As a professor I have seen how the corrupted values in higher education have sent destructive waves throughout all of American education; and thus against the bulwark of our economy, our politics, and our society.
Here is the process in a nutshell.
● It starts with poor undergraduate education for all but a very small group of students. That is because, in most places, what were once quaintly called “students”, are now thought of as “customers” and, as David Riesman wrote,
“..Like any other interest group, the student estate often does not grasp its own interests, and those who speak in its name are not always its friends….the ‘wants’ of students to which competing institutions, departments, and individual faculty members cater are quite different from the ‘needs’ of students…”
On Higher Education (1980)
See for example: Some 43% of College Grads Are Underemployed in First Job – WSJ (inside-higher-ed.com)
● The “We have to give the customer what they want” attitude extends to many graduate students. In this case “what they want” is what is best for the institution. Grants to produce “professors” in areas of “national need” are a good example. Thus, the waves are prepared to grow when a large group of essentially fraudulent PhD’s are awarded. (No, I don’t mean “substandard” or, not up to “my standards”. I really do mean “fraudulent”.)
See for example: No Jobs for Ph.D’s? Depends on what you mean by Ph.D. (inside-higher-ed.com) and Research Indicates Even Top Departments Calling A No-Go For a PhD, a Guess What? A PhD! (inside-higher-ed.com)
● These new faux-PhD’s amplify the waves. That’s because many of the recipients become “professors” at schools where large numbers of Americans go for an “education”. (Some of these PhD’s do stay at their original schools, or get jobs at schools like them. There they become poorly paid adjuncts who do the work of keeping the “customers” happy. That way their professors don’t have to worry themselves with that task.)
See for example: Professor Alfred Doesn’t Know What is Wrong with the Homework (inside-higher-ed.com)
● At the schools where these inadequately trained “professors” teach, they face pressures to keep students happy. Add that to the incompetence of many of those professors, and the waves build into tsunamis. That’s because the schools where these professors “teach” are, in the main, the very same schools that our society counts on to educate our k-12 teachers – the people upon which our whole educational system rests.
See for example: Tenured Professor Confused By Negative Cube Roots? (inside-higher-ed.com) or Statistics Prof. Kevin Doesn’t Understand Basic Math, or Statistics (inside-higher-ed.com)
● Finally, the waves, in the form of these teachers, wash up on the shores of our society because of poor K-12 (especially high school) education. It’s on these shores that they sweep away what used to be a fundamental part of our society: a basic education for all. Not only is this whole system destructive for society as a whole, it also sweeps up unwitting individuals along the way. Dishonest professors tell young people that they are getting an honest “education”, or even a real PhD, when those professors know that not to be true.
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