• About Us
  • Activity
  • Advertising
  • Books
  • Business
  • Contact
  • Dashboard
  • EB5
  • Entertainment
  • feedback
  • Forgot Your Password?
  • Government
  • Home
  • Interviews
  • Login
  • Members
  • Meme generator
  • National
  • Nevada
  • Nevada News and Views
  • Newsmax
  • NN&V Ads
  • Opinion
  • Pick a New Password
  • Politics
  • Polls
  • Privacy Policy
  • Profile
  • Recent comments by me
  • Recent comments on my posts
  • Register
  • Submit post
  • Subscribe
  • Subscription Confirmation
  • Survey
  • Survey
  • Terms of Service
  • Today’s Top 10
  • Travel
  • Travel
  • Travel
  • Welcome!
  • Yop Poll Archive
Nevada News and Views
  • About Us
  • Advertising
  • Contact
  • More
    • Nevada
    • Opinion
    • Business
    • Travel
    • News
    • Sports
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Pinterest

  • RSS

Opinion

Self-inflicted Problems of Higher Education: Part 5

Self-inflicted Problems of Higher Education: Part 5
Ron Knecht
December 16, 2020

In previous columns, I discussed the long-term rapidly rising in-state charges at U.S. public colleges and universities.  These costs have been driven by massive administrative headcount bloat, emphasis on research over teaching, and excessive compensation for both tenured faculty and administrators (slightly offset by underpaid teaching assistants and adjunct faculty).

Enabled or even propelled greatly by federally sanctioned student loans, costs have risen much faster than students and families’ ability to pay.  When students finish college, with or without a degree, many of them and their parents have crushing student-loan burdens and have received often dubious value for their time and money.  Those without a degree may or may not have gained knowledge and skills they need, but employers will usually under-compensate them.

As a Nevada regent for eight years, I observed all these phenomena in our system.

A key problem of public higher education is the same as for K-12 public education and all the public sector: The enterprises are usually run for benefit of the employees, not for benefit of students, other clientele, taxpayers and families paying the bills, nor for the public interest.

Like communications, railroads, airlines and other industries in the past, higher ed has become a cartel protected by government from effective competition.  It thus fails to experience necessary productivity growth and business-model innovation.  Such cartels and public agencies have essentially captive clientele, and for that reason have become sclerotic and inwardly focused.

So, they are caught off guard when innovative business models, often using new technology, disrupt the incumbents and provide consumers by-pass opportunities.  The Covid-19 pandemic and associated shutdowns, coupled with modern electronic communications and information systems, have suddenly disrupted higher ed and shown students and families bypass options, not customer oriented.

The internet and many distance-learning technologies are often less expensive than classroom delivery and in many cases as effective or more for learning.  With entrepreneurs learning how to deliver one-to-many and network-based instruction and content with these technologies, the costs of brick-and-mortar campuses, administrative excess, subsidized research and bloated compensation are jeopardized.

Students can avoid housing and board costs by not living on campus.  As one who has benefitted extensively from higher education, I value greatly the on-campus experiences.  But not everyone gets the same value from them.  And with home delivery methods, they can often get by without student loans.

Many portions of standardized four-year degree programs deliver little value to students but provide income streams for faculty and administrators.  Associate and baccalaureate models have dominated nearly every field in modern colleges.  However, many students are better served by limited-scope proficiency certificates, apprenticeships, technical training, etc.

The fraction of high school graduates going on to higher ed has increased over time because these other options were not generally available.  Now that they are, we have too many students in colleges and universities.  This contributes to lowering of standards and to longer time taken to earn first degrees.

Also, faculty and administrators have indulged distribution requirements and weak academic programs in critical theory, identity studies, political activism and vapid sophistry: social justice, diversity, inclusion, equity, privilege, intersectionality, woke-ism, coercive collectivism and radical environmentalism.

Entrepreneurs have managed even to make profits by offering the things students need and want without bundling them with the distribution and weak academic dreck they don’t want or need.

What to do?

Some institutions should innovate and diversify with offerings and methods that match the disruptors.  With economies of scope and scale due to their current offerings, they may often be able to effectively compete in this manner.

Where they cannot compete directly with disruptors, they should retrench their current offerings to those that disruptors can’t match.  Beginning social sciences, humanities, math and science can often be taught effectively on line if students have opportunities to ask questions in interactive sessions.  But colleges have real advantages in engineering and architectural design, performance in arts, advanced projects, etc.

Above all, they should be brutal on cutting costs and insisting on productivity gains, even at the expense of some internal constituencies.  And stop depending on growth, which won’t materialize.  Finally, don’t depend on increasing real budgets.  Or bleating bromides and tired old mantras to defend the status quo.

Prev postNext post

Related ItemseducationRon Knecht
Opinion
December 16, 2020
Ron Knecht

Ron Knecht is a former Nevada State Controller. Please visit: www.RonKnecht.net

Related ItemseducationRon Knecht

More in Opinion

Question 1 on Nevada Ballot is Not What It Seems

N&V StaffNovember 1, 2022
Read More

Roadmap To Saving Nevada

Troy La ManaOctober 21, 2022
Read More

The Lil Governor That Couldn’t

Troy La ManaOctober 10, 2022
Read More

Nevada Continues To Fail Our Students

Troy La ManaOctober 9, 2022
Read More

This Failed Policy Needs To End

Troy La ManaOctober 8, 2022
Read More

Viguerie: If We Stand Up for Parents’ Rights Now, We Will Win!

N&V StaffOctober 7, 2022
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Subscribe Free By Email

Looking for the best in breaking news and conservative views? Let Chuck do all the work for you! Subscribe to his FREE "Muth's Truths" e-newsletter.

* indicates required
Nevada News and Views
Nevada News & Views is an educational project of Citizen Outreach Foundation, a non-partisan IRS-approved 501(c)(3) organization. It is not associated or affiliated with any political party or group. Nevada News & Views is accessible by the public at no cost. It funds its operations through tax-deductible contributions from donors and supporters and does not accept government money or grants.

TAGS

Featured Article Nevada Politics business Muth's Truths government Opinion Government Muth’s Truths Obama Ron Knecht News Donald Trump GOP Republicans

Copyright © 2022 Citizen Outreach | Maintained by VirtualAlly

A Day That Will Live in Infamy: The Rest of the Story
Christmas Memories Through the Years