Is College Worth It? Clearly, New Data Say – NYTimes.com.
Here is my view:
“Though there seems to be a paradox – a college degree is becoming more valuable, while a college education is getting worse – the answer is staring us in the face. Here is the explanation in two (of many) personal antecdotes from decades of teaching in universities. I once taught at a regional state school. I saw professors like the one who told me, that after five years of teaching an introductory math course, he could finally tell when the homework was wrong, but not always what was wrong. This case was not unusual, and such cases politically fouled the whole system. When I taught at an “elite” university, I saw a professor get a “national need” grant to increase the number of American PhD’s in math. He had no qualms in giving a Phd to someone who did not even know how to do a hard, but basic, calculus problem, or even a hard college algebra problem. Some of these students who get an “elite” PhD teach at regional state schools. They teach our future high school teachers. Then, those students are totally unprepared to teach their students well. There it is in a nutshell: college dumbs down high school. That is a big reason for the pay differential. (If you look back over to the sixties, the figures even seem to indicate that.)
Universities are social, economic and political structures. I’m afraid we have an antiquated sense of the word “university” and that false sense is hurting us. To see more go to my blog www.inside-higher-ed.com”
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