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October 09, 2009 3:40 PM
Krugman on Higher Ed
Paul Krugman, as is often the case, is right on, this time on the erosion of America’s place in the world when it comes to educating our young:
About that erosion: there has been a flurry of reporting recently about threats to the dominance of America’s elite universities. What hasn’t been reported to the same extent, at least as far as I’ve seen, is our relative decline in more mundane measures. America, which used to take the lead in educating its young, has been gradually falling behind other advanced countries.
Most people, I suspect, still have in their minds an image of America as the great land of college education, unique in the extent to which higher learning is offered to the population at large. That image used to correspond to reality. But these days young Americans are considerably less likely than young people in many other countries to graduate from college. In fact, we have a college graduation rate that’s slightly below the average across all advanced economies.
Even without the effects of the current crisis, there would be every reason to expect us to fall further in these rankings, if only because we make it so hard for those with limited financial means to stay in school. In America, with its weak social safety net and limited student aid, students are far more likely than their counterparts in, say, France to hold part-time jobs while still attending classes. Not surprisingly, given the financial pressures, young Americans are also less likely to stay in school and more likely to become full-time workers instead.
It’s amazing to me that even as this sad story unfolds, conservatives can go on and on about the threat of a “socialist” state. How far down is that on the real-world, adult list of problems facing America?
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Rich on October 09, 2009 6:10 PM:
Much as I respect Dr. Krugman, I think he has but barely scratched the surface of the educational mess we call a system. Aside from the egregious over selling of higher education as an imperative, the conversion of college into vocational training, and the dumbing down of higher ed in general, there is no real respect for education at any level in our blatantly anti-intellectual country.
An undergraduate degree is worth less today than a high school diploma was 50 years ago although many families have to put themselves in deep debt for their children to spend 4+ years at institutions that increasingly resemble vacation centers more than they do intellectual enclaves for original thinkers and their eager students.
Eighty percent of the undergraduate students I came in contact with as a professor were unprepared for so-called higher education. I taught more rigorous courses to talented teenagers in high school when I was a young teacher in the 1960s than I ever did to freshmen and sophomores in college during the 80s and 90s.
We have allowed the fertility of our educational fields to go fallow, and we will reap what we have sown.
pluege on October 09, 2009 6:30 PM:
'its the plutocracy stupid'
class warfare has been raging in the US for decades, but only one side knows it. reagan opened the assault and the plutocrats have been raging asymmetrical warfare against the middle class and disadvantaged ever since. The plutocrats figured out just how easily the middle class and disadvantaged are duped and distracted with talking points about family values-speak, phony patriotism and religiosity, and fear mongering. Its really, really pathetic how easily most Americans are duped into working against themselves, their families, the Constitution, and America.
The devastating effects of the plutocrats' war are upon us.
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