higher education for low SES/URMs.</p>

13

<p>As much as we would like to get away from admissions related issues the whole tone and tenor of the gathering described in the OP article hinges on recruiting and who and how undergraduates should be admitted to the "elites". Elitist argument - you betcha but then again the key question under discussion is really the role of the elites in "the future of undergraduate education" because despite the ever increasing number of apps., the elites must face the social fact that they are competing for all those talented kids who are indeed getting first-class educations at State U's and at other public and private IHEs throughout the U.S. Expansion is a response designed to meet this growing competition but expansion has to be intelligently and deftly combined with artful recruiting as well as mission goals in order not to be a band-aid or smack of hypocrisy.</p>

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<p>I think it's laudable that the dear deans of the ECs are terribly concerned about "access", but let's not get confused about what these colleges are.</p>

<p>First, they are businesses in the sense that they are run on sound financial principles, not principles of "fairness" and accessability. Second, higher education at ECs is one of the last great bastions of socialism as it relates to bringing in the less fortunate into the fold (notwithstanding all the gnashing of teeth about the waste of "human capital".) The kid you got declined from Harvard ends up at the honors college at a fine public university, and a travesty has been committed? Come on. </p>

<p>My family falls into the great middle gap where no aid is available. So if my kid went to Harvard he'd pay full freight, and the kid sitting next to him is paying nothing based on need? So I'm subsidizing the other kid's education via full tuition with no aid? (I understand that endowment money benefits both, etc., so don;t call me out on that point.)</p>

<p>If the ECs want to admit more needs-based kids they need to (a) lower expenses, (b) hit their endowments for more cash, (c) hit the "rich" kids for even more subsidization for the non-rich kids, or (d) a combination. </p>

<p>Life is not fair, and attending an EC is not a fundamental "right" in our society. Given the level of aid and grants available to those who require aid, I wish the dialogue was about how amazing the options are to those who require aid, and less about some "waste of human capital".</p>

<p>When ECs have raised tuition at twice the rate of inflation for many years, and then convene focus groups to wring their hands about how the cost excludes certain talented kids, it sounds like a ridiculous premise. But presumably it makes them all feel better about themselves.</p>

15

<p>golf,</p>

<p>I agree with your socialism angle. Seats at EC's are a scarce resource and rather than let market forces decide who gets a seat, the schools come up with their own allocation scheme. While I don't think seats should go to the highest bidders, any artificial allocation scheme will be hard to fine tune, which is exactly what the hand wringing is about.</p>

16

<p>Poor people often live in poor neighborhoods with poor schools. Equal opportunity needs to begin at an early age. College admission practices are not going to solve this problem and kids cannot easily overcome 12 years of substandard education.</p>

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<p>I've long argued that the current admission criteria favor upper class kids (full pay = top 5% of income earners in the US). It is nearly impossible to be poor and play the Intel game, or be a star athlete or student leader AND obtain great grades and test scores and, and, and, just to fill up a resume to be competitive in the applicant pool. Thus, the hand-wringing by the powers-that-be is just more spin, IMO. They built this competitive system, and now say wo-unto-me.</p>

<p>Sure, Amherst is adding a few seats over the next years - Big Deal! It only buys them peace with their alumni and developmental whose kids might otherwise not get in if they decided to actively recruit more lower SES kids.</p>

<p>According to the LA Times, Cal-Berkeley has more Pell Grantees than the Ivy League combined. Adding a few slots at Amherst is newsworthy? Puhleeze.</p>